http://www.minnpost.com/camillelefevre/2008/09/18/3557/flamenco_alfresco_at_minnehaha_falls

Posted on TC DAILY PLANET BY JON BEHM
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/article/2009/02/24/dance-neither-sleet-nor-snow-can-stop-zorongo-flamenco.html

February 25, 2009

Despite Minneapolis’s snow emergency on Saturday night, flamenco fans packed the Ritz Theater in order to catch Zorongo Flamenco’s one-night show, Café Flamenco. They were rewarded with performances by not only the Twin Cities’ best flamenco stars, but with world-class guest musicians Pedro Cortés Jr. and Jesus Montoya as well. Though the show was preceded by a too-long introduction and the ubiquitous “times are hard, give money” plea, when they took the stage the performers snapped the audience awake with a sizzling hot production.

Zorongo dancers Sachiko, Julia Altenbach, and Laura Horn opened the show in traditional Spanish dresses of brilliant red, dancing Solea Por Bulerias. The dance was marked by the enthusiastic crowd’s chants of “olé” and “vale,” traditional shouts of praise. Pedro Cortés Jr. accompanied on guitar (as he did for all of the night’s pieces). Cortés, a third-generation flamenco guitarist from a family of Spanish Gypsy guitarists, is also quickly becoming one of the country’s premier practitioners of the art. Guest Cantante and 2007 Grammy winner Jesus Montoya also accompanied with rhythmic handclaps and the gorgeously haunting wail of the Andalucían compa.

Solea was followed by the highlight of the evening, Zorongo founder Susana di Palma’s solitary dance Soleares, a piece commonly referred to as “the Mother of Flamenco.” Dancing in a midnight-black dress with a long ruffled train, di Palma executed the dance with the grace and passion that the form is famous for. From rigid fingertip to pointed toe, every bit of di Palma’s body was in tune with the ebb and flow of the rhythm, and she kept her composure admirably, even when a barrette was mistakenly knocked from her hair. Di Palma also danced Alegrías to close out the evening, with Montoya coming up with some free verse lyrics to accompany her (managing to work the names of Susana di Palma and Minneapolis into them).

The evening’s performance also featured solo works by each of the guest artists. Cortés played a masterful guitar solo, easily winding his way through finely picked melodies. Montoya sang a solo cante with Cortés accompanying; Montoya’s voice echoed with the passion of his Sevillan soul and tugged at the heartstrings. Finally, Sachiko, Altenbach, and Horn returned for Guajira, a Caribbean-influenced “fan dance,” in which the dancers waved large fans called pericones. Sachiko in particular stood out, winding her fan in beautiful, intricate patterns while the other two dancers clicked out a fierce rhythm with their castanets.

To round out the evening, all the artists came onstage to perform an encore in front of a standing, applauding audience. The beaming performers couldn’t have been disappointed with their reception, as the clapping went on for some time, even trailing them as they eventually formed a line to exit the stage, still performing music as they left.

Jon Behm (jonbehm@gmail.com) is a Minneapolis-based photographer and writer. While his specialty is music, Jon has a wide variety of interests that tend to take him all over the Twin Cities on a daily basis.

http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/onstage/19400429.html?location_refer=Entertainment



Birds, flowers, bondage: Just part of famed ballet



What: The famed ballet as interpreted by Ballet of the Dolls, Zorongo Flamenco and Live Action Set.

When: 8 p.m. Thu-Sat, 2 p.m. Sun. Ends June 8

Where: Ritz Theater, 345 13th Av. N.E. Mpls.

Tickets: $23-$27. 612-436-1129, or www.ticketworks.com/ritz.


Ninety-five years ago, composer Igor Stravinsky and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky premiered "The Rite of Spring" in Paris. The ballet's modernist aesthetics and primal depiction of virgin sacrifice was a scandal. Riots ensued. The infamous event signaled a new era in art history.

No screaming or protests greeted Myron Johnson's "Rite of Spring," which premiered Thursday. But this 90-minute version, co-created with the unlikely collaborators Zorongo Flamenco and Live Action Set, is astounding, profoundly disturbing, even brilliant at times in its singularly brutal way.

Just try erasing these images from your mind: Zhauna Franks ripping her lean muscular body through off-kilter leaps, dizzying turns, grasping stretches and primal sculptural poses in a pre-verbal expression of raw physicality. Digging her knife through a pile of animal fur. Fending off attacks from a tribe of Gothic burlesques in black bondage costumes. Then being strung up as the tribe twitches in perfect unison below her -- all to strobe lights and a heavy-metal score by Fantômas.

