HCDC (photo by Lauren Berrthelot)
THIS FRIDAY AND Saturday, Feb. 10 and 11, the relatively small yet stylish venue Heights Ironworks is the site for DUÉ (“TWO”). The program of duets was created by six different choreographers for the six members of Houston Contemporary Dance Company (HCDC). The choreographers were selected and commissioned by HCDC’s founding artistic and executive director, Marlana Doyle, and include Houstonian Teresa Chapman, who is an assistant professor of dance at UH, and five other artists from around the country: Alexa Capareda, Joe Celej, Brandon Coleman, Andrea Dawn Shelley and Kia Smith. Due to the size of the Heights Ironworks, seating is limited, and there are two performances each night.
When it came to pairing dancers with a choreographer, Doyle took time to consider the choreographer’s style and the strengths and performance history of her dancers, hoping to push everyone involved to do something they’d never done before. For Celej’s duet, Doyle selected Tamia Bradford and Shantelle Rush, two dancers from her company who didn’t know each other that well and had never performed as a duo before. She was delighted to see them rise to the occasion in a piece that demands they “stay connected while moving through the space.” “Sometimes, it’s challenging for dancers to understand the weight-sharing and the way that the bodies move together,” explains Doyle. “I feel these two dancers elevated the work over the time they worked together.”
Meanwhile, Smith, who is the founder and executive artistic director of the South Chicago Dance Theatre, has been working with Avery Moore and founding company member Genene Wallis McGrath, two dancers she noticed last summer while visiting HCDC for a workshop. Drawing on the skill and physical prowess of Moore and McGrath, Smith, whose father was a jazz musician, created an intense, nine-minute work where the two dancers never stop moving (and at one point, speaking), all while accompanied by a series of wildly different musical cues which blend seamlessly with the movement.
The program’s title, which means “two” in Italian, is a reference to Doyle’s Irish Italian heritage, and true to that heritage, she is unabashedly passionate in expressing her love for DUÉ. “It’s so intimate in nature,” says Doyle. “It’s so intimate with the pairings and the way it all works together.”
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Urban Souls Dancer Mayra Bullock (photo by Melissa Taylor)
ON SATURDAY, FEB. 11, at MATCH, Urban Souls Dance Company presents Movement for Black Lives, an evening highlighting Black, Houston-based choreographers, and companies whose movement-based practices, ranging from contemporary to traditional African drum and dance, celebrate and advance Black culture.
Curated by Urban Souls and its artistic director Harrison Guy, who recently, along with Stanton Welch, choreographed the highly acclaimed play, Plumshuga: The Rise of Lauren Anderson, Movement for Black Lives is right on time for Black History Month and a welcome opportunity for Houston audiences to experience the wellspring of talent the city offers in the realm of dance performance.
Along with current members of Urban Souls, the program features a performance by founding member Trent D. Williams, Jr. Also on the bill is Houston-based multi-ethnic company Social Movement Contemporary Dance Theater (SMCDT), led by artistic director Elijah Alhadji Gibson, which aspires to encourage social consciousness and confront cultural boundaries through the art of storytelling and dance. Rounding out the concert are Son Kiss’d Dance Concepts, whose corps of hip-hop and contemporary dancers can realize dramatically contrasting styles of movement, all in the same piece; Good Dance Since 1984, whom art lovers may remember from the company’s 2020 performance at The Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston for the opening of filmmaker Garrett Bradley’s video exhibit America (artistic director Deborah Crump starred in Bradley’s highly acclaimed film.); KoumanKe’le African Dance & Drum Ensemble, whose presence illuminates the longstanding connection between modernism and African traditions in movement and rhythm; and the Louisiana-based Dife’ Youth Ensemble of the FIRE Expressions Performing Arts Conservatory.
Ambitious and stylistically diverse, Movement for Black Lives aligns with Guy and Urban Soul’s longstanding mission to strengthen and nurture connections within the community at large through dance, education, advocacy, and sharing stories of the Black experience.
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