Dancing through “Blue Nude” and “Broadway Boogie Woogie”
By KAREN BOSSICK
The Wood River Journal ~ Hailey
Dance meets some of the world's great art when Footlight Dance Company's Senior Company performs “Dances at an Exhibition.”
The company's 24 senior dancers will perform dances inspired by the world's great art and artists when they perform at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Community Campus Theatre.
During the evening, dancers will make master paintings come alive as they interpret them through the use of ballet, modern, jazz, tap and hip hop dance.
The show was inspired by the famous musical work, “Pictures at an Exhibition,” which Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky composed in 1874 to accompany a friend's paintings. Mussorgsky was so moved by the imagery in his friend's paintings that he created 10 piano suites linked by a promenade.
The promenade sections depict someone entering an exhibition and walking through the gallery to the first exhibit, then walking from room to room, work to work.
Footlight Dance will include those promenades to tie their dances together, said Hilarie Neely, artistic director for the company.
Modern dance will be used to represent the paper cutouts work “Blue Nude II,” created by Post-Impressionist Henri Matisse--the most important French artist of the 20th century.
The classical lines and feeling of ethereal floating were deemed the perfect medium to portray Edgar Degas' “Frieze of Dancers.” Degas, a French artist born in 1834, loved to paint a sense of movement and dancers were among his favorite subject matters, in addition to race horses, women at work, milliners and laundresses.
Tap was chosen to convey Dutch painter Piet Mondrian's “Broadway Boogie Woogie.” Modrian, who was influenced by Cubism, constructs horizontal and vertical lines and color combinations to express beauty.
Flamenco was chosen to illustrate the picture “Senora Sabasa Garcia” by Francisco Goya. A court painter to the Spanish Crown in the late 1700s, Goya is considered the last of the old Masters and the first of the moderns.
The syncopated rhythms of jazz will illustrate Victor Ruzo's “Fine Stockings.” A Swiss-born artist, Ruzo is known for inventing a technique for painting on metal.
“Hip Hop” will represent “Street Art,” a mural created by Max Monahan, a junior at Wood River High School. Hip Hop, a street dance that started with break dance in the 1960s, is the perfect fit for the kind of graffiti art, sticker art, street poster art developed in public places, said Neely.
Dancers include Emily Slike, who has been dancing with Footlight Dance since she was 4. Others seniors are Gretchen Halle and Chessye Collette.
The dancers rehearse weekends for six weeks prior to the performances and are required to take Pilates conditioning, in addition to their regular classes at high school.
In addition, the dancers have been taking a shortened version of the performance into all eight Blaine County schools to expose students to the art of dancing.
Still to come: Wood River High School, Thursday, Jan. 31, 9:30 a.m., and Bellevue Elementary. School, 1:15 p.m., Friday, Feb. 2.
Over the years, Footlight dance students have performed for more than 50,000 students.
The school performances are always a highlight for them, Neely said, as they get to experience the life of a touring professional while keeping up their class work.
“It is a wonderful experience to perform for their peers and younger students as they discover dance as an art form and exciting live performing art,” she said.
For more information, contact Neely at 788-3481.
What: Footlight Dance Company performs “Dances at an Exhibition”
When: 7 p.m. Saturday
Where: Community Campus Theatre
Cost: $10 for adults and $5 for students, available at Chapter One Bookstore in Ketchum and The Toy Store in Hailey. Proceeds from the concert will provide scholarships for students attending dance classes.