Extended Views gives timely topics unique spins
01/10/09 22:05
'Extended Views' gives timely topics unique spins
By Lucia Mauro | Special to the Tribune
November 9, 2007
Choreographic development has been a long-term goal of John Schmitz, co-founder/artistic director of Dance Chicago, the monthlong festival spotlighting local dance artists at the Athenaeum Theatre. On Wednesday, he inaugurated a variation on that theme with "Extended Views," a program featuring a condensed body of work by two choreographers with strong Chicago ties: Jon Lehrer, formerly of Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago, and independent artist Dmitri Peskov.
Both men recently started their own companies: LehrerDance in Buffalo and Dmitri Peskov and Dancers here. Each exhibited a clear point of view, with Lehrer taking a more athletic-theatrical route and Peskov favoring dark, distraught subjects. On the surface, their approaches appeared vastly different. Yet, in their own way, both have crafted tragicomedies that speak of love, betrayal, conflict, primal urges and cosmic mysteries.
"Extended Views," a substantial evening of expression, allowed audiences to peer into the minds of the two choreographers exploring timely issues in unexpected and intelligent ways.
One of Lehrer's most astute pieces is "Loose Canon," which plays off Pachelbel's "Canon in D Major" as a cry for liberation in a vague asylum of the mind. Humorous without being hurtful, it expanded into a feast of body contortions and lush physical dexterity by Lisa Ientilucci, Marideth Wanat, Matthew Farmer, Ted Krzykowski and Immanuel Naylor. Lehrer's male duet, "Instinct," has a clay-like feel, as if Lehrer shapes his war paint-covered dancers (Naylor and Farmer) into mounds of conjoined earth awaiting an unknown enemy.
The program was framed by two of Lehrer's solid but less adventurous pure-movement orchestrations: "Iambus," in which the ensemble is transformed into aquatic life, from darting eels to lilting anemones; and the new "A Ritual Dynamic," a magnetic eruption of bodily shapes.
By Lucia Mauro | Special to the Tribune
November 9, 2007
Choreographic development has been a long-term goal of John Schmitz, co-founder/artistic director of Dance Chicago, the monthlong festival spotlighting local dance artists at the Athenaeum Theatre. On Wednesday, he inaugurated a variation on that theme with "Extended Views," a program featuring a condensed body of work by two choreographers with strong Chicago ties: Jon Lehrer, formerly of Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago, and independent artist Dmitri Peskov.
Both men recently started their own companies: LehrerDance in Buffalo and Dmitri Peskov and Dancers here. Each exhibited a clear point of view, with Lehrer taking a more athletic-theatrical route and Peskov favoring dark, distraught subjects. On the surface, their approaches appeared vastly different. Yet, in their own way, both have crafted tragicomedies that speak of love, betrayal, conflict, primal urges and cosmic mysteries.
"Extended Views," a substantial evening of expression, allowed audiences to peer into the minds of the two choreographers exploring timely issues in unexpected and intelligent ways.
One of Lehrer's most astute pieces is "Loose Canon," which plays off Pachelbel's "Canon in D Major" as a cry for liberation in a vague asylum of the mind. Humorous without being hurtful, it expanded into a feast of body contortions and lush physical dexterity by Lisa Ientilucci, Marideth Wanat, Matthew Farmer, Ted Krzykowski and Immanuel Naylor. Lehrer's male duet, "Instinct," has a clay-like feel, as if Lehrer shapes his war paint-covered dancers (Naylor and Farmer) into mounds of conjoined earth awaiting an unknown enemy.
The program was framed by two of Lehrer's solid but less adventurous pure-movement orchestrations: "Iambus," in which the ensemble is transformed into aquatic life, from darting eels to lilting anemones; and the new "A Ritual Dynamic," a magnetic eruption of bodily shapes.