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Dance By Elizabeth Schwyzer | Thu Jun 21, 2007 | 12:00pm

Summer Arts Dance Preview

For Santa Barbara dance lovers, fall is an exciting season. Out come the glossy brochures, calendars are consulted and seats reserved, and we proceed to measure out our year in world-class dance performances, ticket stubs, and post-show coffee spoons. Then summer arrives and the cultural calendar shifts, leaving us with a strange yearning for an evening at Campbell Hall. Luckily, summer is the season for more than just wearing your trousers rolled and walking upon the beach; it’s time to let your imagination linger by the sea, and shift your focus to the dance originating right here at home.

Dance By Laura Zelko | Thu May 31, 2007 | 12:00pm

On the Verge, presented by Santa Barbara Dance Alliance. At Marjorie Luke Theatre, Saturday, May 26.

Although it boasted fewer pieces than in recent years, the Santa Barbara Dance Alliance’s 2007 On the Verge Teen Choreographers’ Showcase made up for its brevity in ingenuity, variety, and talent.

Dance By Elizabeth Schwyzer | Thu May 24, 2007 | 12:00pm

Teenage Powerhouse Jackie Rotman Spearheads Dance Program

In the blockbuster film Legally Blonde, the bubbly, vivacious heroine Elle Woods is every girl’s envy: viciously smart, outrageously cute, gutsy, and utterly unstoppable. Well, step aside, Elle-here comes Jackie Rotman.

Dance By Elizabeth Schwyzer | Thu May 24, 2007 | 12:00pm

Compa±-a Nacional de Danza 2. At UCSB’s Campbell Hall.

The 14 dancers of Compa±-a Nacional de Danza 2 (CND2), ages 18-21, are extraordinary movers-no doubt about it. Their supple, streamlined bodies effortlessly wrap around even the most demanding technique. And yet, there was something profoundly missing in much of their dancing, something that comes only with age or prodigious maturity. It isn’t easy to say exactly what that missing quality looks like.

Dance By Elizabeth Schwyzer | Thu May 17, 2007 | 12:00pm

New Works and Works in Progress at UCSB’s Ballet Studio

For most professional dancers with full-time contracts, finding time to choreograph is close to impossible. Dancers interested in making their own work often have to give up coveted jobs in order to do so, or else wait until their bodies give out on them.

Dance By Felicia M. Tomasko | Thu May 17, 2007 | 11:59am

3 Reasons to Dance with SonneBlauma

SonneBlauma Danscz Theatre is a group of creative dancers and choreographers, facilitated by artist Misa Kelly. They’ve premiered pieces at the Dance Alliance’s New Works, dazzled crowds at the Monterey Dance Festival, and stopped pedestrians and passersby with their performances in parks. SonneBlauma is presenting its next work in an open studio showing at the Montecito School of Ballet on Sunday, May 20. Call (908) 569-0389 to reserve an audience spot or see sonneblauma.com. Here’s why it’ll be worth your while.

Dance By Felicia M. Tomasko | Thu May 10, 2007 | 12:00pm

Levels of Heat II, presented by Fusion Dance Company.

Kara Stewart and Cynthia Norton, director and assistant director of the Fusion Dance Company, created an emotionally evocative evening of performance. The company’s name is inspired by Stewart’s interest in fusing different dance styles and techniques, among them ballet, jazz, lyrical, modern, hip-hop, Afro-Brazilian, and tango, and the playful fusion was a joy to watch. The dancers creatively and eloquently expressed the mood of each piece, from the sensual to the playful to the profound.

Dance By Elizabeth Schwyzer | Thu May 10, 2007 | 12:00pm

CND2: The Elite Training Team for Spain’s Compa±-a Nacional de Danza

France has the Paris Opera Ballet, and Russia has the Mariinsky Ballet Company, which was formerly the Kirov. America has New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, and Holland has the renowned Netherlands Dance Theatre (NDT). But until the late 20th century, Spain had no national ballet company. Although classical ballet was studied in Spain, it was an imported art form-and far less popular than the flamenco, or the sevillanas, the fandango, and the paso doble.

Dance By Charles Donelan | Thu Apr 26, 2007 | 12:00pm

Da Brahms

At the opening of Camerata Pacifica’s April concert, Adrian Spence assured the audience that there would be no difficult music on the program, just lots of “vacuous virtuosity.” The musicians then played Cafe Concertino by the Australian composer Carl Vine, a work for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, and piano that is based on a formidably intricate scheme for creating tonal ambiguity-just the kind of academic exercise Spence claimed to have foresworn.

Dance By Elizabeth Schwyzer | Thu Apr 26, 2007 | 12:00pm

Double Points: Nero, At UCSB’s Campbell Hall.

In Double Points: Nero, things are never quite what they seem. A woman seems to dance alone, when in fact her every move is mirrored by a figure obscured by smoke. Dancers make dramatic exits, only to reappear immediately. A quiet, tender solo ends abruptly, replaced by crashing electronic noise and anxious racing.

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