GroundWorks Starts 10th Anniversary @ Cain Park

There's no business like show business. A world premiere, a revival, concert dancing to live, improvised jazz and to exotic world music also performed live, a guest artist’s choreography set to recordings dripping with nostalgia: That’s GroundWorks Dance Theater’s upcoming concerts at Cain Park’s Alma Theater this weekend. Cool Cleveland caught up with the company's Artistic Director David Shimotakahara and Musical Director Gustavo Aguilar to gather their thoughts on the upcoming performances.

Shimotakahara told us that his new work for the company, “Lights Up,” “evolved out of a piece we did for the Ground Works benefit at the Bop Stop last April. By all accounts I missed a good party there and I just wanted to see the piece for myself,” he laughed. Since we also had to miss the Bop Stop benefit, we asked Shimotakahara to characterize “Lights Up.” “I think it’s about the interplay of the dancing and the music; it’s quirky, hopefully very funny in places, and entertaining; we’ve been working with live music with improvisational elements for a while now and hopefully this piece takes us a little further down that path.”

Music for “Lights Up” will be played live at Cain Park by Aguilar, a composer, improviser, and percussionist with backgrounds in both Contemporary New Music and jazz-based Creative Music; also Howie Smith, a Cleveland-based saxophonist, composer, and head of CSU’s art department, and Nathan Douds, a pianist, percussionist and educator based in NE Ohio. Asked about the development of the score for “Lights Up,” Aguilar emphasized the interplay among musicians and dancers. “This is a collaborative work with Howie and Nathan. It’s quite an open process, whereby we as a collective try different ideas with the dancers.” Since Aguilar and Smith both played for the benefit at the Bop Stop, we also asked Aguilar how much the 2 performances had in common besides personnel. “For the Cain Park gig we are better rehearsed,” he replied. “The Bop Stop [performance] was put together in one day.”

The revival of Shimotakahara’s “Migration,” which premiered at the Akron Icehouse in September of 2001, will also be performed with live music, composed and performed by Aguilar and his wife, vocalist Gaelyn Aguilar. “’Migration’ came out of a dream I had,” Shimotakahara explained. “I dreamed I was in the midst of a storm. When I awoke I felt viscerally shaken by the storm but relieved that the storm had passed and I felt this sense of hope, a sense of well-being. So I created this piece, a metaphor for going through whatever you go through in life. The dancers and I put it into the world of animals, their ordeal of migration.”

Beginning work on “Migration,” Shimotakahara conferred with Aguilar, who explained that, “David came to me looking for music for a new work and I suggested Lou Harrison’s ‘Suite for American Gamelan and Violin.’ David loved the Harrison piece but felt that he wanted to work with more of a loose structure so he asked if I was interested in composing something that had the same kind of resonance.” How did Aguilar go about composing that music, rife with not only gamelan but sounds from many an exotic port of call? “As always,” said Aguilar, “slowly. Sitting down, experimenting, looking for the right sounds to capture the feeling. Knowing that Harrison was very influenced by world music (not just Gamelan; he studied in Korea as well) it was quite easy for me to try to work in that vein.” So while Aguilar’s process was slow and characterized by some trial and error, it was a journey he sees, at least in retrospect, as a natural development from the original assignment.

We asked Shimotakahara if he was going to use the 2 vertical panels of fabric that had figured so prominently in the premiere of “Migration.” “Not in the Alma,” he replied. “We’ll have nowhere near the 55 feet of fly space there that we had at the Icehouse. What the fabric represents we’re going to try to recreate with light. Dennis (Dugan, Technical / Lighting Designer for Ground Works) is working on it. There are lots of ways to solve creative problems. Sometimes when you’re presented with a challenge, it leads to discovery!”

The last time we’d talked to Shimotakahara he’d described plans to audition for a new dancer to replace Mark Otloski whose planned retirement had been expedited by a knee injury. We recently spoke with Otloski at a recital for his students at Cleveland City Dance. He reported that he’s been released from physical therapy but that he was dancing at “about 80%.” Dancing in his place at Cain Park is Ground Work’s newest dancer. “Kelly Brunk is a recent graduate of SUNY Tisch,” said Shimotakahara by way of introduction. “He’s a bright imaginative artist and he’s working out lovely.” Is this a long-term thing or just until Mark’s 100%? “We’re not a project-based group; we commit long-term to dancers. Obviously there’s going to be a learning curve but he’s going to work out like Sarah Perrett is working out.”

Reading about dance in the New York Times usually involves staving off envy; but this week we read about David Parker and the Bang Group performing their piece to the music of “Annie Get Your Gun” at Joe’s Pub, the Public Theater’s cabaret space. For once, no envy, for at the Alma Ground Works will be presenting “Annie Redux” set on them by the very same David Parker to the very same Judy Garland and Howard Keel recording of Irving Berlin’s songs.

All at Cleveland prices.

Tickets for all Cain Park events are available at the Cain Park Ticket Office, in person, by mail, by phone at 371-3000 or by fax at 371-6995 (please include full name, address, phone number, credit card number, and signature). All major credit cards accepted. Tickets are also available at all Ticketmaster outlets. Ticketmaster Charge-By Phone at 241-5555 or 330-945-9400 (Akron), and online at http://www.ticketmaster.com. Performance times are Friday and Saturday (6/20 & 6/21) at 7:30PM and Sunday (6/22) at 2PM in Cain Park’s Alma Theater.

From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas vicnelsaATearthlink.net
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