The Yard steps into summer this weekend with a concert showing two very different sides of the Chicago-area dance scene.
One half of Saturday’s show belongs to the Era Footwork Crew, a fast-moving troupe making its first visit to Martha’s Vineyard as part of the Yard’s Schonberg Fellows/Chicagoland program. The members of Era come out of a competitive urban dance style called footwork, which emerged in Chicago’s house music scene during the last years of the 20th century. It would be “absolutely wrong” to call it hip-hop, said Yard artistic director David White.
Footworkers step with precision at astonishing speeds, traditionally in one-on-one dance floor battles to beat-heavy music. What makes the Era different is that it’s a foursome of footworkers creating movement art together. The troupe also collaborates with musicians and poets to craft soundtracks for their dances.
“The artistry of this group is very high,” Mr. White said. Their performance carries a parental advisory for language.
Joanna Furnans, an independent choreographer, is the other Schonberg Fellow in Saturday’s show. She will perform some of her work in progress called Doing Fine, which will premiere in Chicago in August. Doing Fine is a series of solos that ultimately are to be performed for an audience of 20 at each time, Mr. White said. But on Saturday, everyone in the Yard’s Patricia Nanon Theatre will share the intimate experience.
Both Ms. Furnans and the Era have been mentored by another dancer during their two-week residency as Schonberg Fellows. The full name of the program, the Bessie Schonberg Legacy Choreographic Mentorship Residency, honors a famous dance mentor who was part of the Yard’s early years.
Yard executive director Alison Manning, who also leads the Yard’s internal ensemble Dance the Yard, has been serving as a mentor to Ms. Furnans, while choreographer Raphael Xavier mentored the Era.
Some Schonberg Fellows arrive with little more than a concept, Mr. White said, and “sometimes they are farther along in development and residencies are used to fine-tune the work.”
Mentors can be as involved as the dancers want, or remain a fly on the wall observing the work. Mr. White described their role as a “ghost in the machine,” available to help turn a work in progress into a full piece.
Mr. White also invites the audience to take a role during the concert, in which each artist will perform for half an hour.
“You’re a resident on Gray’s Anatomy and you’re sitting in the gallery above the operating theatre watching the surgeons do a procedure. Your job is to watch, observe, learn, understand. I find it very useful to instruct the audience that way, because it has changed the way people look at what is essentially a slice of choreographic life.”
Saturday’s split bill ushers in a summer-long stream of dance, music and theatre events from the Yard.
Next up, on June 13 and June 15, Joanna Kotze performs What Will We Be Like When We Get There, a piece that combines music, dance and visual art with a moving, spiral set. Ms. Kotze’s husband, artist Jonathan Allen, “creates the visual environment as the piece evolves,” Mr. White said.
Afro-Brazilian tap dancer Leonardo Sandoval and bassist Gregory Richardson come to the Yard June 20 and 22, with a special family show at 11 a.m. on June 22.
The Yard’s Pride, Not Prejudice celebrations in June will include a dance party at Nomans (formerly Lola’s) June 28 and a theatre performance by Ain Gordon and Josh Quillen titled Radicals in Miniature on June 27 and June 29.
“We really wanted to do something substantial and substantive,” Mr. White said, describing the work as a series of tributes to people who died, often of AIDS, who were known by few during their lifetimes.
The Taylor 2 Dance Company appears for one night on July 2, performing key works by the choreographer Paul Taylor that have been reshaped for a smaller group of dancers.
“All of them are extraordinary,” Mr. White said. “If you want to talk about a classic modern dance company, this is one.”
On July 6 at 11 a.m., The Gottabees—a puppet and music show returning to the Yard—present Go Home Tiny Monster in a family show.
Choreographer Kimberly Bartosik brings her work I Hunger for You, which she performed at last year’s Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, to the Yard July 11 and July 13. She developed the piece with her husband, Roderick Murray, who Mr. White called “one of the most interesting and innovative lighting designers in New York.”
Puerto Rican artist Yanira Castro and A Canary Torsi, her anagrammatically-named collaborative group, will be active in multiple disciplines at the Yard on July 18 and 20. The troupe will perform CAST from a script that has been computer-generated just before the show. The computer that creates the script will be part of an interactive art installation called Author at Featherstone Center for the Arts from June 30 to July 14. Ms. Castro will also speak at the Chilmark Library on July 17.
Malpaso Dance Company returns on August 1 at the Performing Arts Center, with multiple Latin Grammy winner Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Ensemble. The company also has a matinee and evening performance at the the Yard on August 3.
Choreographer Ronald K. Brown revisits his composition Grace, a hit for the Alvin Ailey company, 20 years later with a companion piece called Mercy on August 17.
On August 22 and August 24, Vineyard dancers present their work in the Island Grown Dance series, part of the Yard’s focus on local artists and musicians that will also include two dance halls and a concert.
The Yard season ends August 31 with another split bill, this one with Schonberg Fellows from Boston. Aysha Upchurch is a dancer, choreographer and educator who has served as a U.S. State Department Cultural Envoy. The other half of the concert belongs to Subject: Matter, an innovative tap dance ensemble. Both will be mentored by choreographer David Barker from the percussive Bang Group.
Evening shows at the Yard begin at 7 p.m. For tickets and more information, visit dancetheyard.org.
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