Fluidity, Frolicking, and Flow

“There is a thin semantic line separating weird and beautiful. And that line is covered in jellyfish.”

So said choreographer Doug Elkins at the Lobero Theater a couple of weeks ago, perhaps answering a question posed by one of the members of the Friday Club.

Or more than likely not.

Elkins is the high-energy, self-described ADHD-afflicted dance choreographer who is creating a new piece for the 10th anniversary of DANCEworks that will be performed this Friday and Saturday, September 8-9 – doesn’t need any impetus to go off on a tangent. Those disparate lines just intersect in his mind somewhere and create something larger and infinitely more interesting than their individual parts.

“Thanks for coming into my frontal lobe,” Elkins said, unbidden but recognizing his own sudden shifts, a week later in the midst of the performance part of the Friday Club event. “Actually more like my medulla oblongata, just a stone’s throw from the amygdala.” Earlier he mused, “It’s just my stream of consciousness way of being, which is how I operate, in nonlinear time.”

Meanwhile, Friday Club is the cadre of dance aficionados who pay extra to spend a couple of hours with the choreographer and his crew of six shape-shifting, mind-blowing dancers – who are winding up a month-long residency at the theater – as they reveal their latest phrases in fragments on stage before repairing to the cocktails and Q&A.

Elkins is decidedly not jellyfish-like, unless the sea creatures are actually perpetual-motion machines that stop in mid-sentence to frequently change directions and tone, and give in to impulse on a whim. That’s what Elkins does, verbal at least. Come to think of it, the dancers do it, too, only with their corporeal bodies, often appearing akin to jellyfish then stiffening their spines for strength work, spins, and jumps.

Thus like the magic of the company, which evinces an almost metaphysical ability to intermingle and influence one another – with words, ideas, movements, shapes, and probably lots of other indescribable things – in ways that go well beyond linear analysis, yet somehow end up as a magical, chills-inducing work of art that works on both the physical and emotional plane.

At least that’s what we think will happen, based on Elkins’s history as both as the first choreographer to successfully blend together street dance, ballet, and modern dance who has been hailed by The New York Times as “One of the most musical, witty and inventive choreographers of his generation,” and the fact that during his first DANCEworks residency in 2011, he cleverly mashed up Motown music with Shakespeare’s Othello.

This time around, he’s fashioning Kintsigi, based on influences from Japanese philosophy and art filtered through his B-Boy sensibilities and – more importantly – his dancers’ whims and whimsy. Indeed, Elkins elicits, or more accurately impels, collaboration with his half-dozen dancers, many of whom have been with him for years. 

“Everyone has different ways of working, like tribes in society,” Elkins said. “Usually it’s reflective of the nature of not just the choreographer but the people he brings into his orbit… A colleague and dance critic once said of my work: ‘You’re always doing self-portraits of everybody but you.’ I think that’s true. I really depend on the brilliance of my colleague-collaborators, their willingness to share their own ridiculousness and madness in the process.

“It’s like marking up a page, just doodling on a piece of paper while you’re on the phone for 45 minutes. That’s how we start off, and make most of our phrases.”

So, many of the shapes, phrases, and fragments emanate from the dancers improvising, either solo, or even more frequently in pairs, as Elkins and Co. favor connection over almost everything else.

“Every piece is very relational,” explained Cori Marquis, who has been performing with Elkins since 2010. “We’re allowed encouraged and to continue to have the relationships that we do in fact have with each other. That’s a powerful thing to have facilitated and drawn out.”

“I love acknowledging that I’m dancing next to someone,” Elkins said. “I’ve also danced in abstract worlds where you extract yourself as a proton in space, or part of a larger system. But dance to me is a social dialogue. (So) as we’re making work, the jokes, the side commentary, are all part of the process of how we make stuff.”

