Friends who dance

Over the weekend I saw a show at the Dance Place, indisputably the center of dance in D.C. I could go on and on about how much I love this community of people, how warm and welcoming they are in class and at performances, how generous the community programs that take in neighborhood kids for a free summer camp and after school programs.
And the shows are fun, too.

I found out about this one, Choreographers Collaboration Project, from Alicia Luchowski, who takes Carla’s Monday night class with me. She choreographed two pieces in the show: By Twos and Threes moved upstage and down, playing with shadows in, you guessed it, groups of two and three dancers; and Where Do You Come From?, which (among other things) placed repeated motifs in dramatically contrasting music -- Simple Gifts with Yo-Yo Ma and Allison Krause, and the more earthy, Latin beat of Rodrigo y Gabriela. It seemed to be about origins. I’m totally making that up, there was no explanatory note in the program – but that’s one of the things I love about modern dance, you can take from it what you will.

There were three other choreographers in the program, and I was happy to discover one of them was Danielle Greene, who I got to dance with when I was in Carla and Company, one of the resident companies at Dance Place. Danielle’s piece, Weathering the Storm, buffeted dancers around the stage but I also saw a round, flowing element to the movement, like wind and water.

It’s always fun to see the work of someone I’ve watched move up close, in class or rehearsal – I imagine I recognize their bodies superimposed on other dancers, an odd displacement when the movement echoes through totally different body types.