Tag archives: dance

Man and his machines form the basic elements of Cirque Mechanics, the modern company founded 14 years ago by former BMX bike champion Chris Lashua, who began by creating an innovative aerial apparatus. In his and his team’s vision, circus certainly has acrobatics and clowning around, but also is rooted in realism achieved by the […]

It was all tu-tu much when the State Street Ballet threw its 24th anniversary gala for a record 184 guests in the Biltmore’s Loggia Ballroom, raising around $140,000 for the popular local dance company. The fab fete, which honored avid supporter Arlyn Goldsby, longtime board member and patron, was emceed by Jonatha King, with dance […]

New York choreographer Doug Elkins, after a month-long residency at the Lobero as part of DANCEworks 10th anniversary, put on a fan-tastic 40 minute performance Kintsugi as the culmination of his creative stay in our Eden by the Beach. The 10-year-old company’s six talented dancers – Carolyn Cryer, Alexander Does, Cori Marquis, Donnell Oakley, Eric […]

“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 […]

DANCEworks, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary at the Lobero, wraps its month-long residency with New York choreographer Doug Elkins and a heavenly host of past alumni this weekend (September 7-8). Final rehearsals, open to the public, took place last week, part of the innovative collaboration between Dianne Vapnek‘s SUMMERDANCE Santa Barbara and the Lobero […]

Peace Sticks seems like a super-simple concept – participants toss a pair of sticks back and forth with a partner. And that’s exactly how it started with Shane and Evan Rilling, the Ojai-based brothers who created the practice. “It came to us on a hike more than a decade ago, when we picked up some […]

At first, Santa Barbara Centre for Aerial Dance founder-director Ninette Paloma was none too pleased when she discovered that several of her planned guest artists for this weekend’s Floor To Air Festival had been saddled with visa issues and weren’t going to be able to arrive in time to participate in the high-flying show’s fifth […]

UCSB Arts & Lectures debuted New York-based Mark Morris Dance Group’s colorful and energized Left Coast premiere of Sgt. Pepper at 50: Pepperland, which it had co-commissioned, at the Granada. The highly entertaining show is a collaboration with composer-arranger Ethan Iverson, who has taken six songs from the Beatles’ seminal 1967 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts […]

State Street Ballet hosted its third annual showcase of contemporary choreography, Modern Masters, in the intimate setting of the New Vic. The highly entertaining show featured a diverse mix of dance movement featuring works by seven choreographers, including pieces by New York’s William Soleau, the new co-artistic director, Montreal’s Edgar Zendejas, Autumn Eckman from Tucson, […]

State Street Ballet (SSB) was just a little bit ahead of the curve when it premiered an evening of modern dance called Women’s Work just two years ago, shortly before the marches began following the presidential election and the revelations of rampant sexual harassment leading to the #MeToo movement. But by last year, it had […]

Mark Morris got on the phone only a few minutes after the interviewer finished reading the latest about the furor surrounding Michelle Wolf’s controversial set at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Quickly it was apparent – but not surprising – that the choreographer famous for creating dances to curated classical music can be as crude […]

Just imagine “A world of ballroom dance creating a beautiful place in your mind, body and soul. ” Even after the fire, mudslide, earthquake, and multiple evacuations, five women (three from Montecito), and their dance instructor, Vasily Golovin, owner of Dance Fever Studio Montecito, found the time to attend the San Francisco Open Dancesport Competition. […]

Hector Sanchez appeared in so many of the pieces performed at last year’s BASSH – the theatrical showcase for local dance professionals and their protégés to show off their choreography in a wide variety of social dance genres – that one was thinking they might have to change the name of the two-decades old production […]

Superlatives are not sufficient to describe the Spanish National Dance Company’s performance of Swedish choreographer Johan Inger‘s Carmen at the Granada. The 39-year-old Madrid-based troupe, who last dazzled us six years ago, showed why the quintessentially Spanish work has become one of the most talked-about new ballets of the decade with Japan-born Kayoko Everhart dazzling […]

Alan Bersten was just 10 years old when the first season of Dancing with the Stars (DWTS) aired on television. He’d watch the athletes and movie stars partner with professional ballroom dancers, fantasizing about matching their grace and power as they glided across the floor. But when his grandmother told him, “One day, you’re going […]

After the massive cleanup following the devastating Montecito mudslides, where to dump it? More than 20,000 dump truck loads – in excess of seven million pounds – of muck have been taken to the Ventura County Fairgrounds, where it is being stored temporarily. But with the totals increasing daily, officials face a daunting task. One […]

When your company is named after a fungus that grows on cow poop, clearly you’re involved with an outfit that loves playfulness as well as metaphors. Pilobolus formed at Dartmouth back in 1971 but has grown more explosively than its light-seeking namesake, now numbering more than 120 dance works in its repertoire, including three entities […]

Russian native Yulia Maluta has been teaching tango and other Latin and ballroom dances since even before she first moved to town 20 years ago, when she partnered with David Alvarez at the Santa Barbara Dance Centre, which kicked her professional and competitive dance career into a higher gear. After retiring from competition, Yulia began […]

Montecito’s Dance Fever Studio would like to congratulate Mariya Usanina for making the finals, out of 27 high-level couples, in Amateur Latin at the largest dancesport event of the year, the Ohio Star Ball located in Columbus, Ohio. Already this year, Mariya has won many titles as Open Amateur Latin champion at competitions including the […]