Verb Ballet @ Cleveland Museum of Natural History 6/3

Verb Ballets brings a nature-themed program to Cleveland Museum of Natural History and two out-of-town soloists who are probably well worth seeing. The program, Nature Moves, could have been a routine promotional tie-in between two Cleveland cultural organizations, but Verb has a way of upping the ante and topping itself. For them, it's not enough to perform some repertoire. In conjunction with the Museum's current exhibition, Feathered Dinosaurs: the Bird/Dinosaur Connection; they've brought in G.D. Harris, a soloist from Dayton Contemporary Dance Company in the Cleveland premiere of a vintage African dance about the ostrich. The dance, Awassa Astrige/Ostrich, was choreographed by Asadata Dafora of Sierra Leone, had its world premiere in 1932 and has been in the DCDC repertoire since 1997. The other soloist is from even further out of town, represented by Verb as "China's and perhaps the world's greatest dancer." Press agentry notwithstanding, Verb and our readers surely recognize the folly of ranking any artist like a sports team. The subjectivity of artistic expression aside, any comparison of soloist Huang Dou Dou's original choreography (which combines classical Chinese dance with elements of ballet, contemporary dance, and martial arts) with other dancing clearly runs into the old apples and oranges problem.

Still, this sounds like someone well worth seeing. Twenty-eight year-old Huang's dancing has long been honored in China. He's artistic director and principal dancer of Shanghai Song and Dance Ensemble, one of China's foremost dance companies, known for its large cast and opulently costumed extravaganzas. And Verb, which has brought a new standard for contemporary dance to Cleveland, including the diminutive but amazing Jason Ignacio, will surely deliver.

Also on the program are some of Verb's more popular repertoires. The company's world music signature piece, artistic director Hernando Cortez' Planet Soup, sports the addition of the Museum's Indonesian Puppet collection. The Envelope, choreographed by David Parsons, premiered on Verb last year; we found its humor enhanced by the dancers' deft execution to Rossini's caffeinated score. The Man and the Echo is Cortez' lyric think-piece to the music of Edvard Grieg.

This program will surely sell out; the museum's Murch Auditorium seats only 500 and we hear that box office activity is very brisk. See it 8PM Fri 6/3 and Sat 6/4 at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, University Circle. Call 231-1177 or 800 317-9155 ext. 3279.
from Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas vicnelsa@earthlink.net

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