The Arthropologist

Your guide to National Dance Week: From the Salad maker to the Ahn Trio to Japandisaster relief

Artists of Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, New York, performing "Temptation of theMuses," choroegraphed by Nai-Ni Chen
Photo by Carol Rosegg
Alisa Mittin in CORE Performance Company's "In the Mood," free on April 29,World Dance Day, at Miller Outdoor Theatre
Photo by Mark Teague
Thang Dao
Photo by Eric Livey
Bridgett Zehr and Zdenek Konvalina of National Ballet of Canada performing"Impromtu," choroegraphed by Derek Deane.
Artist of Eastman, Antwerp, Belgium, performing "Faun," choroegraphed by SidiLarbi Cherkaoui
Photo by Hugo Glendinning
Ballet Ausin II in Thang Dao's "Quiet Imprint"
Photo by Anne Marie Bloodgood
Artists of Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, New York, performing "Temptation of theMuses," choroegraphed by Nai-Ni Chen
Photo by Carol Rosegg
"Madame Butterfly" choreographed by Stanton Welch with artists Sara Webb and IanCasady
Photo by Jim Caldwell

Dance is its own planet. National Dance Week, leading up to World Dance Day on April 29, seems a fitting time to honor some of its prize citizens making a difference in the global community — many who just happen to have shows coming up this week.

Here they are: Thang Dao, with Ballet Austin II and the Vietnamese Culture & Science Association (VCSA) in Quiet Imprint on Saturday at The Hobby Center; Nancy Henderek of the Dance Salad Festival, Thursday through Saturday, at Cullen Theater Wortham Center; and Nao Kusuzaki and her colleagues at Houston Ballet and the Japan-America Society of Houston in Dancing for Hope, a benefit for Japan, Thursday night at The Hobby Center.

International dance right at your door

Whenever international dance people find out that I live in Houston, their first question is, "Do you know Nancy Henderek?"

The global curator of the Dance Salad Festival has been putting Houston on the world dance map for the past 16 years. She has some delicious delights up her international sleeve with a return of one of my favorite choreographers, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, along with an impressive list of rarely-seen-in-Houston troupes.

I appreciate the way Henderek puts her support behind rising choreographers, giving us a chance to see how they are developing. With Cherkaoui's third appearance on the Salad, he's now a force of nature dance maker on the scene.

The same holds true for Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, who made her U.S. debut as a choreographer in 2006 with her powerful duet, One, created especially for Jacoby & Pronk, who also made their company debut. Expect a strong Asian contingent too, with Beijing Dance/LDTX and Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company performing with the accomplished Ahn Trio, who were just on the SPA stage earlier this year.

After a few years of highlighting mostly male choreographers, this year's bill is a boon for women dance makers, and includes Ochoa, Masa Kolar, Jasmin Vardimon, Ma Bo, Nai-Ni Chen and Oksana Titova. Henderek often includes a nod to Houston's dance history, and this year is no different with National Ballet of Canada principals and former Houston Ballet dancers Bridgett Zehr and Zdenek Konvalina returning to perform Derek Deane's romantic duet, Impromptu. I know the city welcomes these two favorite dancers back.

A Houston Ballet soloist rallies her troupe

I met with Kusuzaki and Connor Walsh two weeks ago in the Center for Dance's swanky new dancers' lounge to hear about "Dancing for Hope, A Japan Relief Fund," a fundraising event that came together in record time.

"Growing up in Japan, and having my entire family as well as many close friends on the island, this recent disaster hit me close to my heart," said Kusuzaki, who is from Ehime, Japan. She quickly teamed up with Shizu Yasuda, of Ad Deum Dance Company, who are also performing in the show.

"Helplessness overwhelmed me initially, which turned into a realization that there is always a way to make a difference," Kusuzaki says.

She joined forces with the Japan-America Society of Houston, with additional help from the Japanese Association of Greater Houston and assumed the role of artistic event coordinator, something she has never done before. She convinced 21 fellow company members, including several principals, to participate.