This horrifying, mesmerizing middle section of "Rite of Spring" is a visceral tour de force for Franks, and a black-hearted and arresting piece of choreography for Johnson.

The opening section of "Rite of Spring," by Susana di Palma and Zorongo Flamenco, sets the production's tone with its Gothic, funereal setting. As La Conja, accompanied by Pedro Cortes Jr., sings of flowers in the spring and dogs digging up gardens, three hollow-eyed women emerge from a coffin.

They drill their passions into the earth with rhythmic footwork in a sensual dance of death that is interrupted by flag-waving and Sachiko returning on crutches as military music blares.

After the Gothic horrors of sections one and two, Live Action Set's finale -- with its childlike simplicity, quirky but revelatory movements and post-modern juxtapositions -- is a palette cleanser. As birds twitter, Galen Treuer and Sarah Jacobs mock-execute each other during silly games.

The wreckage of the past meets the present and looks toward the future.

Camille LeFevre is a Twin Cities dance critic.

http://www.twincities.com/ci_9430284


'Rite of Spring' blossoms in three distinct takes
By Linda Shapiro
Special to the Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated: 05/30/2008 05:43:18 PM CDT

In 1913, Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring," originally titled "Le Sacre du Printemps," opened in Paris with choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky. Tout Paris was there, howling in protest at what they considered bizarre sights and sounds assaulting them from the stage.

Commissioned by Serge Diaghilev for his Ballet Russes and based on fertility rites in ancient Russia, the score was rife with dissonant sounds and harsh rhythms that Nijinsky translated into pulsating tribal dances bearing no resemblance to classical ballet.

Now recognized as a modern masterpiece, the score is considered a testing ground for adventurous choreographers — the Everest they must climb. Thursday night Ballet of the Dolls, Zorongo Flamenco and Live Action Set gave three distinct takes on this crescendo of primitive mysteries in a spectacle that blended experimental verve and masterly moves by some of the area's most provocative dance theater artists.

Myron Johnson, who organized and directed the production, makes the most direct reference to the primitive force, distorted body positions and raw intensity of Nijinsky's original concept while bringing in references to contemporary culture ranging from frenzied club dancing to torture at Abu Ghraib. The splendid Zhauna Franks as the chosen maiden is sacrificed by tribal members who evoke punk rockers on a bender from hell. Protean and feral, Franks seems part human, part animal, part stylized Egyptian frieze. She moves like a fluid contortionist between extreme acrobatic positions and ferocious animation, suddenly transforming to a hopped-up club dancer as fragments of Stravinsky's score mutate to the heavy metal howling of the Fantomas. Hoisted aloft by the tribe, she dangles upside down as they squat panting. In a startling and disturbing image, jolts of electricity course through her body — a tenacious life force brutally extinguished.
Susana Di Palma's section with Zorongo Flamenco often evokes a surreal landscape by René Magritte as a zesty widow (di Palma), two impassive men in black suits and hats (Ted Southern and Robert Skafte), and three sultry spirits of Spring (Sachiko, Laura Horn and Julia Altenbach) create a crusty mélange of dances. They pound the earth in the lusty rhythms endemic to the Flamenco form, with witty forays into slap-happy marches and spirited characterizations.

In contrast, the Live Action Set trio of Vanessa Voskuil, Galen Treuer and Sarah Jacobs are disaffected cartoon characters. The kids from "South Park" all grown up, they bobble like windup toys or burst randomly into agitated fragments of robotic activity muttering "I am a soldier" or "She's a virgin" in flat monotones. They're eventually joined by the other performers who tear around in a carefully controlled mayhem that captures the subversive spirit of both Stravinsky and Nijinsky — with a little Mel Brooks thrown in. The dance seems to be imploding as diverse tribes celebrate the rituals — ancient and modern — that contain the seeds of their own destruction.

By the end, dancers lie exhausted in fetal positions, grasping tulips that tremble with new life.

What: "Rite of Spring"

Who: Ballet of the Dolls, Zorongo Flamenco, Live Actions Set

Where: Ritz Theater, 345 13th Ave. NE, Minneapolis

When: Through June 8; 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sundays

Tickets: $27-$15; 612-436-1129 or www.ticketworks.com/ritz

Capsule: A celebration of the rites of spring with masterly moves and experimental zeal.

