Cleveland, you don't know how major Diane McIntyre is

What would be your most recent memory of the choreography of Dianne McIntyre? If you mostly limit yourself to concert dance as we do, you might remember McIntyre's collaboration with Dancing Wheels, Sweet Radio Radicals. Regulars at the Cleveland Play House might remember her choreography for the play, Crowns, or her original dance driven dramas, I Can Stop on a Dime or Peaches Plums and Pontifications.

McIntyre's calm, soft-spoken exterior belies the awesome achievement of this Cleveland native. Capsule bios typically cite her choreography for film, television, the Broadway and London stage, and for dance companies including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. But that leaves out her own dance company based in NYC in the 70's, Sounds in Motion, and her innovative collaborations with important musicians. Again, capsule bios cite her numerous dance awards and grants, including the 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship, but often fail to mention her mentoring relationships with many who've become leaders in the performing arts. Somehow, Cleveland, you don't realize how major Dianne McIntyre is.

Recently, we watched a technical run through of Just Yesterday, the near complete result of McIntyre's residency with Ground Works Dance Theater. Just Yesterday deals with family histories and family memories, which McIntyre developed from interviews she conducted with the dancers last October. "I taped the interviews and transcribed them, and as I edited, themes started to emerge," she told us. McIntyre was still tweaking the script during the run through, and exchanges between her and the dancers seemed to indicate that all were endeavoring to resist the temptation to exaggerate for effect.

"How high were the pipes they jumped down from?" McIntyre asked one of the dancers.

"I don't know; I'll check," he replied.

Many of the devices that McIntyre uses in Just Yesterday are straight from the classic modern dance playbook. For instance, a slow motion procession begins upstage right, is interrupted by a scene, resumes further along the same diagonal, is interrupted again and eventually ends the dance downstage left.

Other devices are not so standard. McIntyre has the Ground Works dancers both speaking and singing, as well as the expected dancing. Speaking is not new to Ground Works, but singing is, as a company. And if learning a new piece with speaking and singing was not challenging enough, the run through we watched was without musicians or composer. To their credit, the dancers stayed in key and kept composer Olu Dara's score going acappella, singing in styles that derive from African American culture.

In a way that can seem contrary, McIntyre's choreography often gives highly trained dancers that most difficult of assignments, to walk, run and play like ordinary people.

McIntyre says "I have been following Ground Works for years and I've really admired the work I've seen them do. They're such a dynamic company. There is diversity in their repertory; I was wondering what I could add that would bring still another unique quality to what they were already doing."

After the run-through of Just Yesterday was completed, the dancers began the run- through of their Zvi Gotheiner piece, Delayed, also on the program at Breen Center. We gather from our reading that Gotheiner's choreographic palette is sometimes similar to McIntyre's, in that he too sometimes uses folk and vernacular dance, song and speech. Delayed, however, is without exotic elements. It's a straightforward modern dance, a visualization of the Terry Riley score.

Also on the Breen Center program is Ground Works Artistic Director David Shimotakahara's Polarity.

Photo by Mariama Whyte, courtesy Dianne McIntyre.

Ground Works Dance Theater performs at Breen Center for the Performing Arts at 8PM on Friday and Sat 1/22 and Sun 1/23. Tickets $22 general admission and $15 for seniors and students. Phone 216-961-2560 for tickets and group discounts or go to http://www.ignatius/edu/breencenter. For more information call Ground Works at 216-691-3180.

From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas. Elsa and Vic are both longtime Clevelanders. Elsa is a landscape designer. She studied ballet as an avocation for 2 decades. Vic has been a dancer and dance teacher for most of his working life, performing in a number of dance companies in NYC and Cleveland. They write about dance as a way to learn more and keep in touch with the dance community. E-mail them at vicnelsaATearthlink.net.