Rachel Hellwig – Page 21

DVD Review: Basic Castanet and Movement Technique Volume 1

August 18, 2014 by Rachel Hellwig

Basic Castanet and Movement Technique Volume 1
JoDe Romano

In this thirty-five minute instructional DVD, New York City-based teacher and choreographer JoDe Romano walks the beginning student through a series of six castanet exercises. She begins with simple instructions for putting on and adjusting the castanets, then moves on to finger exercises, and eventually incorporates arm, head, and leg movements. Each new element is added systematically, with emphasis on slow repetition and daily practice to develop strength and accuracy.

Romano’s verbal directions are clear and easy to follow, and each exercise is shown from the front and back. Her demonstrations cleanly show the technique for each combination, and she provides an inspiring example of the strength, passion, and power of Spanish dance.

This DVD is a useful tool for beginners of any age, or any dancer looking for a better understanding of the basics of Spanish castanet movement. Basic Castanet and Movement Technique is the first of a two-part series. Both DVDs can be purchased on Romano’s website, www.flamencoromano.com.

Vail International Dance Festival 2014 – International Evenings of Dance

August 13, 2014 by Rachel Hellwig

by Nel Shelby

Our dance video team is always thrilled to film the Vail International Dance Festival. Artistic Director Damian Woetzel makes sure every night has a beautiful performance on their outdoor stage in the mountains. It’s our job at Nel Shelby Productions to create dance videos as quickly as possible, for those of you who can’t attend to get a real look at the talent onstage.

The performances at Vail International Dance Festival just get better and better each year!! The festival’s International Evenings are some of the most exciting to film, so I just have to share these dance videos with you.

FIRST UP: STREET DANCE VIDEO FROM VAIL’S INTERNATIONAL EVENINGS

Lil Buck is always a crowd-pleaser, and Damian Woetzel and Lil Buck are a great team. This year, they crafted a really beautiful piece featuring Lil Buck, King Charles, Stringz, and Ron Prime Tyme Myles.

NEXT, TILER PECK MAKES HER DEBUT IN TWO BALLET ROLES

Audiences can’t get enough of Tiler Peck, and if you watch the dance video of her two debut roles during International Evenings, it’s easy to see why.

VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS FROM INTERNATIONAL EVENINGS

This summer, the festival’s International Evenings of Dance included dancing by Tiler Peck, Lauren Lovette, Robert Fairchild, Craig Hall, Chase Finlay, Zachary Catazaro, and Joseph Gordon (New York City Ballet); Isabella Bolyston and Herman Cornejo (American Ballet Theatre); Shantala Shivalingappa; Carla Kӧrbes (Pacific Northwest Ballet); Misa Kuranaga and Jeffrey Cirio (Boston Ballet); Beatriz Stix-Brunell, Lauren Cuthbertson, and Matthew Golding (The Royal Ballet); Gabriel Missé & Analía Centurión; Fang-Yi Sheu; Lil Buck; Alessandra Ferri; Ron Myles; Brian Brooks (Brian Brooks Moving Company); Haleem “Stringz” Rasul; King Charles; and BalletX. Not to mention live music by Michael Block, Sandeep Das, Cameron Grant, Kathryn Hatmaker, Grace Park, Cristina Pato, Frank Shaw, and James Hall.

Artistic Director Damian Woetzel really out did himself, creating exciting dance partnerships with incredible performers from all styles of dance and corners of the dance world. I love dance!!

Contributor Nel Shelby, Founder and Principal of Nel Shelby Productions, is deeply dedicated to the preservation and promotion of dance through documentation of live performances, fully edited marketing reels, live-stream capture, and documentaries and films that encapsulate the essence of nonprofit organizations.

Nel Shelby, Photo by Matthew Murphy — Photo by Matthew Murphy

Her New York City-based video production company has grown to encompass a diverse list of dance clients including American Ballet Theater II, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Gallim Dance, Gotham Arts, Kate Weare and Company, Keigwin + Company, Monica Bill Barnes Company, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Shen Wei Dance Arts, Wendy Whelan and many more. She has filmed performances at venues throughout the greater New York area including The Joyce Theater, New York Live Arts, Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, St. Mark’s Church and Judson Church, to name a few.

For nearly a decade, Nel has served as Festival Videographer for the internationally celebrated Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in the Berkshires. Each season at the Pillow, Nel’s responsibilities include documenting aspects of festival culture in addition to its 20 mainstage dance performances, filming and overseeing documentation of more than 100 free performances and events, managing two dance videography interns and an apprentice, and educating students about the technical and philosophical aspects of filming dance.