Dancing for the land beneath their feet
by Marianne Combs, Minnesota Public Radio
June 12, 2008
A new dance takes a closer look at the land we stand on. Ananya Dance Theater is presenting 'Daak' or 'Call to Action.'

It's the second part in a trilogy that is intertwining physical movement with social movements. The latest work focuses on land rights, and people who are being forced off their land to make way for industry.

Minneapolis, Minn. — In Daak, dancers portray ordinary women defending their land. They dance with hand brooms in a way that makes them look more like warriors. They link arms in a protective circle. Repeatedly, throughout the dance, one member of the company leads the others to action.

Choreographer and artistic director Ananya Chatterjee says she was inspired to produce Daak on a recent trip to her homeland of Bengal, India. She noticed things were changing, and the citizens weren't happy about it.

"Romantically, I think of Bengal as sort of these green rice fields in the villages, and suddenly I began to see unrest and huge factories set up," said Chatterjee.

It turns out the government was taking land away from farmers in order to make way for industry. Entire villages were being displaced. Chatterjee says in a culture where families have lived on the same land for generations, the idea of ownership is often foreign.

"There was this one woman who said, 'You know I sit here under this palm tree - I don't know who it belongs to, but this is my palm tree. And when I go off in the morning my cows go to that field when I go off to work the lands - my cows graze in that - that's my land.' This idea of public commons," said Chatterjee, "that is what is disappearing: communally held land."

The movement in Chatterjee's new work is inspired in part by the protests of people in Bengal and elsewhere around the world. Dancers throw themselves to the floor to reflect women and children lying down in intersections to bring traffic to a standstill. Swooping arm movements refer to an entire village digging a huge moat around itself to block government vehicles.

Throughout, the piece is the sound of feet pounding on the floor - a constant reminder of the earth beneath our own feet here in Minnesota. Land that once was the home of the Dakota people. Ananya Dance Theater member Omisheke Natasha Tinsley says it's something she feels very strongly about.

"Ever since I've lived in Minnesota, it really feels like this is stolen land," said Tinsley. "The people think the land belongs to us and it doesn't."

Tinsley says working with the dance company has increased her awareness of land rights issues locally and globally, and it's pushed her to think about what her responsibilities are as a citizen living on what she considers stolen land.

Theater director and choreographer Dora Arreola has worked with Ananya Dance Theater for the last two years helping the dancers to prepare for this piece.

Arreola is from Tiajuana, Mexico, and has witnessed the effects of land appropriation in her own backyard. She sees families losing their homes to make way for factories that will assemble televisions sold in American stores.

Arreola says Ananya Dance Theater is one of a handful of activist dance companies that are working to raise awareness. In this case awareness of American consumers complicity in international land disputes.

"The challenging thing is the action," said Arreola. "Because we can be very provocative, but it's not enough. I think Ananya's question and my question also is how can we make the affect a chain effect, you know?"

Arreola says in order to be truly affective, their work needs to be visionary, to be a call to action that's heard ten years before it's needed.

Choreographer Ananya Chatterjee acknowledges creating social change through highly stylized modern dance is incredibly difficult, but she does think it's worth the effort.

"You know I'm a dance freak, I love dance, I think dance can do it all!" Chatterjee laughed. "Not really, but I think that dance can be a very vital medium in shifting people's frames of mind, in shifting people's bodies to look this way instead of that way."

Daak runs this weekend at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis. Once the run is over Ananya Dance Theater will get to work on the next installment in its trilogy on social justice issues, this time on climate change.

Explorations in Flamenco was in the City Pages' A-list!

Sachiko and Deborah Elias: Explorations in Flamenco - Sachiko and
Deborah Elias are dancers who take flamenco to places it's never been
before. Like post-WWII Japan, for instance, where Sachiko mingles
fiery Spanish flamenco with Japanese Butoh, martial arts, and
traditional forms to evoke the horrors of the atomic bomb attack on
Hiroshima. By contrast, Elias celebrates the power of the imagination
to heal. This yin-and-yang approach to programming is presented by
Zorongo Flamenco, an organization that has never been afraid to mix
serious experimentation and vivid theatrical entertainment.

By Tom LaVenture, Asian American Press

Posted on 20 Sep 2007 by Tlaventure at http://www.aapress.com/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1190336695&archive=&start_from=&ucat=6&

MINNEAPOLIS – Sachiko Nishiushi's exploration of the Spanish Flamenco dance has culminated with her first self-choreographed and directed performance with "Hiroshima: A Night Dreamt and a Day Flashed to Burn," on Sept. 27-29, 8:00 p.m., and Sept. 30, 7:00 p.m. at Intermedia Arts, 2822 Lyndale Ave S, Minneapolis.

