Glue Factory Project brings back former Dance Alloy director
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Beth Corning in a 2006 photo. -
Beth Corning performing for the Glue Factory Project.
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Last July, Beth Corning's mostly hand-picked board at the Dance Alloy suddenly dismissed her as artistic director. She grabbed her laptop and a few personal items and left the building.
"For three months I cried," she admits. "I felt rudderless and completely blown away, to be honest. But I had an extraordinary cache of colleagues and friends and supporters. Because of them, I remembered who I was."
Ms. Corning, who came from Minneapolis to head Dance Alloy in 2003, found that she was still proud of what she had accomplished at the Alloy, including a new artistic vision based on European dance theater, and a new marketing initiative.
Many friends asked, "What are you going to do next, Beth?"
Ms. Corning found her answer in The Glue Factory Project, a sold-out event that she had done in Minneapolis for four years prior to Pittsburgh.
"I realized I never got the hang of them because each one was so different. The process was so different," she explains.
- Where: New Hazlett Theater, North Side
- When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday.
- Tickets: $23-$30; 1-888-718-4253 or www.showclix.com.
So she formed Corningworks, a production company, and started calling. The Glue Factory was, just as the title suggests, a stereotypical reference to the place where old horses were sent, where their body parts were turned into an adhesive. Similarly, dancers are often put out to pasture by age 35 or 40.
But no longer. Ballerina Alicia Alonzo performed until age 75, despite being legally blind. So, too, for Margot Fonteyn, who performed until age 60, and, more recently, the great Mikhail Baryshnikov. On the modern side of things, there were Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham and Gus Solomons, who at age 65 is still moving beautifully in his company, Paradigm, which was founded in 1996 for mature artists.
Of course, that means adapting choreography to the changing needs of the human body. Younger dancers show their prowess by jumping, spinning and leaping. Older dancers have their say through emotional expression and gesture ... but they can surprise.
More and more dancers remain fit. So when Ms. Corning got in touch with the first people who came to mind, they responded, "How exciting! Let me check my calendar."
First Published March 24, 2010 12:00 am
