Home & + | Search
Featured Categories: Special Focus | Performance Reviews | Previews | DanceSpots | Arts and Education | Press Releases
Join ExploreDance.com's email list | Mission Statement | Copyright notice | The Store | Calendar | User survey | Advertise
Click here to take the ExploreDance.com user survey.
Your anonymous feedback will help us continue to bring you coverage of more dance.
SPOTLIGHT:
PRESS RELEASES
ExploreDance.com (Magazine)
Web
Other Search Options
Michelle Brandon
Judson Memorial Church
United States
New York City
New York
New York, NY

Dancing Literate Project

by Michelle Brandon
November 11, 2011
Judson Memorial Church
55 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012
Dancing Literate Project
Summation Dance presents the Dancing Literate Project from November 10-12, 2011 at 7:30pm at Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South, NYC. Tickets are $20 and are available at www.smarttix.com or by phone at 212-868-4444.

The evening features the works of four choreographers. Kendra Portier presents her solo Hound of Wolves, set to the music of Blonde Redhead and the Dead Weather. Peter Kyle introduces a trio of dancers at the intersection of fleeting moments in Time: Now. Andrea Miller brings a suite of pieces featuring nine dancers in an excerpt from I Can See Myself in Your Pupil. Sumi Clements presents Erode, the first excerpted glimpse of Summation Dance's upcoming March season.

Hound of Wolves
I've never been one for solos, spotlights, in front, mirrored, centered, the only, the lonely… This is the tendency to unravel and deny… then fix and pretend. Scenarios taken from the alter-egos I drum-up in my brain of what I shoulda said, coulda been, wish I was, and most importantly, wish I wasn't.

Time:Now
Building a simple line, marking time, evolving rhythm, three dancers take one moment to carve space out of another. Does proximity express duration? Does a beginning suggest an ending? Off-balance and in sync, the dancers find equilibrium at the intersection of their fleeting movement.

I Can See Myself in Your Pupil
An exhilarating suite of dances set to a highly contagious score of music from Israel, Mexico, Australia, Italy, and Denmark. With a cast of seven dancers wearing a rotation of colorful costumes, the piece follows the development of two cells through the organization and chaos of evolution. Based in wildly quirky and demanding movement, the vignettes shift through the possibility of intimacy, the formation of humor, the danger of fear, the madness of imagination, and the joy of movement.

Erode
Erode is a first look at an excerpt from Summation Dance's new work, to be premiered in its entirety, in March at Baryshnikov Arts Center. This section brings into focus the idea of co-habitation in an environment constantly in flux, and explores how we as individuals navigate through these murky waters. Are we all in this together? Or do we just happen to be in this together.

Summation Dance Company, founded by Sumi Clements and Taryn Vander Hoop, is a New York City based modern dance company creating exciting, innovative, and highly physical work. Empowering each other on all decisions, Clements and Vander Hoop have distinct roles, but an equal partnership that is complimentary in aesthetic and vision. The mission of Summation is to find the beauty in struggle and the humor in the mundane. We value dance that moves the flesh; it bubbles from underneath, knots in the back, and rips away the layers leaving us raw and exposed. We offer up this work to affect, inspire and enliven. Clements' works are powerfully kinetic and emotional explorations of the human experience. Her work demands physicality as she pushes the limits of the body, often displaying the exhaustion and vulnerability of her dancers, while at the same time using small or eccentric gestures to communicate the essence of her idea. Summation Dance strives to bridge the gap between the choreographer and the viewer, so that our art is no longer esoteric and understood only by the dance elite, but can be universally appreciated. We offer dance and arts education programs for children and young adults because we believe that fostering creativity and imagination is the key to a bright future. Our educational outreach program brings dance into the schools, offering performances, as well as movement and composition classes, to children who may not otherwise have exposure to the arts.