The production, "Explorations in Flamenco," is presented by Intermedia Arts and Zorongo Flamenco Dance Theatre, and Sachiko will be followed by Deborah Elias in her production of "Tia" (Auntie). A post performance dialogue will follow the Saturday performance.

Four the past four years, Sachiko has danced in many productions and this is her first attempt at her own direction and choreography. She says it is quite different from dancing to someone else's direction.

There were many and complex reasons that Sachiko decided on the emotional theme of the atomic bomb victims. She visits friends in Hiroshima whenever she goes back to Japan. She was there on the anniversary of the August 6, 1945 attack that killed more than 140,000. While at the museum, she met with survivors, now in their 80s and 90s, and still suffering and dieing from the effects of radiation. The Nagasaki bombing a few days later that killed nearly 75,000 people.

Sachiko said that her flamenco dance project is to evoke a sense of the impact of unimaginable devastation. She emphasizes that the work is not intend as a political statement but is more about our common humanity.

"I have this image of the victims being voiceless," said Sachiko. "These people believe that when they are gone, it will all be forgotten."

Further inspired by stories of the victims by Hibakusya, the novels of Masuji Ibuse and the poems of Toge Sankichi, Sachiko now believes that people know what happened, but do not acknowledge what it this holocaust really means.

"I have this image of them with their mouths covered," she said. "They have words to tell us and we have never heard those voices."

So, flamenco becomes a silent voice that can express all of the emotions in a moving exploration of horror, but also of the healing powers of the imagination.

"Dance itself is a metaphor for life and can be translated as metaphor for peoples everyday life and emotions," she said.

There are three components to traditional flamenco. The music of an acoustical guitarist, the singer and the dance. For Sachiko's performance, guitarist Michael Ziegahn and singer Rachel Milloy will perform the tangos and siguiriyas. For the Japanese element, the shakuhachi (Japanese flute) will be played by Takeru Matsuhashi along with a taiko drum by Susan Tanabe.

Sachiko will be the central performer and will be joined by local dancers and flamenco students: Laura Horn, Christine Kozachok, Andrea Plevan and Tara Weatherly. Each dancer portrays a wounded survivor with a story of inspiration, all told through a unique blend of flamenco, Japanese traditional dance, martial arts, and Butoh-inspired movements.

In the aftermath, Sachiko dances a flamenco piece as a symbolic and abstract to war, agony and death through movement. The composition is traditional flamenco with nontraditional movement.

"I am a translator through the movement," she added.

Sachiko is an Osaka native who discovered flamenco in high school, where she says the dance is very popular. She studied undergraduate law at Kansai University, and then discovered a flamenco class while an exchange student at George Washington University. She returned to Osaka around 1995 where she continued studying the dance at a local flamenco school.

"I started dancing pretty late, and was about 23 when I began studying flamenco," she said. "I had no experience before that and never thought of becoming a professional dancer. I just liked it and kept taking classes."

When Sachiko was accepted to the University of Minnesota Graduate School in 2000, she began searching for local flamenco schools, and discovered Zorongo Flamenco Dance Theatre in Minneapolis, a renowned school under the founding artistic director, Susana di Palma.

Sachiko was surprised and pleased to be encouraged to perform early on with Zorongo. "In Japan, it was really difficult for someone to find this opportunity, where here it is pretty common."

Her skill and passion for flamenco soon made her a member of Zorongo's ensemble, Majas. She has also performed with Zorongo and Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Michael Hauser's Cuadro Flamenco and FUEGO Flamenco.

Sachiko also seeks to enhance her flamenco skills by studying Indian dance to and is a member of Ananya Dance Theater. There she studies the Odissi style, a graceful Indian dance form that is quite different from flamenco, but will help her become a better dancer all around by mastering these difficult techniques.

"Its like anthropology," she said. "You really have to know the history and the culture, so that gets me to open up to who they are."

It's all very hard work, and Sachiko's daily routine begins with a one or two-hour warm-up, followed by two to three hours of practicing fast and slow movement coordination. Then she squeezes in some abdominal workouts and yoga, before cooling down.

