DANCE

Contemporary ballet company Dominic Walsh Dance Theater dishes up the tantalizing Second Course of its 2010-2011 season of “cultural dining”  Thursday through Saturday,  February 10, 11, and 12, 2011 at 7:30 PM at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, Zilkha Hall located at 800 Bagby Street in Houston, Texas.

To please every taste, this juicy mixed repertory program features an electrifying world premiere from Walsh, along with a company premiere from icon Mats Ek. With an entertaining mix of dance, theater, literature, and music, these innovative performances will stimulate all of the senses.

One of the highlights of this Second Course will be Dominic Walsh Dance Theater’s premiere of Pas de Dans by Mats Ek. Ek is a leading Swedish choreographer, dancer, and stage director who has been hailed as one of Europe's most creative and influential dance-makers. It has been a long-term artistic goal of Walsh’s to add a work by Ek to DWDT’s repertoire, and the two artists have communicated for many years. Last year, Walsh met Pompea Santoro while performing at a festival in Italy. Santoro stages Ek’s ballets and helped DWDT secure the rights to perform Pas de Dans. Walsh and DWDT Company Members Domenico Luciano, Felicia McBride, and Rachel Meyer traveled to Torino, Italy this past summer to rehearse the piece that is set to traditional Swedish folk music and is a perfect demonstration of this iconic choreographer’s charm and wit.

Perhaps best known for his clever and boisterous renditions of the classics such as Swan Lake, Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, and Carmen that explore undiscovered territory of traditional text and characters, Ek’s is still a relatively obscure name here in the U.S. And although his work was presented in Houston at last year’s Dance Salad Festival, DWDT is the first company in the U.S. to obtain the right to perform one of his pieces.

“To dance Ek’s work is a major accomplishment for any dancer. It is technically challenging and specific, heady, intellectual and outrageous, yet with heart and humor around every unexpected corner. His work demonstrates the essence of theater in all of its sublime qualities and we are thrilled to share it with Houston audiences,” states Walsh.

Another highlight of the Second Course is the world premiere of Walsh’s Victor Frankenstein, a one act work based on Mary Shelley’s classic novel. Although DWDT is, at its heart, a dance company, it is somewhat unusual in its focus on collaboration. Walsh is constantly searching for new collaborative dimensions – whether it is partnering with a musician, actor, visual artist, or designer – and he finds this exploration critical to his artistic development.

Walsh continues this exploration with Victor Frankenstein that was co-conceived by Houston-based poet Addie Tsai. Tsai holds an MFA in Poetry from the Warren Wilson College. Her poems have appeared in Born Magazine, Forklift, Ohio, NOON: A Journal of the Short Poem, and American Letters & Commentary, to name a few, as well as the Asian-American Female Anthology, Yellow as Turmeric, Fragrant as Cloves. She also received third place in Tin House Magazine's 2006 Summer Literary Seminars - Kenya Contest. In 2009, her manuscript of poems "and in its place" was a semi-finalist in Tupelo Press's Dorset Prize. She teaches English and Literature at Houston Community College, where she organizes a nationally-known poetry reading series.

Walsh and Tsai are both drawn to similar psychological facets of the Frankenstein/monster profile, yet come from different points of view that give a more enriched narrative to the myth. “Contrary to its popularized versions, Frankenstein is the story of abandonment through narcissism, one of the fundamental psychological archetypes of our time. Because there is such an intense knowledge of Frankenstein in our cultural consciousness, Walsh’s use of abstract and psychological narrative (combined with movement) will be a most compelling fit for the complexity of the story,” says Tsai.

All of the DWDT Company Members (Marissa Leigh Gomer, Domenico Luciano, Felicia McBride, Rachel Meyer, Ty Parmenter, and Randolph Ward) will dance in Victor Frankenstein that is set to a new sound design created by Rodney Waters. Waters is a pianist and also serves as Assistant Artistic Director of Houston’s own Divas World Productions and Artistic Director of Mukuru “Arts for AIDS” series.

The Second Course also includes a revival of Walsh’s The Afternoon of a Faun that premiered in 2009. For his adaptation of this first piece of choreography by the great dancer Vaslav Nijinksy, Walsh uses Auguste Rodin’s sculpture of Nijinsky as a basis to explore the idea of a man feeling molded and confined. Walsh’s “faun” then breaks from this mold to satisfy a variety of curiosities and desires.

Tickets for Second Course are available for $25, $39, and $52 through www.dwdt.org  or by calling 713-315-2525. A VIP Opening Night package, including priority seating and an exclusive post-show cocktail reception with the performers at Artista is available for $82. Mini Subscriptions for Dominic Walsh Dance Theater’s remaining 2010-2011 season performances are also available.

As a principal dancer with Houston Ballet for over a decade, Dominic Walsh received national and international praise for his interpretations of both classical and contemporary roles. Walsh burst onto the choreographic scene when he won the prestigious Choo-San Goh Award in 1998, and he is now hailed as a leading choreographer who is pushing the boundaries of ballet into new realms of theatricality. He won a second Choo-San Goh Award in 2007 and received a 2008 Princess Grace Award.

Dominic Walsh Dance Theater, launched by Walsh in 2002, is also racking up accolades and honors and was most recently named "Best Dance Company" by the Houston Press. This contemporary ballet company has built a stellar reputation for taking the techniques and skills of classical ballet into more inventive territory. The company’s diverse repertoire features works by Walsh and such iconic choreographers as Mauro Bigonzetti, Ji?í Kylián, and Matthew Bourne and its roster includes dancers of the highest caliber.

In addition to producing a Houston season of performances and educational programs that enliven the senses, the company tours the U.S. and Europe. With its unique mix of innovation and collaboration, Dominic Walsh Dance Theater is one of this country’s leading contemporary ballet companies.

*Photo credit: Mats Ek’s Pas de Dans photo by Introdans/Hans Gerritsen. (photo detail above, full image below).