Some of those jokes are musical, such as the inspired juxtaposition of studio outtakes of Brian Wilson working on “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” butting up against the rising tension of Anna Meredith’s similarly tempoed “Nautilus”, which serves as the soundtrack to a series of originally improvised solos that eventually come together with all the dancers on stage.

“I like trying to build an interesting roller coaster of drama,” Elkins explained. “All roller coasters start by going up, to build the anticipation. You can barely see over the horizon. It’s a lesson in choreographing the dynamic of performance. It’s not the same loop over and over, it changes direction, changes speeds. We’re trying to build you a delicious meal or an interesting roller coaster. Hopefully, not both at same time so you don’t (retches).”

Then there’s the witty battle of the sexes danced to Stephin Merritt’s take on a Scottish-folk song “Wi’ Nae Wee Bairn Ye’ll Me Beget”, in which the woman cleverly top the man’s ever-increasing ambitious overtures with an even more powerful trump card. The movements follow the tone of the piece more than the words, the result a delightful duet.

We’re imagining that delight – and a healthy dose of awe at the dancers’ prowess – will be the likely response at this weekend’s performances. At the very least it will be the physical manifestation of another of Elkins’s Friday Club interjections: “Oh, no. You can hear my inside thoughts.”

After the world premiere of Elkins’s new work, the second half of the Friday and Saturday night performances at 8 pm will be comprised performances from all of the other choreographers who have previously participated in DANCEworks over the decade, including Aszure Barton, Brian Brooks, Larry Keigwin, Mark Dendy, Adam Barruch, Kate Weare, Shannon Gillen, and Doug Varone, who will presenting or perform solos to close out the evening. Tickets cost $25 & $40 ($15 for students), or $105 for VIP tickets, which include entry to post-performance reception and a special commemorative book. Call (805) 963-0761 or visit www.lobero.org.

Eat, Drink, Dance, and be Mallet

The high-goal season at the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club came to a conclusion Sunday when Klentner Ranch defeated Lucchese in the final of the Pacific Coast Open. But the high times continue at the gorgeous grounds of the 87-acre property nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the Southern California foothills this Saturday, September 8, with the Santa Barbara Polo & Wine Festival, California’s first event to combine polo, local wine, and music. The festival’s second edition features two polo matches, a full day of musical performances from notable pop artists, access to wines from Santa Barbara’s finest wineries including a free tasting session, food pairings, and much more.

ZZ Ward, who headlines the noon to 8 pm event, last year released her second full-length album, The Storm, a record that evinces both the Los Angeles-based vocal powerhouse and multi-instrumentalist’s blues grit and hip-hop bounce. Another big name on the bill is Booker T. Jones, the Memphis soul icon responsible for such classic Stax hits as “Green Onions”, “Hang ‘Em High”, and “Time Is Tight”. Among Jones’s accomplishments are membership in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, and four regular Grammys, including as recently as 2011. Over the years, his trademark keyboard work has shown up on albums from Ray Charles to Neil Young, while he also produced recordings for Rita Coolidge, Bill Withers, and Willie Nelson (Stardust).

The California Honeydrops blend of near-encyclopedic knowledge of musical styles, genres, and idioms with the sheer desire to keep an irresistible dance groove going have made them a frequent sellout at SOhO. Now on the road to promote Call It Home: Vol. 1 & 2, a new double-disc live album, the band will take their jam to the great outdoors. Blues-rocker Quinn DeVeaux brings a joyous energy to his shows.

Tickets to the Santa Barbara Polo & Wine Festival cost $75, or $175 for VIP, which includes access to the VIP indoor/outdoor polo clubhouse and the stage side tent, plus a free sommelier-guided tasting, complimentary champagne, and cheese hour and additional hors d’oeuvres, plus – perhaps most importantly – special restrooms. A portion of proceeds will be donated to Notes for Notes, the nonprofit organization that designs, equips, and staffs after-school recording studios inside Boys & Girls Clubs, offering youth the opportunity to explore, create, and record music for free.

Visit http://sbpoloandwine.com for tickets and more information.