Dilip Barman
By Dilip Barman
Another season of American Dance Festival has come and gone. My travel precluded my attending as many shows as I usually do, but I did get to go to several including performances that I will remember for years to come.
I was there for opening night in mid-June, Ballet Hispanico, as well as for the second and third performers that and the next week, Hung Dance and Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE. After that I could only catch shows in the last week of the season, the last week of July, which included Radical System Art, Paul Taylor Dance Company, and ShaLeigh Dance Works.
What were most memorable for me were Hung Dance, Radical System Art, and ShaLeigh Dance Works. Hung Dance (from their website hungdance.com: “Dance is the art of resisting reality”) from Taiwan performed a stunning 1-piece 1-hour performance. Exploring the notions of freedom and flight, the dancers had long pheasant feather-like headpieces effectively elongating their spines through their headgear and producing an elegant and imposing effect on the audience.
Radical System Art presented a thought-provoking piece called MOI – Momentum of Isolation. Through a series of interconnected dance skits, they explored how technology and digital devices build increasing social isolation. Through cleverly artificial interactions such as between a dancer and a strangely animate chest of drawers or dancers unable to demonstrate emotion, the dancers bring the viewer face to face with the slowly creeping digital world that in some ways entraps us and divorces us from true emotion. What we do about it – if anything – of course remains up to us.
I saw ShaLeigh Dance Works perform a few years ago where they explored dance for those with limited or no vision. The audience was blindfolded and yet through their creative movement that included suitcases dragging for the impression of an airport, water spraying for feelings of touch, and more, we could enjoy and appreciate the dance. This year their “enVISION: The Next Chapter” continued with half the audience blindfolded and the other half with ear plugs. As their program notes ask, “Can we listen to what we see? Can we see what we hear?”
The dance was uniquely impactful to say nothing of its educating the audience about differently-abled perceptions of the world around us. My teenage daughter exclaimed that this was her favorite ADF performance!
I could write pages on each of the performers. I loved the lighting, set design, deep red “House of Mad’moiselle”, and more of Ballet Hispanico; the stirring music (including music by artists like Tito Puente, Fela Kuti, and Stevie Wonder) and use of community dancers by Ronald K. Broen; and the strong base in classical ballet of Paul Taylor.
We are lucky to have ADF, the country’s largest contemporary dance festival, in the Carolinas. There are a few more post-season dances coming up in September and October.
I recommend keeping an eye on americandancefestival.org for details on these and, in 2025, news about next year’s season. If you haven’t experienced contemporary dance, it’s a treat with a broad net that can inspire and thrill.
If you have seen contemporary dance – well, you know it’s draw, so bring friends in summer 2025 to ADF!
Dilip Barman is a lover of culture and teacher of math and vegan food/nutrition teacher. Check out his monthly show somanycooks.com. Contact: dilip@trianglemathinstitute.com
