Results tagged “moderndance”

The 15th annual Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation is in full swing, and let's be honest, most of us had no idea. We are not studying dance at Cornish or Velocity, and we're out of the loop.

    

You know how in horror films they were doing this thing where they'd delete frames and speed up or slow down the film to give the "evil" an eerie, inhuman quality? Zoe Scofield does that live, pretzeling, twisting, writhing, blank face dusted white with a silver streak down the center, her eyes disturbing pools of black under the lights. Yet...a hand reaches out to softly enfold the nape of a neck, there's a surrender, a leaning back. (For more on Scofield, check out Brendan Kiley's interview.)

 

As the curtains parted at the Paramount last night to reveal an undulating gray mass of dancers at center stage, it was immediately obvious that we were in for an evening of dance vastly difference from the usual Seattle repertoire. When the dancers of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater take the stage, they do so with a commanding presence and a palpable sense of unity. Friday night marked the first of three Seattle performances for the group this weekend at the Paramount.