Le Salon de Dance
Studio@620
This past Saturday I had the opportunity to visit and offer my volunteer service to Studio 620. The venue for the evening was Le Salon De Dance featuring Jennifer Archibald a dancer from New York City. Her one-person performance montage was a mixture of Hip Hop, Jazz and classical performance art. Miss Archibald’s recital was an extremely phyisacal and expressional performance in which she used a pre-recorded sound track of herself interviewed. The topics ranged from her art to her political stance on Hip-hop, race and war, while, she expressional moved on stage, and then punctuated, by a music sound track where she would break into dance re-emphasizing her subject’s stance. Her stage performance was broken into three acts with two videos slotted between the acts. The videos maintained the same theme as the live performance and were a collaboration of a director, choreographer, and Miss Archibald. The evening ended with a Q&A with the audience and Miss Archibald and was followed by a theater party, which I did not attend. In all I found the performance, studio, and patrons a pleasing and stimulating experience and would recommend for anyone who wanted to experience performance out side of the box.
Studio@620
This past Saturday I had the opportunity to visit and offer my volunteer service to Studio 620. The venue for the evening was Le Salon De Dance featuring Jennifer Archibald a dancer from New York City. Her one-person performance montage was a mixture of Hip Hop, Jazz and classical performance art. Miss Archibald’s recital was an extremely phyisacal and expressional performance in which she used a pre-recorded sound track of herself interviewed. The topics ranged from her art to her political stance on Hip-hop, race and war, while, she expressional moved on stage, and then punctuated, by a music sound track where she would break into dance re-emphasizing her subject’s stance. Her stage performance was broken into three acts with two videos slotted between the acts. The videos maintained the same theme as the live performance and were a collaboration of a director, choreographer, and Miss Archibald. The evening ended with a Q&A with the audience and Miss Archibald and was followed by a theater party, which I did not attend. In all I found the performance, studio, and patrons a pleasing and stimulating experience and would recommend for anyone who wanted to experience performance out side of the box.
I also enjoyed Jennifer Archibald's performance. She is a tough act to imitate; I went to one of her master classes she taught at USF the week following her performance at the Studio. Having been a dance minor, I thought it would be fun and mildly challenging. It was VERY challenging, indeed. Her class was a contemporary mix of hip hop, modern, and classical. While the elements were all familiar to me from prior dance experiences, mixing them all together and trying to keep up to a fast-paced hip hop song was definitely challenging. I have mucho respect for the hard work and talent that is included in Jennifer's career.
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ReplyDeleteWow, that completely sounds like something I'd shoot myself if forced to watch. It almost sounds like a fabricated cliche, the "interpretive dance" being done to a tape of yourself talking...Jesus Christ, it's like they're trying to validate all my reservations about the place.
ReplyDeleteI love that they had a bio of the dancer videoed. I always like to know a little bit of the background of performers/artists so that I have an idea where they are coming from. It helps me to pick up on nuanced things like expression and symbols if I can know a little bit about who the performer/artist is.
ReplyDelete-Charlotte Ott
P.S. your blog name makes me think of NPR:)
Wow James, you are such an ass! A funny, likable ass, but an ass nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, this sounds like a performance I would have really enjoyed and I regret not attending. I danced for fifteen years (from 3 years old until I was 18), performing for a large company in Tampa called Jackie's (you may have heard of it Ana, but Jackie died while I was up at the University of Florida unfortunately) and did a wide range of dance styles, ranging from classical ballet to tap, jazz, lyrical, and hip-hop. I've never been able to do much travelling in my life, so I was fortunate to have the opportunity to compete in ballet in a number of countries, the most memorable of them being Spain (I've always wanted to visit, my last name being Toledo, the old capital of Spain). Anyhow, I had to discontinue dance lessons as they are extremely expensive, so I really want to start attending more performances such as the one your described. It sounds like she fuses a variety of dance forms and with the inclusion of the videos you mentioned, it seems visually exciting on multiple levels. Thanks to you and Aana's review, along with other things I've heard about the Salon de Danse series, I'll be sure to make it to the next one.