DANCE

Upset your equilibrium with Psophonia Dance Company and guest company 6 Degrees in Rip in the Atmosphere, May 12-14, 2011 at 8pm and May 15, 2011 at 7pm at Barnevelder Movement Art Complex. Descend into the depths of the inner stratosphere in this mixed repertoire concert featuring new and signature works by three powerhouse choreographers, Sophia L. Torres, Sonia Noriega and Toni Leago Valle.

Torres presents three separate yet connected vignettes that glimpse into neurological deficiency, physical adversity and environmental catastrophe in Body Blind, The Long Hallway and The cranes are flying. The ego and physical self are connected, but what if you lost the ability to 'feel' your body? What if reaching for a glass of water eluded you and the automatic, yet unconscious, familiar daily actions disappeared? Could you in effect, 'lose' your body ego? Inspired by the collected patient studies of neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks, Body Blind peers into the complex and unusual breaches of the mind and disconnect of the synapse.

Unusually timely, The cranes are flying refers to the Japanese legend that anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes will be granted a wish by the sacred creatures. Believing the legend, a young girl is compelled to fold 1000 paper cranes in hope that the paper birds will bring magical healing to her body and her community. Soaked in strong visuals and an original sound score by Pelayo Parlade, Torres' new works seep through the atmospheric layers in this collected body of works.

Sonia Noriega premieres Flip-Flop, a study in audience perception. One identical solo performed by three individual dancers, each to a different piece of music. Flip-Flop explores how an audience interprets what they experience both visually and aurally. While the movement sequence remains the same, the distinct music and individual dancer's artistry may result in the viewer thinking different thoughts and feeling different emotions for each soloist. Or will they?

Also on the program is guest company 6 Degrees. Artistic Director Toni Leago Valle presents two works dealing with loss and recovery: the premiere of Cocoon, and two excerpts from her evening-length work CRACKED. Cocoon traces the process of letting go of children from the moment of conception to young adulthood through three real-life mother-child duets: Jenny Dodson and her unborn son, Pierce, Stephanie Henderson and her 8-year-old daughter, Sonia Rodriguez, and Joani Trevino and her teenage daughter Cecila Sotomayor.

"There is so much fear and anticipation and the very first thing you have to do with this baby is let it go - literally out of your protected body into the noisy world," Valle states, "Section two is the world of young motherhood, with its endless fatigue and unbound energy, and section three is the revolving circle of motherhood - the attempt to understand and give in to one another's needs as the relationship evolves from mother-child to two independent people. It is the act of mother preparing her child for adulthood."

Valle will also present Interview for a Date and I Take My Clothes Off, two excerpts from her 2006 autobiographical concert CRACKED.

Emerge on the other side of the stratosphere with Psophonia's dynamic dancers Stephanie Beall, Emily Bischoff, Laura Gutierrez, Kendall Kramer, Marielle Perrault, Patricia Solórzano, Haylee Garner, and Tory Pierce.