Dance On Site Festival 2012

Next Reflex Dance Collective curated the Dance On Site Festival for a 3rd year. This year's festival was full of spontaneous and exciting dance that filled the streets around the Gallery Place Chinatown area of Washington DC. This two day festival featured work by Sandra Atkinson, Roxann Morgan Rowley, Erika Surma and a collective improvisation by the dancers of NRDC.

All the work transformed the spaces the work inhabited and made the viewer really stop and access the movement that was happening.

Sandra Atkinson's work "The Importance of Touch" filled the US Navy Memorial with fluid movement, the dancers audible reactions to each other and a beautiful violinist whose music complimented the dancers chaotic but organized web like pathways. Sucked into the dancers complete dedication to touching, reacting and resisting each other the audience succumbed to the idea of touch and relationship. Atkinson found a way of making us feel the dancers touch and possible agitations from being touched.

"Torque," seen in three different ways at Judiciary Square Park, blended into the surroundings and added a calming breeze to the site. The dancers movement was clear, concise and soft. Moving between giant concrete columns this work asked the audience to see different perspectives of the duets unison movement. Clad in white the dancers often blended into the serene green spaces but only for a brief moment before reappearing and spiraling into magnetic partnering resulting in soft slow orbits around each other.

Roxann Morgan Rowley's "Airing the Dirty Laundry" erupted in Judiciary Square Park transforming the space into an unsettling blur of quick movement, quick partnering and resulting in the dancers removing an outer layer of clothing. This piece offered a very different tone than Surma's work. The dancers frenetic movement created a sense of anxiety, and almost like a train wreck you wanted to look away but were drawn into what might happen next.

In "The Grid" NRDC shows a strong sense of working together as an ensemble. The improvisation of one dancer calling out coded commands to the rest worked well for the heavy trafficked sidewalk space in front of the Portrait Gallery. Dancers flung, worked through, weaved, twisted and leapt in varying directions, by solo, duet or trio through the "grid" of stationary dancers.

A person spontaneously happening on any of these performances couldn't help but take notice of these experimental site based works. What a treat to be downtown and find yourself in the middle of a dance. Begs the question are you suddenly part of the piece? Look forward to Dance On Site 2013.

Places in Space” is a site-specific based project derived of work created for the stage while observing the essence of the place in which it originated. The performance will transcend the choreographers’ experiences within a specific place and time to the stage where the audience can delve deep into the moment with the choreographer and the performers. All represented places are from outdoor locations from anywhere around the world. Explored locations include Venice and the Piedmont region of northern Italy and Old Rag Mountain in Virginia.

Each choreographer is developing a theme through exploration/improvisation. What the choreographer chooses to bring to the space or how the choreographer chooses to use the space has no limits. Choreographers are bringing these places into the space through movement, voice, and technology.

Collaborating choreographers are Roxann Morgan Rowley & Erika Surma, Artistic Directors of Next Reflex Dance Collective, Sharon Mansur, Director of mansurdance and Assistant Professor of Dance at The University of Maryland, College Park, Michele Dunleavy, Assistant Professor of Dance at Penn State University and Dahlia Nayar, Director of Dahlia Nayar Choreography.

We have created a goal of $2,000, in which these funds will go to paying the collaborating choreographers. The project has a total fundraising goal of $5,000, so this is just a start. Once we have hit the $2,000 mark, the donations do not need to stop. Keep in mind that if we don't raise $2,000, WE DON'T GET ANYTHING! To learn more about each specific work, read below:


Choreographer: Erika Surma

Project #1, titled “Boundary,” exploration took place in Asti, Italy, within the hills and vineyards of the Piedmont region. The movement captured of the solo dancer in the foggy hills had a sense of serenity and quietness but confinement and limitations prevailed in the end due to the limited space on a bench which the soloist chose as her platform. Furthermore, the bench was placed adjacent to an old church which assisted in motivating the performer; illuminating serenity, quietness, and spirituality as well as confinement and limitations. The piece will be performed by six dancers and the original scene will be recreated through use of a fog machine, lighting specials, and sounds of bells. The accompanying music includes three tracks from the “Sleuth” soundtrack by composer Patrick Doyle.

Project #2, untitled, exploration took place around Lake Braddock in Burke, VA amongst the trees, around the water and along a hill. Seven dancers improvised with the ideas of pushing and pulling, falling away, soft contact and reflection. During the rehearsal process, the sense of gravity taking control has come to the forefront of the work. This piece will toy with using the performance space in a non-traditional manner by using areas other than the stage space for parts of the performance. The piece will be performed by six dancers and the accompanying music is composed by Max Richter and Marsen Jules.



Choreographer: Dahlia Nayar

Project #1: title TBD. This piece involves a triptych film backdrop, projecting four gondolas docked at the shores of Venice during the rainy season(aqua alta). Two duets emerge drawing inspiration from the movement of the boats and the setting, exploring themes of buoyancy, romance and nostalgia. For 3-4 dancers.

Project #2: title TBD The triptych backdrop shifts to project scenes from a Japanese garden. Three or four dancers move through the gardens, arriving at a bamboo fountain that fills with water, reaches a tipping point and slaps a stone. The movement explores this tipping point, improvising on physical and metaphorical themes of balance, extension, fluidity.



Choreographer: Michele Dunleavy

Untitled: Inspired by multiple moonlight hikes of Old Rag Mountain, this piece aims to capture the beauty and magic of this extraordinary natural resource while attempting to simulate the kinesthetic experience of hiking through movement, lighting, and sound. The movement vocabulary will draw upon the choreographer’s experience in contemporary, tap, and theatrical dance forms with an emphasis on rhythm and athleticism. Audio recordings of actual hikes will provide the foundation for the work, and will be used to create a soundscape for the performance.


