STARR FOSTER DANCE:

Two Weekend Festival of Dance

What if, in one moment, you had changed your mind during your journey. And if so, how would that change affect the final outcome? – Introduction to Starr Foster’s Crave

A Dance Review by Julinda D. Lewis

At: The ConciliationLAB – The Basement, 300 East Broad Street, RVA 23219

Performances: April 1-3 and April 7-9, 2022

Ticket Prices: $10-$15

Info: www.starrfosterdance.org, www.facebook.com/starrfosterdance, Instagram/starrfosterdance

THE PROGRAM

Program A

Crave (2019)

Choreographed by Starrene Foster

Original Music by Billy Curry

Lighting Design by Michael Jarett

North Stage Performers: Fran Beaumont & Ana Pavón

South Stage Performers: Anna Branch & Lydia Ross

Program B

The Apology (2022)

Choreographed by Starrene Foster

Original Music by Daniel Deckelman

Lighting Design by Michael Jarett

Performed by Fran Beaumont, Ana Pavón, Keeley Hernández, and Lydia Ross

Bridge (Reworking of 2014 work)

Choreographed by Starrene Foster

Music by Camille Saint-Saëns: “Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso”

Lighting Design by Michael Jarett

Performed by Fran Beaumont, Ana Pavón, Keeley Hernández, and Lydia Ross

Over the course of two consecutive weekends Star Foster Dance presented a revival, a recent work, and a premiere in two separate programs at The Basement.

First up was Crave, a work unique for its staging. On entering the space, audience members receive a slip of paper with the word “North” or “South,” designating which side of the space to sit for the first half of the program. After intermission, the audience shifts to the other side.    

On each side, separated by a black curtain or screen, a pair of dancers explores a series of movements using the same choreography but different motivations fueled by the idea, What if? What if you changed your mind and followed a different path along your journey?

Crave premiered at The Basement three years ago, and I’ve had the opportunity to see it twice, once starting on the “North” side, and once starting on the “South” side. Amazingly, it is quite a different experience on each side and further, it is a different experience depending on which side you start on. A friend who saw the work for the first time voiced the opinion that the “South” side where we began seemed more aggressive or forceful, while others thought the opposite. I thought the interactions of one pair of dancers lingered more thoughtfully than their counterparts on the opposite side of the curtain. Seeing the piece more than once encourages the viewer to focus on the dancers’ use of weight and force, timing and accents. Whatever your personal take-away, Crave is undeniably immersive and engages the audience with both simplicity of movement and complexity of motive.

For the second weekend of performances Starr Foster Dance broke out the beautiful new work, The Apology, with an original score by Daniel Deckelman. A quartet performed by Fran Beaumont, Ana Pavón, Keeley Hernández, and Lydia Ross, The Apology is populated with large, expansive movement juxtaposed with delicate, precise phrases, as when Lydia Ross seems to pluck invisible hairs from the air. The dancers hug, lift, and support one another as we feel the tension in the music build up steadily and reach a crescendo and repeat in waves, interspersed with gentle palpitations and gently tinkling bell-like vibrations. The wave-like permutations fostered thoughts on the meaning of “apology.” There’s an admission of error, accompanied by an expression of regret, or a written or spoken defense, or even a poor or inadequate example, or some nuanced version of any of these. The dancers, clad in shades of red, might be seen to replicate the shades of passion –- or the letting of blood — that precede, accompany, or follow an apology.

Finally, there was Bridge, a humorous quartet that sets the four women around a card table   and watches how their friendship explodes or deteriorates. They attack the dance/the game with the ferocity of the dignitaries around Kurt Jooss’ Green Table. I don’t know if Foster was aware of a 2004 New York Times article about how men and women play bridge differently, but this is a hard-hitting, anything goes game. Forget the poker face; these four ladies, in their demure 1950s-style house dresses, grimace and give out the sly side eye; their faces are animated and don’t leave anything to the imagination.

The work is set to French Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso,” a work for violin and orchestra that often sounds like a dramatic waltz. The four dancers bang the table, slide under the table, lay across the table, walk, slide, and toss their chairs, and eventually build up to assaulting one another in various and sundry creative and mind-boggling ways – the viewer will never look at bridge or any other card game the same way, but they will look forward eagerly to the next Starr Foster Dance performance of Bridge.

Julinda D. Lewis is a dancer, teacher, and writer who was born in Brooklyn, NY and now lives in Eastern Henrico County.

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Photo Credits: Starr Foster Dance by Douglas Hayes. Rehearsal photo (dancers at the Bridge table) by Charlotte Bray.