catching up on a mindhole-blower: November 2009

[grandiva1968]

I had originally intended to write about this over two years ago, but I kept getting distracted.

Big surprise.



I hadn’t heard of Trey McIntyre or his dance company, so I was truly impressed.  Part of the surprise has to do with the company being based in Boise, Idaho, and generally never being larger than ten dancers at a time.

The company’s rehearsal director is a cute (but, alas, straight) bear cub, and the Artistic Director’s same-sex partner is the company’s executive director (as well as a dancer therein).  Even more impressive is that each dancer’s salary is individually underwritten by sponsors, rather than having some sort of corporate general endowment for the whole shebang.

I think I was half asleep and feeling very grimy when I got to the theater, but Astrud Gilberto snapped me to life like she never has.  Rapt attention might be an understatement.

Click to view

As prone as I am to turn up my nose at dance companies that aren’t based in The City, Trey McIntyre is someone who could convince me that the flyover states can easily be as fertile grounds for astounding creativity, even for snobbish assholes like me.

At the same time, there's a sadness that I get with TMP that I also fall into with Jones/Zane; because pieces are tied to particular groupings of dancers, they tend to roll out of the company’s repertoire when the dancers leave.  All but one of the pieces I saw in 2009 have been taken out of the repertory.  In a sense this is likely a good thing, because it keeps things moving forward creatively, but for me personally, I find myself feeling a little cheated in not getting to see growth in both company and choreographer.