The Queen City danced through St. Patrick’s Day weekend with the thirteenth annual Charlotte Dance Festival at the Patricia McBride and Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux Center for Dance. This year, the Festival paired with the newly founded dance service organization QCity Dance to present three days of classes and roundtable discussions as well as two professional dance concerts. Opening and headlining the festival on March 15 were the New York City-based performers Larry Keigwin and Nicole Wolcott in their hysterical and at times touching Places Please! The next night, local and regional artists performed in the Charlotte Dance Festival Gala, offering performances filled with a variety of styles and techniques.
Places Please!
Keigwin and Wolcott were already on stage for the 8:00 PM performance when I walked in at 7:55 PM. The stage was set like a backstage dressing room with string lights that lay on the floor in an open square frame, and the two were talking to the audience as they put on their first costumes. The two joked as they pretended to stretch and warm-up for the actual show, which would remain a parody of a dancer’s backstage, rehearsal, and eventual performance experience. “Dancers, five minutes to call,” came over the speaker, to which Keigwin and Wolcott groaned and rolled their eyes, “Oh, God, here we go.”
The techno beat of “Are You Ready for This?” by Weird Together kicked off the first act: Keigwin and Wolcott fist bumped in what appeared to be sparkling red swim caps (resembling the a drag version of Spiderman’s mask). Keigwin and Wolcott committed to the goofy back-up-dancer-like movement while the music was on, and then, as soon as the music stopped, they quit too. Back to a quick change or a rest in between acts — the audience had the lens of dramatic irony for the whole night, seeing the dancers go from angsty and dramatic headbanging to helping each other remove skintight costumes right on stage. The dancers changed in and out of their underwear, changed wigs, and stopped for corrections if a mistake was made, right in front of us. The movement, the costumes, the talking, and the juxtaposed music all made for a hilarious look into the performer’s nine-to-five.
Laugh-out-loud funny, Places Please! was also layered with depth. While the dancers pointed out the comedy of the adrenaline-filled backstage, they also very touchingly addressed their own passions for dance.
Wolcott had the first monologue, in which she talked about what it’s like to grow older as a dancer. She recounted that when she turned forty, she was dancing in a company in which everyone else was in his or her twenties. She always thought, when the time would come, she would have a second career that she would pursue, but dance has always been such a major part of her life — “It’s how I identify myself.” Now, she can’t imagine her life without it. On the brink of tears, she ended in saying, “When do I stop?”
Later, Keigwin took his time on stage alone and talked about one of his first gigs as a dancer (unclear whether fictional or real, but convincing, nonetheless). “I was always trying to find someway to keep up this dance ‘hobby’ of mine.” The story goes that he got a job with a dance-entertainment company; they did routines for birthday parties and weddings and such. One time at a bar mitzvah, they needed someone to “head the table.” It would pay an extra $25, so he took it, not knowing what it meant. For the rest of the night, Keigwin sat underneath a table with only his head and two hands sticking through holes at the top as he welcomed people and offered hors d’oeuvres. The image was hilarious: kids sticking carrots in his mouth and celery in his ears and only two dinosaur-length arms useless for protection. Through the story, Keigwin showed some of the predicaments performers get themselves into, but also showed some of the pitiful yet noble lengths to which artists go in order to keep doing what they love.
Each monologue was expanded on through movement. Following Wolcott’s words was a particularly lovely contemporary-jazz pas de deux to Nina Simone’s singing “Ne me quitte pas.” Keigwin and Wolcott showed their ability to be lyrical and profound, as well as theatrical comedians. Places Please! was a layered and entirely captivating performance. Charlotte was lucky to have it in-house, even if for one night only.
Regional Dancers Show Strong Technique
The following night, the Charlotte Dance Festival Gala featured nine pieces from companies based as far south as Atlanta and as far north as New York City. Two Charlotte based companies, Bodiography Charlotte (led by Maria Caruso) and Caroline Calouche & Co. (led by Caroline Calouche, also the artistic director and founder of the Charlotte Dance Festival), presented works as well. Overall, the caliber of dancers was very high, and the companies were well rehearsed. In order to get invited to perform, the pieces were first adjudicated in the fall by a panel of judges, and it is clear that standards for dance technique were high. Particular dancing highlights came from Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen of Stewart/Owen Dance, from Asheville, NC. These two showed extensive contemporary ballet technique in their pas de deux “Dendrovictus.”
Cameron McKinney, New York City-based dancer/choreographer and founder of Kizuna Dance, danced a solo entitled “E.X.P.L.O.D.E,” to Japanese vocal music by Geinoh Yamashirogumi and Toshio Hosokawa. McKinney melted in and out of the floor seamlessly, using lyrical contemporary modern as well as breakdancing and house-style movements. He did flips from the floor and sometimes spun on the top of his back with his legs in the air. Kizuna Dance’s mission is to explore Japanese culture using hip-hop, house, and contemporary movements. It is an interesting and intriguing fusion, and, after this, I definitely want to see more.
Many of the Gala’s pieces had a similar earnest and angsty tone (in music and in movement), which gave thematic consistency to the program. However, compared to the previous multi-layered evening brought to us by “Places Please!,” the choreography, though well executed, tended to be a little flat. The evening started with a more lighthearted tap piece (by Helen Hickey), included an Indian Kathak piece (by Seema Viswanath), and towards the end, an audience-participatory aerial piece (by Caroline Calouche & Co.), but these three weren’t drastic enough a shift in emotion to climax the evening. It was an interesting juxtaposition to have Keigwin and Wolcott the previous night, who were able to create a piece of such depth, even if on the surface portraying goofiness, and then the following evening, to have much of the Gala pieces attempting to portray emotional depth on the surface, yet resulting in not as much layering underneath.
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Charlotte is lucky to have a recurring dance festival, and it is inspiring to see so many dancers on stage and in the audience who intend to keep the art form moving forward. The Festival moved smoothly and the Charlotte Ballet Center for Dance is a lovely space for performance as well as a prime downtown location. It was especially exciting to have such high caliber artists as Keigwin and Wolcott perform for one evening and inspiring to know that there are so many capable dancers in Charlotte and the surrounding regions.