She also serves as Resident Videographer at the Vail International Dance Festival where she spent her first summer creating five short dance documentary films about the festival in addition to documenting its events and performances. Her longer-form, half-hour documentary on Vail’s festival, The Altitude of Dance, debuted on Rocky Mountain PBS in May 2013.

She has created four short films for Wendy Whelan’s Restless Creature, and she collaborated with Adam Barruch Dance to create a short film titled “Folie a Deux,” which was selected and screened at the Dance on Camera Festival in New York City and the San Francisco Dance Film Festival. She is making a dance documentary featuring Nejla Y. Yatkin, called Where Women Don’t Dance.

Nel has a long personal history with movement – she has a B.A. in dance and is a certified Pilates instructor. She continues to train with world-renowned Master Teachers Romana Krysnowska and Sari Pace, original students of Joseph Pilates. In addition to her dance degree, Nel holds a B.S. in broadcast video. She often collaborates with her wonderful husband, dance photographer (and fellow 4dancers contributor) Christopher Duggan on creative projects with dancers in New York City and beyond. They live with their beautiful daughter Gracie and son Jack in Manhattan.

CD Review: Ballet Lovers, Vol. 8

August 11, 2014 by Rachel Hellwig

by Emily Kate Long

Music for Ballet Lovers Vol. 8: Gorgeous Moments II
Yoshi Gurwell

Yoshi Gurwell’s Gorgeous Moments lives up to its name. The California-based pianist plays with heart and personality on all 40 tracks for barre and center floor. Rags, waltzes, tangos, marches, and polkas come in all speeds, lengths, and flavors to suit intermediate, advanced, or professional dancers. The music is a joy to move to—expressive without being overly busy. All the compositions on the disc are original works by Yoshi Gurwell’s husband Doug, arranged and performed by Yoshi.

I’ve come across other ballet class CDs with this much content (Gorgeous Moments offers 19 tracks for barre and 21 for center), and often the selections are so similar they seem unnecessary. Here each piece feels specific and important, making this album both useful and inspiring. I highly recommend it to teachers of higher-level dancers.

Book Review: Unveiling Motion And Emotion

August 5, 2014 by Rachel Hellwig

Unveiling Motion and Emotion
Anabella Lenzu
Photographs by Todd Carroll

by Emily Kate Long

A student from age five, choreographer from age 11, and teacher from age 15, Anabella Lenzu has a lifetime of experience, exploration, and contemplation to inform her first book, Unveiling Motion and Emotion. In fifteen essays on dance pedagogy, the role of artists in society, the dancemaking process, and her personal artistic development, Lenzu reveals an immense capacity for both action and feeling.

“Never in my life have I been able to imagine doing anything but sharing dance, teaching dance, and choreographing dance.”

“We cannot control the weather, the economy, politics, what people think, or how our partner feels! The only thing we can control is our body, our own microcosm, and our attitude toward life.”

Lenzu’s attitude ranges from humor to joy to nostalgia to frustration to gratitude, according to the subject matter of each piece of writing. She aggressively calls on teachers and dancers to fully investigate every aspect of our art form: its history, cultural influences and affects, and personal intricacies. Ignorance, lack of curiosity, and inaction seem to be the Holy Trinity of thorns in Lenzu’s side:

“…Good teachers are good teachers or they are s**t. There is no middle ground.”

“My goal is to try to decode and understand why people express themselves with this body language that is emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.”

Lenzu has taught ballet, Argentine tango, modern dance, barre a terre, and dance history and criticism at universities, dance studios, companies, and cultural centers in Argentina, Chile, Italy, and the US. In a strikingly candid reflective essay, “The Teacher Learns,” Lenzu names some of the fruits of her educational labors: how to tell the truth with tact, level egos, appease anger, calm panic, receive affection and criticism, give without expectation, build dreams, inspire, celebrate life. The list takes a full page and is by turns pragmatic and idealistic.

Lenzu currently directs her own company, Anabella Lenzu/DanceDrama. Of that role, she writes:

“Being a choreographer is a way of seeing life, an attitude, a way to both absorb and react to life. It’s a way to express our thoughts and inner world.”

“Nothing makes me feel more accepted and respected than sharing my work with others.”

She also founded, directed, and edited the cultural magazine Nexos, whose publication lasted from 1998-2001. In the essay “Words Impressed on Paper,” Lenzu states:

“For me, writing is not so much a pleasure as it is a civic responsibility, and as an educator, my perennial goal is to generate appreciation for and understanding of the arts and of artists.”

