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Lips Love Legs Preview
Vue June 21-27
Citie Ballet Havana good time with Freefall and Convergence
Sherry Dawn Knettle
"It's a different approach in Cuba," says choreographer François Chevennement. "Dancing there is a lifestyle. You don't go anywhere just to dance -- you dance all the time.
"People walk from shop to shop dancing. They have a rhythmic way of moving‹you see the shoulders and head moving all the time. It's part of the way they live. They're born with music and dance‹it's part of the culture‹it's normal."
Chevennement, Citie Ballet's artistic director, was in Cuba recently where he got a close look at the Cuban lifestyle.
"I went to Cuban places, not just tourist places," he explains. What he saw and heard there inspired him to create a dance piece based on Cuban dance culture for his company's upcoming performance.
The show, titled Convergence, features a unique collaboration between Citie Ballet and local company FreeFall Dance, directed by Laura Krewski. Each company will present a work by its own choreographer and each choreographer will also create one new work with dancers from both groups.
Chevennement's Cuban piece is to be performed by both companies as part of the collaboration. His other work, for 10 members of Citie Ballet is a contemporary ballet piece set to music by Gotan Project, a group based in Paris who plays electronic arrangements of tango music.
Both choreographers agree that music is what drives the movement in their work.
"FreeFall is heavily connected to our music," says Krewski, who chose a jazz version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons for her collaborative work. "It's a jazz arrangement by Jacques Lucier. It's very interesting and complex music that allows me to express a jazz style of dance while incorporating ballet into the choreography."
Krewski goes on to describe the second work, created just for her FreeFall dancers.
"That's a contemporary jazz piece with music by Bobby McFerrin," she says. "It's a vocal manipulation, accompanied by jazz piano taken from his album Beyond Words.
"I think I've used Bobby McFerrin in every show I've done. I'm intrigued by his interpretations. He creates such a unique opportunity for choreography," says Krewski, who created her company in 2005 to explore different styles of jazz dance and the human relationship with music.
"FreeFall was formed to celebrate the diversity of dancers," she says. "My dancers are different age ranges and (trained in) different styles, so we continue on with our theme of diversity by joining Citie Ballet. We're moving from jazz to combining it with contemporary ballet to create more diversity in our work but we're also maintaining our own artistic voice."
It was at the company's performance of Jazz Playground last June that Chevennement first saw the FreeFall Dance. He was so impressed that he approached Krewski during the intermission to invite her to collaborate with Citie Ballet, a company that focuses on offering professional performance experiences for serious dance students.
"Convergence is a fusion of two styles of dance and of music," says Krewski. "We have two different audiences, completely different. We're merging them, getting people interested in seeing other dance forms." V
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