New dance explores life's sorrows, joys
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In May during the Kelly-Strayhorn's newMoves Contemporary Dance Festival, the Pennsylvania Dance Theatre performed excerpts of its new work, which has undergone changes.
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The sound of a giggle or a roaring belly laugh usually suggest happiness and hilarity. But a new work by Pennsylvania Dance Theatre questions that assumption.
"Sometimes it's hard to say when you hear people laughing," said artistic director and former Dance Alloy Theater member Andre Koslowski. "Are they laughing because they really think it's funny, or are they laughing because it makes them nervous or uncomfortable?"
This melding of life's struggles and humors -- and the differing perspectives of them -- is the pulse behind Pennsylvania Dance Theatre's "por la blanda arena," which makes its Pittsburgh premiere this week at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater in East Liberty.
Through props, movement, theatrics and a South American folk-flavored score, the dance theater company from State College explores varied ways of identifying and expressing sorrow and joy.
PG VIDEO: PENNSYLVANIA DANCE THEATRE"There is this thing that when we lose our minds over something, it's very real to us," Mr. Koslowski said. "Sometimes to the onlooker, it can become almost comical, or something you look at it and you say 'Oh, God' or 'Yeah, I've done that, too.' "
Pittsburgh saw excerpts of the new work in May during the Kelly-Strayhorn's newMoves Contemporary Dance Festival. In most cases, even Mr. Koslowski doesn't know what a new piece will say to the public -- or performers -- in its early stages.
"I'm always very intimidated in the beginning, so I start really small with a few small questions that I have that concern me and I'll start asking my dancers."
Along the way, the group collects and catalogs materials, eventually discarding some ideas and building upon others. "I usually don't decide until very late in the process what I actually want to use, and I keep changing until the day of the show," he said.
First Published September 7, 2011 12:00 am
