Evolving Doors Dance Company premieres Moving Through: Bodies, Music, images, Experience…
This weekend, October 1 – 3, Evolving Doors Dance Company premiered a socially distanced performance entitled Moving Through: Bodies, Music, images, Experience… A Walk-Thru Installation Performance. The show, which was hosted at The People’s Building in the Aurora Cultural Art District, was in an in-person format, but the performance was also viewable via live-stream. Tickets to the in-person installation performance were $20, and the live-stream was donation based.
Evolving Doors Dance Company is one of Colorado’s first queer founded dance companies. For the past fifteen years, Evolving Doors Dance Company has built precedence of presenting original, professional, innovative contemporary modern dance in Colorado. The company explains, “as EDD’s work paints pictures only bodies and spacial relationships can conjure, it uses dance as a medium to bring human and social awareness to its audience and its community–both locally and nationally.”
Through my experiences of being a professional dancer (shameless plug, follow me on Instagram @dan.cer.bradley), I had prior knowledge of choreographer and co-director Angie Simmons and her work, so I was all the more thrilled for the opportunity to experience Evolving Doors Dance Company’s Moving Through. What an experience it was! Moving Through was the first dance experience I personally have had since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and shutdown. Now, as we all know, due to the economic effects of COVID-19, dance and performance art is currently taking a hit with companies such as Colorado Ballet having to lay off its dancers and reduce salaries of staff. The rare opportunity to experience a live and in-person performance after a long period of being unable to intake dance and movement was a festive reminder that things will return to a sense of normalcy, eventually.
But for now, to safely attend EDD’s Moving Through, there were rules. Before being allowed into the performance space, the staff of The People’s Building explained to the audience that we were to abide by social distancing rules, and we were requested to remain at each viewing exhibition for no longer than 15-minutes to allow for subsequent groups to enjoy performances. Of course, as per the local mandate, everyone was to remain masked for the performance duration.
Moving Through had a cast of nine dancers (in order of appearance): Samantha Lewis, Gretchen LaBorwit & Angie Simmons, Hanna Ghadessi, Kat Kalamaras, Victoria Stone & Erika Curry-Elrod, Alfred Smith. In addition to the movement artists, four musicians provided musical collaboration (in order of appearance): Kevin Lee (guitar), Juli Royster (bass), Amy Shelley (drums/guitar/keyboard), Carmen Sandim (piano). The choreography was provided by Angie Simmons (in partnership with dancers), and the music direction was under the charge of Amy Shelly.
The most extensive analysis I could bestow upon Moving Through is that it was a non-linear experience. For a lot of my time within The People’s Building space, I found myself thinking about my own perceptions of space and time because where you were standing at any given moment dictated what sort of experience you perceived visually and sonically. Depending on where you stood to view each installation, you saw a different angle of a dancer’s interpretation of the musician’s accompaniment. Depending on where you traveled throughout the building, you heard another song playing from a musician, and sometimes you could find yourself wedged in between the reach of two musician’s soundwaves.
When I entered the space, I descended down a short flight of stairs. Immediately spectators were greeted by music that felt pensive in nature, and before you reach the first stair, you notice a dancer moving at the base of the stairwell. The dancer is bathed in a red spotlight that adds to the pensive, anticipatory feeling I felt. I found myself hypnotized by the dancer, but the hypnosis I felt was quickly broken by the sound of a balloon popping, and I moved onto the next installment.
The second installment I viewed was in a room with glass walls that held two dancers and countless white balloons. The dancers would consistently go in and out of what looked like improvision and moments of performing choreography phrases. The peek moments were surprising as one of the dancers would periodically pop a balloon. The release of noise brought audible reactions from others in the audience, which could have been attributed to surprise at the sudden noise of satisfaction resulting from a balloon popping.
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Other installments included a dancer in a room full of furniture. The dancer was able to use the tables and chairs as props to stand and climb on. I especially found it a pleasantly dark and uncomfortable moment when the music became eerier from a new musician’s workings, which invited the dancer to become a timid character and hide under a long table.
I enjoyed that as a maneuvered throughout the space, I was able to angle myself in the area so that I was able to enjoy two performances simultaneously. As I transitioned from the dancer in the space with the furniture, I watched that performance as I observed another dancer’s performance in the next installment bound in what looked like a white straitjacket.
At times, this bound dancer looked as if they were doing contact improvisation with the headless mannequin they were sharing their space with. Sometimes props in dance just are that a prop; however, the mannequin’s usage by the bound dancer made the mannequin appear more partner-like.
There were times where the musicians sounded like they were playing off each other. There were also times where the musicians felt as if they were on their individual sonic expression. This became more evident as I transitioned back into the upper level of The People Building, where I was greeted with two more performances.
The next was a duet by two movement artists. Once again, while observing the final two performances, I found myself thinking of my perception of what I was seeing based on where I was standing. The dancers moved in darkened spaces, one performance that provided a cosmic blue illumination on their moving area. With the movement and the musical accompaniment, the room made the energy feel expansive initially until the music transitioned into a more Jazzy feel. The next performance was a blend of dance movement and performance art as the performer broke from choreographed moments to moments from which they read passages from various books.
All in all, Evolving Doors Dance Company’s premiere of Moving Through was a very innovative and unique dance experience. If it is unsafe to be in a concert hall or black box to watch and view dance, I highly recommend other dance companies take innovative approaches in providing dance experiences for their communities.
Evolving Doors Dance Company has two directors. Angie Simmons, who has an MFA in Choreography from CU Boulder, and Amy Shelley, who earned their BS from Illinois State, both have had a long artistic career in Colorado. Simmons and Shelly have run the company since 2006, and in that time, they’ve created sociopolitically infused dance work that tackles equality, the LGBTQ community, female empowerment, while connecting humans to themselves and each other through art. EDD has performed at Boulder’s GLBTQ Annual Youth Conference, Denver Independent Choreographers Project, Colorado Dance Education Organization, the RAD (Regional Alternative Dance) Festival, and have been guest artists at Iowa State University and Middle Tennessee State University, as part of a diversity grant.
For more information on Evolving Doors Dance Company, please visit http://evolvingdoorsdance.org/ or follow the company on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/evolvingdoorsdance/
