Troupe will rock out, show new dancers
History? No.
A survey, perhaps? Wrong again.
Face it. It’s impossible to cover the magnitude of rock ’n’ roll in 45 minutes.
This is the duration of Rock & Roll, the first performance in Of Moving Colors’ 2012-13 season.
“But it will have something in it that everyone can relate to,” Garland Goodwin Wilson said. “We have some great songs, and it’s a great way to introduce our new dancers to the community.”
Wilson is the artistic director for the professional contemporary dance company, which enters its 26th season for this performance. She also choreographs pieces for the company.
“This one was a lot of fun for us,” she said. “We have a bond with the genre of rock ’n’ roll, and being a contemporary dance company, it’s a great fit. It’s also a fun concept to use as the opener for our season, which is going to be explosive.”
And part of that explosive energy can be attributed to the fact that the eight new dancers will be performing with the 15-member company this year.
“In the past three or four years, we’ve only taken one or two new dancers,” Wilson said. “But this year, some of our dancers were not able to return, so we’re introducing our new dancers with this show.”
And each dancer will be backed on stage by a David Humphreys photograph. Humphreys’ work also was featured in the season opener of Of Moving Colors’ 25th anniversary season. His photographs of individual dancers, each performing a different dance move, served as backdrops during the program.
“We’ll do the same thing this year,” Wilson said. “David’s photography is beautiful, and it’s simply amazing to see it projected on the back of the stage.”
Each dancer’s photo will be projected when he or she takes the stage, which not only allows the audience to become familiar with performers but makes the show more intimate.
“This is a show where you’ll get to know us,” Wilson said. “And the Manship Theatre is a good setting for this. We’ve been so happy with the theater as our home.”
Rock & Roll will be performed in solos, duets, trios and quartets to such iconic rock songs as Creedence Clearwater’s “Run Through the Jungle,” The Doors’ “Break on Through,” the Beatles’ “Oh Darling,” the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Woman,” Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” and Stevie Nicks’ “Landslide.”
“And, of course, we’ll have a song by Elvis,” Wilson said. “He is the King of Rock ’n’ Roll, after all.”
Of Moving Colors has chosen the King’s “I Can’t Help Falling in Love” for this occasion.
And the curtain won’t fall until the entire company dances to Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and U2’s “Beautiful Day.”
But it won’t end there. Of Moving Colors will repeat an event it introduced last year when it hosted the first post-performance stage party in the Manship Theatre. The party was a success and gave audience members a chance to meet and mingle with company members.
And with the debut of so many new company members in this show, it only made sense to stage another party. Will it become a tradition? Maybe.
For now, it’s just a lot of fun.
“We’re going to have a blast,” Wilson said. “And we want the audience to have a blast.”
How can anyone possibly not have fun?
It’s Rock & Roll.
- CAST: Amanda Arostegui, Kristen Ballard, Mary Bayle, Muriel Capdepon, Rachel Carlino, Alyseia Darby, Marlon Grigsby, Courtney Landry, Le’Brian Patrick, Rebekah Prudhomme, Rebecca Sawyer, Carrie Tatum, Harlee Trautman.
- CHOREOGRAPHERS: Courtney Landry, Bethany Jones McCullough, Carrie Tatum, Garland Goodwin Wilson.