2023 SoloDuo Festival

Ten dance groups joined the Young Soon Kim Dance Company, celebrating works of young, mid career, and veteran choreographers in the SoloDuo Festival produced by White Wave at Dixon Place. Highlighting the evening was Amos Pinhasi’s Walking On Frost. Appearing in the center spotlight, a sleepwalker or a dreamlike ghost in a white nightshirt, expresses the soul of a man teetering on the precipice of life, death, and uncertainty in each moment.

He moves with folk dance-like steps, stomps and occasional small, sprightly hops, framed by graceful undulating arms to the music of Vivaldi and Purcell. This evolves into a more somber, foreboding section. Slow thoughtful lunges express resignation continued with walks to and from the edge of the light touching and questioning the unknown. Finally, arms thrust in the air punctuated by defiant fists, and he leaves the dream.

In Old Man Adagio to music by Penguin Cafe Orchestra (“Life Boat”), David Popalinsky and Michael Hazinski from Santa Clara University, elegantly portray two older men reminiscing on their careers, friendship, and longevity with humor, understanding, and poignancy. Dressed in pedestrian shirts and pants and seated in wheeled rotating desk chairs, they first dance with only their arms, depicting typical youthful male activities. Soon they wittily scoot forward in the chairs using only one lazy foot, eventually rising to convey years of body experience, knowledge, and love of the stage.

Maddie Burnett and Madeline Kuhlke of the New York based Alison Cooke Beatty Dance Company, presented Song of Thunder, a luscious duet. The two begin upstage, progressively attaching and detaching with pulls and pushes, developing into an aggressive confidence, eating up the stage with pure dance movement.

Robenson Mathurin and Kristi Ann Schopfer, in choreography by Winston Dynamite Brown and Latra Ann Wilson, seamlessly harmonized weight exchanges on the floor and in dynamic lifts. Jared Harbour, Georgia Greene and Xander Perone revealed their flawless technique in a lively cavort to In 3’s by the Beatie Boys.

Other respectable works on the program were performed by Heather Roffe/HR Dance, Dibble Dance, Emily Bufford’s choreography on Central CT. State University dancer Karis Bongiolatti, Bailey Seymour Dance, and Alyssa Myers and Aurora Vaughn.

Ending the evening, WHITE WAVE performed a sextet iyouuswe III and Section 8. This strong, energetic, compatible company showcased its continuing success and resilience, navigated by the indomitable Young Soon Kim.
EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Mary Seidman