"Flamenco is a very demanding and intense dance form that is very formal," she said. "You have to have stamina, strength, flexibility, an understanding of music and that is all pretty demanding."

Sachiko also goes to Spain about once a year to take dance classes where flamenco originated as a folk dance more than 500 years ago. With multiple influences, the origins of flamenco are not clear but there are Gypsy-Indian, Flemish, French, African and Arabic roots. The name comes from the bright colored costumes that resemble flamingoes, the acoustic guitar rhythms, singing, chanting, dancing and handclapping.

"For me, its just very Spanish and very showy," Sachiko said, noting that in Japanese culture, the dancers do not express such emotion. When she dances, she is very much into flamenco, but when not dancing she is still very Japanese.

For ticket information or to make reservations, call 612-871-4444 or visit online at www.intermediaarts.org.

Check out StarTribube.com Video"Flamenco Strikes Force" at http:/www.startribune.com/video/rich_media/1390444.html.

Pipaashaa: extreme thirst
A new evening-length work by the award-winning Ananya Dance Theatre

The award-winning Ananya Dance Theatre and its Artistic Director Ananya Chatterjea (City Pages' Best Choreographer 2007) have teamed with the Women's Environmental Institute and other partners to explore the impact of environmental damage and loss on women and children from around the globe in "Pipaashaa."
We hope that you and other colleagues in the environmental justice field will join us during the run of this new work at the Southern Theater September 6-9, 2007.

"Pipaashaa" was created in response to the steady drying up of the world's resources, specifically through environmental damage, which heightens the vulnerable position in which much of the world's women and children are forced to live. It tells the stories of women and children who are forced to live in the most difficult of circumstances—somehow pulling together an existence by scavenging through dirt piles collecting recyclable materials, for instance, in dense urban areas. More generally, "Pipaashaa" explores ideas of loss and struggle, the desire to live, and the relationship of these ideas to femininity.

For more information, please visit www.ananyadancetheatre.org.

Pipaashaa: extreme thirst
September 6-9, 2007, all at 8 pm except 7 pm on Sunday, September 9
The Southern Theater, 1420 Washington Avenue South, Minneapolis
Post-show discussions on Friday & Saturday, September 7th & 8th
All shows feature an interactive lobby display based upon themes in "Pipaashaa"

Tickets: $16 + $2 Southern Theater building fee
Call 612.340.1725 or visit the Southern Theater box office

In classes with Manuel Betanzos, we usually work on choreography. But in one morning, Manuel had us work on techniques of body and arms. He put a CD on ....it was the theme of the movie "Titanic". The one by Celine Dion! No, no Titanic, por favor. But as usual, the passionate and energetic teacher Manuel was shouting on us "Listen to the music! Feel and move with it!" And the slow melodramatic music gets louder and more intense...I hope I was not the only one who was not in the mood...I was thinking, I love his energy and flamenco, but maybe not his taste of music other than flamenco.

I went to see an old movie "La Carmen". It was directed by Julio Diamante in 1975. I was fascinated to watch the life, culture, and flamenco in Spain in the 70's, right after Franco's era. It was great as a documentary film. But the story and acting were so bad. It was one of those movies that was modified from Bizet's Opera "Carmen". So, of course the woman is an unruled sexy flamenco dancer who has multiple lovers. And she cheats on one having another affair with a bullfighter. And the lover gets so jealous that he kills her at the end. Very predictable. But it had amazing flamenco artists. Enrique Morente, music by Manolo Sanlucar.. And I first saw the legendary Enrique El Cojo...! I've heard from people how amazing flamenco he was. One of his legs was paralyzed (I think it's the left one). But even he doesn't do any move, he had such a charisma and duende came out of his body. Yes, I was enchanted to watch him. I asked the organizers of the film but they said the movie is not sold in the market anymore. Darn!

Today I was biking into Calle Feria after classes and heard women screaming loud. I find a Chinese and a Spanish women were kicking, punching, and scratching each other. And it got bigger as people tried to stop them and another man joined to attack the Chinese woman. They were shouting in Spanish so fast that I couldn't understand except some words like "puta" shouted to the Chinese woman. Everybody stopped around them. An Irish woman told me that she was in the Chinese woman's store and saw the Spanish woman shoplifting something. The Chinese stopped her and they started to fight. How could the Spanish steal and further attack back? I sensed it was of racism and hatred. I wish I understood what they were shouting. I saw several people calling police but they didn't come before I left. It's really disturbing that there are always assholes everywhere who think they can take over with violence.