Moody Moves

Moody Moves
Texas Dance Theatre makes a strong showing in its second performance of the season. Margaret Putnam reviews.
by Margaret Putnam
Published Saturday, November 14, 2009

Apparently, no one told Wil McKnight that creating a new dance company is a risky business. But that he did, and his newly sprung Texas Dance Theatre made a credible appearance Friday night at Fort Worth's Scott Theatre.

It was the second of the four programs scheduled for its 2009-'10 season, and gave us a taste of where the company is headed. Semi-classical ballet dominated, either of the moody, dreamy variety, or the astringent. This time it added a dollop of jazz.


The dreamy came in Emily Hunter's Dreamers, set to the moody music of Ryuichi Sakamoto, and featured Hunter in simple gray dress and a shirtless Brandon Addicks in gray pants. The subtle interplay between the couple involved their keeping separate distances, but always aware of the other, followed by lifts where Addicks revolves Hunter in slow, lush arches. The support was mutual, with Addicks leaning on Hunter’s back as she carefully lifts him and just as carefully brings him to the floor.

Mel Tomlinson (of Dance Theater of Harlem, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and New York City Ballet fame) capitalized on nine women adept on pointe and a single masculine Dan Westfield. Slight hints of Balanchine’s influence surfaced occasionally in A Notte, mainly in the simplicity of structure, the taste for a bare stage and black leotards and tights. But Mr. Tomlinson had his own fish to fry. At the center were a stunning Lauren Collier and Westfield, flanked from time to time by twos, threes and fours. When the couple are alone, they mirror each others movements with curving arms and gentle sways. In one arresting sequence, they lie flat with backs to the audience, and lift legs upward to form a sharp diamond.

The mood throughout is sober and intense, whether it is the graceful revolving lifts, rows of women stepping purposely forward and back, or the ending, where Collier rolls to the back, curled up in sleep, and Westfield follows.

Except for erratic lighting and a certain tentativeness on the ensemble’s part, the fact that A Notte was put together in just two days says something about the caliber of dance.

The program ended on a giddy note with Krista Jennings Langford’s Lift Your Spirits. Set to the lively music of Esquivel, Joe Bucci Trio, Nat King Cole and Ray Charles, three women in black party dress and three in white frolic in a party mood, managing to have fun without men. And then Westfield shows up, sitting on a stool, reading the newspaper. Every once in a while he glimpse at the women, distracted by their antics, gives a frown, and goes back to reading. The women, however, aren’t about to give up, and in turn, either vamp, slink, saunter bravely to touching distance, and shyly skitter away. Westfield had the least to do, but his looks of alarm, annoyance, perplexity, and indifference liven up what was a party with no direction.

A 50-minute pile-up on Interstate 35 prevented me from seeing Mr. McKnight’s opening work, New World, set to the music of Philip Glass and Yo-Yo Ma.

The program will be repeated at Richardson's Eisemann Center on Sunday.

►Margaret Putnam has been writing about dance since 1980, with works published in D Magazine, The Dallas Observer, The Dallas Times Herald, The Dallas Morning News, The New York Times, Playbill, Stagebill and Dance Magazine.

Hunter's Dreamers