DANCE

Suchu Dance's latest original premiere, How to Absorb the Colorama Format, the latest Jennifer Wood dance creation, premieres on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, March 5-7 and March 12-14 at 8 p.m. at the Barnevelder Movement /Arts Complex, Suchu Dance’s home in Downtown Houston.

The Barnevelder is located at 2201 Preston Street on the east side of U.S. 59 a few blocks from Minute Maid Park. The facility recently completed the installation of a new $48,000 audience seating system for the comfort of its patrons, ensuring that everyone has a great seat with fantastic sight lines of the action occurring on stage.

Over the years, Suchu Dance audiences have come to expect the unexpected. Wood, artistic director and founder of Suchu Dance, is always hesitant to reveal the details of what she has in store for the audience. The production will feature a cast of 10 performers and will be in the round in a literal sense. The audience will be enveloped in one continuous circle of translucent panels with illuminated images, with light design by Barnevelder resident light designer Jeremy Choate.

The Houston Press stated that Wood doesn't make dances—instead, she creates worlds where dance happens.

How to Absorb the Colorama Format, performed in the Barnevelder Movement/Arts Complex’s Barnevelder Theater, provides Wood the opportunity to work in an intimate and ever-changing performance space. No member of the audience is more than 20 feet from the front of the stage, making it possible for the performer and the audience to explore every minute detail and nuance.

“The experience I create is never a lineal process,” Wood said. “I gather images and ideas and a theme emerges. There are no limitations. I notice the details of one initiating moment and branch out from there.”

Wood is involved in every aspect of the production, from vision and choreography to creating and making the costumes and writing portions of the music. No detail is overlooked.

Tickets may be purchased by visiting www.suchudance.org  or calling 713-529-1819.

As always with the premiere of any Suchu Dance production, the debut performance night of How to Absorb the Colorama Format is a special preview evening, featuring dinner and a show for just $29.99 on March 5 only, to be catered by the wildly popular Huýnh Vietnamese restaurant. Dinner is served at 7 p.m. and the show is at 8 p.m. For all other performances, curtain is at 8 p.m. Ticket prices are $14 on Thursdays, $16 on Fridays and $18 on Saturdays, with an additional $4-per-ticket discount off any ticket purchased 24 hours or more in advance, or any student/senior ticket purchased at the door.

Suchu Dance, founded in 1998, is an award-winning, Houston-based contemporary dance/theatre performing group led by Artistic Director and Choreographer Jennifer Wood and Managing Director Louie Saletan. Suchu Dance engages itself in the creation and development of new contemporary dance theatre works, averaging 2-3 evening-length premieres and 5-6 other performances a season in Houston and beyond.

Suchu Dance is funded in part by grants from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, the Houston Endowment, the Brown Foundation, and the Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts.

All photos credit: Louie Saletan.