Home > Blogs > Arts and Entertainment > Archives > 2009 > May > 26 > Entry
SMAG opts for smear tactics
DAYTON — Mike Elsass’ usual medium is acrylic on rusted steel. On Saturday, May 23, he strolled the stage of the Dayton Playhouse, drizzling paint on and around four dancers who lay motionless on the canvas beneath them.
Michael Bashaw, on flute, and Sandy Bashaw, on guitar, began to play at the side of the stage as the dancers stirred. They rolled, slid, stepped, jumped and landed in the globs and rivulets of color, dragging each other through them and smearing each other with pigment.
It was the semi-improvisational opening of SMAG Dance Collective’s well performed, but choppy spring concert, which also included a tightly choreographed fashion show, three more conventional pieces, and a cancellation by scheduled guest artist Anna Sullivan (stage name “Annadroid”) of Columbus.
“Painted Bodies,” the opener performed by Gretchen Hindson, Elena Rodrigues, Jamal Wallace and SMAG director Michael Groomes, was a throwback to the modern dance “happenings” of the early 1960s, when figures including choreographer Merce Cunningham and painter Robert Rauschenberg gained prominence.
Fourteen minutes long, it proved to be an interesting more than revolutionary exercise in front of a smallish matinee audience that waited 15 minutes beyond the scheduled start for the performance to begin.
“Seasons Change but Style is Eternal,” which came after intermission, featured the garments of designers L’Alour Ameer, Andrea Lyle and Richard Mosely II, who also did the choreography. The propulsive, eye-catching piece often divided the stage between dancers in high-energy motion and others posing for a photographer.
There were two solos: “I Am 1,” by Rodney Brown for the strong and expressive Mosley, and Shonna Hickman-Matlock’s fatalistic “Out of Nowhere” for Alexis Britford.
Mosley’s “Consequences of a Linear Existence (Part 2 and 3)” rounded out the show with dancers Christiana Coover, Hindson, Mosley, Rodriguez and Wallace.
Sections of the finished “painting” will be sold as a fund raiser for SMAG on June 5 during a reception at Elsass’ Color of Energy gallery at 6 Brown St. More information is available at 937-266-3491 or coegallery@yahoo.com.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Dance, Review
Comments