In no time, Kusuzaki came up with program (with some advice from her HB colleagues), which includes excerpts from Christopher Bruce's Hush, Le Corsaire, La Bayadere and Stanton Welch's Mediaeval Baebes and Madame Butterfly, to name a few. Rehearsals and planning took place on days off and down time. This is one industrious and disciplined tribe.

Welch is completely behind the project, giving the team full access to his ballets and rehearsal space.

“I am very proud to have so many of Houston Ballet’s dancers pull together and take part in a relief benefit for Japan. Houston Ballet feels personally connected, since we have numerous Japanese professional dancers and academy students. Fortunately, all their families were safe and sound after the disaster,” Welch said. “The Japanese culture is so very rich, deep, and has inspired me as a choreographer many times and in many ways.

"I am glad that a part of Madame Butterfly can be included on this important occasion."

Kusuzaki will be dancing Welch's breathtaking pas de deux from Butterfly. The evening also includes Otro Portal, danced and choreographed by Houston contemporary choreographer Paola Georgudis.

Telling the story of the Vietnamese Diaspora through dance

Dance can be a way of telling your story. That's one of the things New York choreographer Dao found out when he embarked on creating Quiet Imprint for Ballet Ausin II.

"My mother never talked about her history," said Dao, who spent the first six months of his life in a prison in Danang, Vietnam.

Trained at The Juilliard School, Boston Conservatory and New York University, Dao made Texas headlines when he was selected for Ballet Austin's New American Talent contest. He went on to win the Audience Award all four nights. When Ballet Austin artistic director Stephen Mills and associate director Michelle Martin invited the rising choreographer to create a work on Ballet Austin II, Dao considered a dance based on his heritage, but then told Martin he wasn't quite ready.

"You are ready," Martin replied back. After numerous interviews with several Houston members of the Vietnamese community, Quiet Imprint took shape.

Set to songs by Trinh Cong Son, sung by the legendary Vietnamese singer Khanh Ly, the ballet comes to life through the music Dao grew up hearing. Getting the iconic singer aboard was not easy.

"A ballet? I don't know if I'm the right person," she told the young choreographer. "I know you are the right singer," he replied back, with enough passion in his voice to change her mind.

Dao played dramaturg with the Ballet Austin II dancers as they immersed themselves in the interviews to better embody these stories.

"The more I learn about these individuals, their living history, the more I was able to shape the narrative in each song vignette," Dao said. "Their stories became the framework for how I would craft each dance using distinctive movements particular to the narrative and gave emotional texture that drove the direction of the choreography."

Dao heads up the Thang Dao Dance Company in New York. He received a 2008 Princess Grace Award and a 2009 Special Projects Grant to develop Quiet Imprint. The VSCA joined forces with Ballet Austin II to present this show as part of their cultural programing. A strong showing of the community showed up to the Kim Son Ballroom two weeks ago to meet Dao and Martin in person, and hear his moving tale of creating a dance based on the stories of many people in that very room.

Dao's ballet has a dual focus: To find out more about his own origins, and to share his art form with his parents. He has succeeded at both.

If your dance card is still not full, can I suggest Houston Ballet Academy Showcase, on April 29 & 30, Core Performance Company's In the Mood... for Dance at Miller Outdoor Theatre, on April 29, or Between the Lines at UH's School of Theatre & Dance, April 29-May 1, or The Thank You Bar at DiverseWorks, April 28-30.

There's more, don't you know it, as Houston celebrates National Dance Week Lone Star style all month.

Thang Dao and Ballet Austin II in Quiet Imprint

National Ballet of Canada principals Bridgett Zehr and Zdenek Konvalina are simply gorgeous in this pas de deux

An excerpt of Stanton Welch's haunting Mediæval Bæbes is on the Dancing for Hope Program

unspecified

Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

---

Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

movies film