Choreographer: Roxann Morgan Rowley

Project #1: 
"Two Women, Four rocks" ( working title) started by using photos of one of the houses on the locks off the Potomac in MD. Each of these houses have outdoor porches . Through various pictures taken of the porch in collaboration with the dancers we have explored many of the various textures and tones that the space evokes. The porch has the feeling of being worn, paint chipping, dirt and dust settling, old posts and door. After looking closely at the photos we noticed two rocks in the corner of the porch so then explored choreography using rocks. The project is evolving and is delving further into the use of improvisation, using rocks as a sound score and live music.




Project #2 A quartet of women that will explore pieces of the Potomac River. This piece though not fully formed yet will look at various pieces of what a river evokes from people; Baptism, lulling to sleep as a lullaby, the rough and tumble nature of the river and the peaceful surroundings.


Choreographer: Sharon Mansur

This project, untitled, is directed by dance artist Sharon Mansur with visual artist/architect Ronit Eisenbach and will consist a solo performer within a visual environment integrated into the Dance Place building. This project will reflect research and reactions to various sites in Reston, VA, including Lake Anne Plaza and Reston Town Square Park. This will be the first in a series of collaborative performance/installations that will culminate in a site specific performance/art work in Fall 2012, presented by the Reston Community Center.

en Route! 2009 in Richmond VA

Next Reflex Dance Collective traveled down the highway 2 hours away to Richmond, VA on March 22 to produce the third year of En Route! A traveling Dance Project. Four artists from the Richmond area shared their work in a successful and diverse show at the Grace Street Theater.
The performance opened with a new work by one of NRDC's artistic directors , Erika Surma, called "Even Tide." The movements eb and flow carried the dancers limbs in the tide. The piece opened on two dancers gentle manipulation of sheer blue fabric . The choreography brought us from high tide to ocean storm to the gentle lapping of the waves against the rocks.
Megan Harrold a promising choreographer in the Richmond area, presented " yxyxy" a solo that is short but beautiful. The two minutes that we listen to the Inuit vocals we are captivated by the dancers raw emotional movement. Costumed in a long gown and restricted to the rectangular taped box on the ground she embodies the guttural voices.
""...a notorious absence of rigor," (H)e said." closed the first half of the show. danahbella has a true gift for bodies in space. Her movement like silk she makes falling to the floor look so seamless. Four dancers dressed in pants, dress shirts and men's ties throw themselves through space and yet there is something very business about the choreography. Through the large movements we become involved in the small gestures that poke through .
The second half of the performance opens with "Work Out" a wonderful light piece choreographed by Kaye Weinstein Gary from Richmond. The three dancers have amazing physiques and show us how to use them, doing more push ups than I ever wish to do on stage. Kaye tells us stories about her day, what she had for breakfast, that protein shake, and helps a dancer not commit suicide by pleading with her not to blame the workout for her life. The choreography is funny and brought the audience in for a ride, forced without hesitation to participate by working out in their seats.
Nadine Azoulay is a young choreographer from Richmond and danced a beautiful contemporary ballet solo called "barre." Using two ballet barres as props Nadine twists, swings balances and uses every part of her body on the barres, a no-no in any ballet class. The piece is beautiful in that it's non traditional approach to point work and partnering.
"Frayed" a piece choreographed by NRDC's other artistic director Roxann Morgan Rowley closed the concert. Dancers donned in white wedding dresses perform a tragic piece that ends with a jump to the front of the stage. Each dancer appears to be troubled by an incident in their life and pleads to tell their story. The stark lighting creates an dramatic environment for the choreography and the audience feels the music tug at their emotions as the dancers finally jump to their death.
Overall a lovely performance. Next Reflex Dance Collective hopes to collaborate again next spring with choreographers in Richmond, VA.

Next Reflex Dance Collective at the Kennedy Center

The Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage presented Next Reflex Dance Collective in an evening of modern dance on Thursday, February 12th at 6pm. NRDC premiered two works by Artistic Director’s Roxann Morgan Rowley and Erika Surma, as well as two works from the company repertory.

Conversations (premiered in 2008), choreographed by Roxann Morgan Rowley and Erika Surma is a collaboration representing the varying, spontaneous human interactions which can occur at a specific place and time. The first section is an improvised solo which is accompanied by a projection of the improvising soloist in the fall leaves of Burke Lake Park in Virginia. Her lone experience with her present and past self serves as a memory and reaction of what once took place. The second section is a series of duets constantly entering and exiting on a path while in improvised conversation. The duets are representative of the random couples which passed by during the choreographers’ study of human activity in the park. Each pair converses with their own distinguishing traits, separating them from the other pairs. In the third section, the dancers are moving snapshots. Random family photos which were taken that day in the park became the impetus for the choreography of this final section.

Eventide, choreographed by Erika Surma represents the waves of the ocean as they move in and out quietly on a gulf shore. The waves become more rigorous as a storm moves in, and as it eventually moves on, the waves settle to begin another day. Eventide incorporates a large, flowing piece of fabric which the dancers twist and turn within, creating a more literal sense of ocean waves.

Frayed, choreographed by Roxann Morgan Rowley moves through five womens struggle for peace in a chaotic world. Loosely taken from the true story of Dorothy Hale, a socialite that committed suicide in the 30s, the women throw themselves into their agitated environment and then support each other walking to an absent eternity.

Idee-Fixe (premiered in 2006), choreographed by Erika Surma is an intricate and quirky solo which exemplifies the small obsessions that surface through certain aspects of one's life, and how those obsessions are dealt with. Idee-Fixe is being performed by Guest Artist Kate Jordan.

If you missed it check out the performance here. www.kennedy-center.org