Lights come up on eight dancers in leotards and shorts – looking ready for class but standing so attentively everyone in the room knows it’s time to shut up.  This gestural phrase echoes so mechanically in unison each dancer seems to have been shocked by the same energy force.  Their beautiful lines reach my seat instantaneously sending me into a deeper focus.  Quickly the phrase unravels into duets and trios and these manipulations unveil the strength a gesture can exude when paired with thoughtful accents. 

After this first piece the program features each dancer through a duet or trio astutely acknowledging and highlighting the strengths that make this unit earth-shatteringly beautiful as a whole.    Set within the limits of a city block, the piece works to showcase the differences between their public lives on this shared street and their private ones behind closed doors. 

This struggle or inner turmoil are best illuminated through the pieces set to "15 Step," a full company piece and "The Gloaming," a solo performed by Tommy Scrivens.

"15 Step" proves that dre.dance is never as good as when the members unite together.  While all prior pieces are rife with technique and soul, all the stops come out with aerial work, a conga line worth watching, and movement that travels briskly and perfectly from one side of the stage to the other in a game of epic movement telephone.  Members of dre.dance seem to feel each others pulse and spend the entire evening breathing from the same source and exalting it with breathtaking movement.  Working both together and apart with sprinkled solos, this piece reveals that the company is as in tune with one another as they are with themselves individually.

In "The Gloaming," Scrivens travels within a diagonal pool of light across the stage and never strays.  While his movement path is limited to this light, he seems to live the reverse of the saying ‘live for the light at the end of the tunnel.’  This light ends at the edge of the stage, and he combatively travels towards it as though the tunnel is just beyond it and he’s headed there no matter what.  With this limited directional passage, Scrivens manages to send surprise after surprise into the audience as he levitates towards the ceiling or dives under himself when you thought he would move forward.  Though dre.diohead in general is low on the technical spectrum, the lights flood the stage with green as the song and performance hit a major change and Scrivens leaps back towards the beginning of the light. 

This timing speaks to the timing and spatial orientation of all of the pieces and all of the company members.  Dre.dance navigates a volatile spectrum while still holding control over both the emotional and visceral actions of the company. To provide an alternative correlation from fast food:  if dre.dance were a drink they would be whiskey on the rocks.  No twists or garnishes or anything to subdue their flavor – just raw unadulterated dance so strong it barely needs a space to contain it.  

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by: Eileen Elizabeth
Performance: dre.diohead
Choreography:  dre.dance 
Venue: LPAC
Show Date: April 30, 2010
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Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre is a hot-off-the press dance company with choreographer, Samar Haddad King, creating dances about the pervading issues and conflicts of today’s world. King looks at the controversy that arises amongst groups with varying belief systems and what happens when these systems collide.  According to Ms. King, her goal is to “collaborate with artists across disciplines, cultural geographies, and physical borders with the intent to forge stimulating and transformative experiences for both audience and performer.”  The combination of the dramatic subject matter and the technical ability and experience of his dancers makes for an undeniable explosive combination.

The compelling and passionate duet, Al Bikr Adaptation (The firstborn), brings the audience into the world of Samar Haddad King.  Instead of her other works of the night which attempt to bridge cultural/religious gaps, this creation does not need to cross any boundaries.  The piece is about the universal tragedy of losing a child.  Dancers Josiah Guitian and Stephanie Sutherland passionately depict anguish and longing for their stillborn child.  They appear dependent on each other, but desperately want this painful period in their lives to be over.  Guitian and Sutherland are excellent partners, complementing each other’s athletic prowess with their acting skills.  The dancers are able to portray how a couple’s lack of communication ultimately leads to their downfall.

Kristen Osler portrays Penelope in this beautifully constructed solo with text by Samar Haddad King.  This is a narrative about regrets and wanting to change the past.  Penelope is the second piece of the evening that transcends cultural boundaries.  Everyone feels regrets about their past no matter where you come from.  Ms. Osler’s movements are so smooth that she appears to dance every single thought from the text.  The stream of consciousness fits perfectly with Osler’s languid movements.  Throughout the piece she is constantly taking on and off her shirt as a sort of symbolic way of exposing and hiding her soul.  Penelope is an intimate and dynamic glimpse in the mind of a woman coping with regrets.

Frozen Belief II closes out the night with performers Yukari Osaka, Kristen Osler, and Kathryn Baer Schetlick bearing all in this piece about individual faith and the interaction between different faiths.  The three women begin the piece with their backs to the audience. T hey are topless, kneeling in what appears to be sand.  They start throwing sand into the air from their baskets, creating a mesmerizing and almost mystical atmosphere.  They are each alone in their own faiths and belief systems, unaware of any other system.  The piece begins to progress as each dancer dons white flowing tunics and realizes that there are two other dancers next to her.  This realization is symbolic to the issues that arise when different belief systems come into contact with each other and how people deal with these differences.  The carefully crafted text interspersed throughout the piece is read in English, Hebrew, and Arabic.  The choice to use these languages helps create an effect of diverse cultural groups coming together and trying to reconcile differences.

Yaa Samar!  Dance Theatre is a intriguingly provocative and sincere dance force with a admirable goal of using dance to bridge cultural and religious divides.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Amanda Keller
Performance:  Yaa Samar!  Dance Theatre

Venue:  LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, NY
Performance Date:  Saturday, September 26, 2009
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YAA SAMAR! DANCE THEATRE TO OPEN SEASON AT LAGUARDIA PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

After the success of her residency last year at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Samar Haddad King and her company Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre have been invited back to open this year’s performance series alongside Mad About Dance and Dance Entropy on the prestigious main stage.

Featuring the evolution of the visually stunning piece Frozen Belief II– premiered in October 2006 at Joyce SoHo- which uses flour as a metaphor for faith; here King explores the relationship of three individuals’ to their own beliefs as well as how they perceive and relate to one another’s. Each character and their narrative is introduced through an intimate scene of solitary devotion, wherein the flour is used to other-worldly and mesmerizing effect. Though initially oblivious to one another’s presence, the dancers eventually come into contact with one another and with the flour that surrounds them, exploring the possibilities of what happens when different belief systems collide, and ultimately discovering their own true motivations for faith. Frozen Belief II is set to the music of Ayub Ogada and Mercan Dede.  The text, written by Samar Haddad King, is read in English, Arabic and Hebrew.

For further information on the company, please visit our website at www.yaasamardance.com.

TICKET INFORMATION: Tickets ($15 Advance, $20 at the door, $10 Students) are on sale through LaGuardia Performing Arts Center’s box office at:

https://www.choicesecure01.net/mainapp/eventschedule.aspx?clientid=laguardia
or 718.482.5151

GETTING TO LPAC:  The LaGuardia Performing Arts Center is located at 31-10 Thompson Avenue ten minutes from Grand Central Station. Take the 7 train to 33rd Street and walk two blocks westbound to Thompson Avenue and Van Dam Street.  You can also take the Via E, V & R Trains and get off at Queens Plaza Station. Exit the station at Jackson Avenue and Queens Boulevard exit and walk over the Queens Boulevard Bridge (over the Sunnyside train yards) until you reach the corner of Van Dam Street and Thomson Avenue.

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