DANCE

For the final serving of its 2010-2011 season of “cultural dining,” contemporary ballet company Dominic Walsh Dance Theater will dish up the satisfying Third Course on May 5, 6, and 7, 2011, at 7:30 PM at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, Zilkha Hall located at 800 Bagby Street in Houston, Texas.

This juicy “all Walsh” mixed repertory program features his inventive Time out of Line, along with a new creation set to Clair de lune and reprises of audience favorites The Dying Swan and For the Two of You. With an entertaining mix of dance, theater, music, visual art, and video, these innovative performances will stimulate all of the senses.

One of the highlights of this Third Course will be Walsh's new, multi-disciplinary Time out of Line that merges a technically charged, experimental movement vocabulary with visual art aspects and video. “There is a growing global movement of mixed media in which I have a great interest, and I have always been fascinated with the power of collaboration,” says Walsh. Time out of Line is set to Arcangelo Corelli’s La Notte di Natale (Christmas Night) and features a key scene that incorporates painting on the floor.

While executing Walsh’s choreography, the dancers will create a mix of color and pattern with their feet onto the covered floor. There will also be a video element demonstrating how we record time. With each performance of Time out of Line, a work of art is created on many different levels. In addition to the live performance aspect, a video feed will allow many others around the world to experience a film version of each performance via the internet.

Walsh will create and rehearse Time out of Line in Florida with the dancers of Sarasota Ballet working alongside the DWDT Company Members. Dancers from both companies will perform the world premiere in Sarasota on April 29-May 1, 2011. Then Walsh and all of the DWDT Company Members (Marissa Leigh Gomer, Domenico Luciano, Felicia McBride, Rachel Meyer, Ty Parmenter, and Randolph Ward) will head back for the Texas premiere the following weekend.

Another highlight of the Third Course is the Texas premiere of Walsh’s new work set to Claude Debussy’s most popular pieces, Clair de Lune. “After my creation of The Afternoon of a Faun set to Debussy’s L'après-midi d'un faune, I became more interested in the composer’s other work, notably his Clair de Lune, and I thought it would make for a fascinating subject to interpret,” notes Walsh.

Clair de Lune is considered to be the most adventurous movement of Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque for piano—the rest of the suite is clearly in the Baroque style—and even the composer said that he did not like what he composed in the rest of the suite because of its strict adherence to the style. Debussy’s L'après-midi d'un faune is considered a symphonic poem, a piece of music that evokes the content of some type of literary or visual piece of art. Clair de Lune, taken from a poem by French Symbolist poet Paul Verlaine, is engaged with a similar dialogue between art and music which Walsh finds compelling.

Verlaine’s poem uses abstract imagery to embody the themes of melancholy hidden beneath the flamboyant disguises of bergamasques, or French masqueraders. “I am looking forward to creating movement that reframes this piece of music that we, as a culture, have such a familiar relationship with,” says Walsh. Walsh’s revisualization of this iconic work will be created for DWDT Company Member Domenico Luciano.

In addition, this satisfying program will include a reprise of Walsh’s adaptation of The Dying Swan performed by DWDT Company Member and 2010 Princess Grace Award winner Rachel Meyer. Inspired by swans that she had seen in public parks and a poem by Alfred Tennyson, the great ballerina Anna Pavlova worked with choreographer Michel Fokine to create the famous solo. According to tradition, the swan in Pavlova's dance is badly injured and dying. But Allegra Kent said: “The Dying Swan is not about a woman impersonating a bird, it's about the fragility of life - all life - and the passion with which we hold on to it.” Walsh takes this idea and sets his piece at a formal event where a woman is left alone with her cocktail and cigarette.

The Third Course will also include a revival of Walsh’s For the Two of You that he created in 2005 as a wedding gift for his dear friends Julie Gumbinner and Lucas Priolo. Walsh danced with Gumbinner and Priolo at Houston Ballet for many years and the two were original company members of Dominic Walsh Dance Theater. This romantic pas de deux is set to two of Giovanni Bononcini’s Baroque compositions.

Tickets for Third 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.

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.

Pictured Above:   Dominic Walsh.
Pictured Below: Rachel Meyer in Dominic Walsh’s The Dying Swan, and Domenico Luciano and Luana Moscagiuli in Dominic Walsh’s For the Two of You.

All Photos by Gabriella Nissen Photography.