Friday, May 1, 2009

Dance and Wisdom, Straight From The Horse’s Mouth

By Peter DiMuro and Cheryl Sidwell

Attempting to preserve the legacies of the NY dance world, Jamie Cunningham and Tina Croll, two stalwarts of that city’s dance scene, created the performance work FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH. The piece thrilled sold-out houses in subsequent versions worldwide while capturing a multiple decade’s eye-view of dance and dancers’ lives—on-stage, off-stage and behind-the-stage—in dynamic movement and stories. FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH now premieres in Washington, DC on May 1 & 3, 2009 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center located at 1333 H Street NE, including a mix of the wise and sage voices of our own region’s infamous pioneers in dance, alongside a vibrant group of young’uns who have squeezed a lot of living in their young bodies.

Brought to you through a collaboration of the Atlas and Dance/MetroDC’s Dance Is The Answer 2009, FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH is part improvisation and part story-telling, always moving (literally and otherwise). Yvonne Edwards, long the matriarch of Knock-On-Wood tap students and professionals, tells her story in words and rhythm, improvising with a new riff on the word riff. Marcia Freeman’s years of teaching dance at Gallaudet University—including communication in American Sign Language, another conceptual non-verbal language like dance—hits the stage with double dose of authenticity and simpatico. And renowned dance-critic George Jackson shares an his story with Sonia Henje’s ice-dancing troupe in Austria’s Vienna prior to the Nazi occupation where chances at stardom are left skating circles in the cross of time and world politics. The ever-evolving cast of approximately 30 DC area legends—and near legends—also includes Melvin Deal, Helen Hayes, Doug Yeuell, Gesel Mason, Sukanya Mukherji, Deborah Riley and the list goes on and on.

Friday, May 1st at 8:00 PM and Sunday, May 3rd at 2:00 PM
FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH
Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H Street NE, Washington, DC
Tickets are $25; DancePass discounts are available.
Tickets: www.atlasarts.org/tickets.php
DancePass: www.dancemetrodc.org
Dance Is The Answer 2009: www.danceistheanswer.org

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