Sumi Clements, Artistic Director and Choreographer of Summation Dance, is a Japanese-American from California who received her BFA in Dance from the University of California at Santa Barbara where she was the recipient of the Patricia Sparrow Scholarship & Corwin Award for Choreography. Graduating with honors, she moved to New York where she was a member of Peter Kyle Dance and involved in various projects around the city. Her work has been shown at Baryshnikov Arts Center, Danspace Project, Dance New Amsterdam, 92nd Street Y, La Mama Etc., DanceNOW's RAW Festival, Triskelion Arts & the Cunningham Studios. Sumi has performed in the works of Doug Varone & Alwin Nikolais and has most recently worked with Gerald Casel Dance Company, Kyle Abraham, and Sarah Holmes Danceworks. Sumi holds her MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Peter Kyle, Artistic Director of Peter Kyle Dance, is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, filmmaker and Artistic Director of Peter Kyle Dance. Hailed by Clive Barnes as "splendid" and by Murray Louis as "an artist of the most gifted kind," he toured internationally as a soloist with Nikolais and Murray Louis Dance between 1992-1994 and 1996-1999. He has also performed with Mark Morris Dance Group, Erick Hawkins Dance Company, Gina Gibney Dance and the theater company Pacific Performance Project/east, among others. Peter Kyle Dance, launched in 2006 to further the art of dance through collaboration has been seen at venues throughout New York City including the 92nd Street Y, Harkness Dance Center, Abrons Arts Center, Dance New Amsterdam, Joyce SoHo, Symphony Space, and One Arm Red, among others. In 2008 Mr. Kyle choreographed The Only Tribe, a multi-media performance event at 3LD Art & Technology Center, which Time Out New York called, "exquisitely choreographed." Mr. Kyle is the recipient of awards from the Concours Internationale de Danse de Paris, and grants from the Pittsburgh Dance Council, Simpson Center for the Humanities, the Washington State Arts Commission, and the American Music Center's Live Music for Dance Program. Mr. Kyle holds a BA in Dance and German Area Studies from Kenyon College and an MFA in Dance from University of Washington.

Andrea Miller, the Artistic Director and Choreographer of Gallim Dance, is a graduate of the Juilliard School where she received her BFA in Dance. Upon graduating, Andrea joined Ohad Naharin's Ensemble Batsheva in Israel where she performed the work of Naharin and Sharon Eyal, resident choreographer. Andrea has also performed as a guest with Cedar Lake, Limon Dance Company, and The Buglisi Dance Theatre. Prior to attending Juilliard, Miller was a student and performer of Doris Humphrey's works and solos under the direction of Ernestine Stodelle and Gail Corbin. The New York Times has praised Miller for her "voluptuously polyglot choreography". Her work has also been described as "wrenching and moving" (Dance Europe), and MN Artists wrote, "Everywhere you look, there's a collision that unhinges the nerves, breakneck partnering that wracks the heart."

Kendra Portier hails from Columbus Ohio, where she trained at BalletMet and received a BFA in Dance from Ohio State University. Kendra loves dance; continuously inspired by the brilliant beings she has had the fortune of dancing with, for and next to. She has been a guest artist and/or presented at a variety of colleges, dance spaces, festivals, theaters, workshops, rooftops, and tattoo shops; as she continues to make tiny dances and tiny ink sketches. Kendra is on faculty at Dance New Amsterdam and Hunter College, and is currently performing with Annie Kloppenberg & Co, myworks, Vanessa Justice Dance, and David Dorfman Dance.

Taryn Vander Hoop, Executive Director, Producer, and Associate Artistic Director of Summation Dance, is originally from Wisconsin, and received her BS in Dance, English Literature, and Spanish from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. While there, she was privileged to perform for Li Chiao-Ping Dance and Jin-Wen Yu Dance, as well as several guest artists including: Bill Evans, Larry Keigwin, Jeremy Nelson, and Lara Luis Malvacias. Upon graduation, Taryn moved to New York to attend NYU's Tisch School of the Arts where she received her MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography in 2010. Since moving to NYC, her work has been shown at Danspace, Dance Theater Workshop, and the 92nd St Y. She has been involved in projects with Gerald Casel Dance Company, Laura Peterson Choreography, Sarah Holmes Danceworks, and has worked for Gallim Dance.

For more information, visit www.summationdance.org.
Search for articles by
Performance Reviews, Places to Dance, Fashion, Photography, Auditions, Politics, Health