That sense of responsibility is at the center of this collection of essays. Where Lenzu’s tone is steely, she never rants. That would merely be unchecked emotion without subsequent action. Nor does she ever simply describe or prescribe methods of working; her writing is filled with questions and challenges to herself, to the dance world at large, and to audiences.

“To criticize isn’t simply to make negative remarks, it means questioning the system. …Without questioning, there is conformity, which brings mediocrity.”

“Dance is at a disadvantage to other art forms with respect to its methodological development…dance is like a folk tradition; it is transmitted orally. This is the reality, but we don’t have to accept it. …We as teachers must take responsibility for our actions; students cannot be blamed for our ignorance. Worse yet, if we do not take care, our ignorance will be passed on to younger generations. This is my call for an educational conscience.”

Action, investigation, contemplation, and further action: these are the responsibilities of all artists. Lenzu has chosen—or been chosen by—dance as her investigative framework because, as her opening essay is titled, “dance underlies all that I am.”

This boldly provocative collection of writing should be in every dancer’s personal library.

For more information about Anabella Lenzu/DanceDrama and Unveiling Motion and Emotion, visit http://www.anabellalenzu.com/book/.

Student Spotlight: Nathan Owen

July 24, 2014 by Rachel Hellwig

Nathan Owen, originally from Essex, UK, is now a resident of Huntsville, USA. At the age of 19 he moved to the United States to obtain a Bachelor in Nursing in Keokuk, Iowa. However, Nathan changed his degree to Theatre in Denison, Texas where he gained an Associates in Theatre. He now attends Sam Houston State where he will earn his BFA in Musical Theatre.

Can you tell readers how you became involved with dance?

I had not taken a professional dance class before the age of 21, but I had always had a love for dance from an early age. I have inclined towards musical theater since childhood but never been within the dance chorus, always just singing and acting. After moving to the United States at the age of 19 to pursue a career in nursing, I sat in on an open audition for the theater department, was persuaded to audition and was subsequently cast in a small role, but was told if I switched majors to theater I could receive scholarships! So naturally I went back to my first passion of acting at Grayson college in Denison, Texas.

When the next season came I was cast as lead, Luther Billis in South Pacific, and was awarded an Irene Ryan nomination for region VI. I traveled to Louisiana to compete and this is where I saw two productions from Sam Houston State University. Its production of Enron blew me away and I immediately knew this was the school for me. I auditioned in April 2013 and was accepted on my first attempt, even though I stopped during my dance audition due to my lack of training. Being accepted onto the musical theater program here has really expanded my horizons more than I could have ever imagined. Within my first year I have taken multiple dance techniques including ballet, jazz, tap, aerial and theater workshop where we learn stylized dance from within the theater work or whole routines from the stages of Broadway, West End or movies.

What do you find you like best about dance class?

When it comes to dance classes the thing I like most about them is the discovery you make about yourself and what you are capable of. If you go to math three times a week, you don’t have these moments of pure excitement like when you hit a 13 part riff perfectly in sync with your whole tap class, or the first time you do a 360 release from the aviator in aerial! I will never stop being amazed at what I can do if I just put my time and energy into it.

What is the hardest part about dance for you?

The hardest thing about dance for me, is walking in with 30 other musical theater majors and being taught a combination, then having to pick it up in 15-20 minutes and regurgitate it in front of all my extremely talented peers and professors!

What advice would you give to other dancers?

As a new dancer I would say two things; one, it’s never too late to start learning. I have met people who have been dancing for 15 years and come to university and tried a new dance style, and it has an impact and improves all aspects of their dance by gaining an even greater understanding of their body.

My second point would be, don’t let dance be a blood sport. Auditions and competition should never divide this community, we have enough people in our lives saying NO! Or that you can’t do it professionally. So I would say to you out there, let the love of the arts strengthen our ties. Let it create empathy for one another because we all know how hard a ‘no’ is, but also the elation of a ‘yes’. So why not be cast in a chorus of their happiness, instead of the lead of your sadness.

How has dance changed your life?

Dance has changed my life for the better in so many ways. I now have a much greater appreciation of the craft of musical theater and the depth that dance can have within it. From the portrayal of story with movement, to the understanding of dance’s influence within the art, such as Agnes de Mille’s Oklahoma or Bob Fosse’s Cabaret. Dance has broadened my horizons further than I could ever have imagined and I can’t wait to see where it takes me.

FIRST UP: STREET DANCE VIDEO FROM VAIL’S INTERNATIONAL EVENINGS

NEXT, TILER PECK MAKES HER DEBUT IN TWO BALLET ROLES

VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS FROM INTERNATIONAL EVENINGS

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