The Arthropologist

Does anyone stay in Houston for the summer? Performers plan "dancecations" infaraway places

Artists of the Houston Metropolitan Dance Company performing Air at the JacobPillow Dance Festival
Domenico Luciano and Hana Sakai in Dominic Walsh's Camille Claudel at the AspenFringe Festival
Photo by Gabriella Nissen
A scene from the Houston Ballet's production of Tu Tu, with Joseph Walsh anddKarina Gonzalez
Photo by Ron McKinney/Art Institute of Houston North
Connor Walsh and Sara Webb in the Houston Ballet's production of The Night,choreographed by Jerome Robbins
Photo by Amitava Sarkar
The Houston Metropolitan Dance Company will perform Stand Back by KateSkarpetowska on the Inside/Out Stage at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival.
Photo by Ben Doyle/Runaway Productions

Bring on the dancecations. Houston dance folk are on the move, taking off to parts East, West, to the mountains and across oceans.

Getting out of town is not just a break from Houston's swelter, but a big career boost. There's nothing quite like getting a reputation outside of your home zip code. Artists also have the potential to make Houston look good in the process. Take a look at the bounty of dancers, choreographers and companies taking impressive summer journeys.

On Thursday, Urban Souls Dance Company lights up the Ailey Citigroup Theater in New York City with The Skin I'm In, along with New York's Keen Dance Theater.

"To be recognized outside of our hometown is always a perk, and we hope to be considered a cultural ambassador for Houston's growing art scene," says Walsh.

On the same night, Dominic Walsh Dance Theater (DWDT) performs at the Aspen Fringe Festival, where Walsh won "best choreographer" for Clamille Claudel.

"To be recognized outside of our hometown is always a perk, and we hope to be considered a cultural ambassador for Houston's growing art scene, bringing a unique sense of edge and class to the landscape," says Walsh. "The dance theater work is already deepening through the interpretations of the dancers, and through this opportunity for me to tweak a few things here and there."

Often a summer traveler, Walsh heads to Salerno, Italy, then to Japan to remount A Bientot on Asami Maki Ballet Tokyo.

DWDT dancer Domenico Luciano will also be guesting at Post-Ballet, a new contemporary dance company in San Francisco.

Vault artistic director Amy Ell wraps up teaching at the Irish Aerial Dance Festival this week. Ell, a frequent traveler, is in demand all over the world for her savvy sky skills. Ell taught Gyrokinesis for aerialists, fabric/hammock, lyra, Thai massage, and injury prevention.

"I love it over here, especially the kindness of the people and the warmth of the staff and students," she says. "Students are international, from the US, Norway, France, UK and many locals."

Randall Flinn's whirlwind teaching schedule at Ad Deum Dance Company takes him to Switzerland in August, while Andy Noble of NobleMotion Dance is at Florida State University teaching and choreographing. Former American Ballet Theatre (ABT) dancer Robert Underwood flies to Sochi, Russia, today to observe an intensive at the invitation of Ekaterina Tchelkanova, his ABT colleague.

"Alla Osipenko, Irina Trofimova, and Ludmilla Safranova are teaching. Trofimova is the last teacher trained by Vaganova, herself," explains Underwood, owner of Robert Underwood's Studio of Dance.

The pièce de résistance summer gig is The Houston Met scoring a slot on the coveted Inside/Out stage at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. This is a great honor for any rising dance company, and not easy to get. The famous outdoor stage is a stepping stone to bigger things. Plus, crowds of hundreds show up to see these free early evening shows.

Suchu Dance was the last Houston dance company to perform there and they have the mug to prove it. (Their adorable dancing mugs are in fact on one of the Jacob's Pillow coffee mugs.)

For Doyle, it's a bit of a homecoming. "Growing up in Massachusetts, Jacob's Pillow was a place I always knew about, and visited as a child. Now that I'm the artistic director, I have always wanted to return to perform. It was one of my goals this past year to have the company travel and perform more, and Jacob's Pillow was one of my top festivals that I was looking at," says Doyle.

"After being accepted, I was ecstatic to be given the opportunity to perform in a place with so much history, while bringing a little bit of Houston back to the area I grew up dancing. This performance will be special to me personally because my family, friends and colleges who can't travel to Texas to see the company will be in attendance."

Not everyone is traveling to perform. At the Dance/USA conference in San Francisco, June 27-30, Dance Advantage founder and web maven Nichelle Strzepek is presenting on The Blogosphere: Writing about and For Dance panel. Houston Ballet's marketing director Andrew Edmunson presents on the Arts Marketing in the digital Age panel. Frame Dance's artistic director Lydia Hance and Doyle will be mentees of a new program, while C.C. Conner will serve as a mentor. That's a whole lotta Houston making a strong presence at the field's most important national gathering.

Houston Ballet goes on hiatus this week, but that doesn't mean a handful of them aren't still sharing their talents with the world. Sara Webb and Connor Walsh head to Tokyo, dancing Manon on June 24 & 26. Joseph Walsh and Karina Gonzalez will perform pas de deux from Madame Butterfly and Sleeping Beauty in Malaysia on July 14-15. Nao Kususaki and Charles-Louis Yoshiyama travel home to Japan to perform the lead roles in Giselle on July 14.

Even Houston Ballet chief Stanton Welch gets to spread his wings. He's off teaching in London at The Royal Ballet School. Later this summer, he premieres a new piece on the Joffrey Ballet at the Pillow, Aug 22-26. Yep, I'll be there to see it. Stay tuned to this space for the details, because I have a great dancecation planned myself.

Connor Walsh and Karina Gonzalez hit the international road this summer. Enjoy their performance in Jorma Elo's ONE/end/One.

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Movie Review

Over-the-top thriller The Housemaid revels in camp, chaos, and excess

Photo courtesy of Lionsgate

Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney in The Housemaid.

Both Amanda Seyfried (the upcoming The Testament of Ann Lee) and Sydney Sweeney (Christy) are starring in movies with Oscar ambitions this year. By sheer coincidence, the two actors are also co-starring in The Housemaid, a thriller coming out within weeks of their more ambitious works, one that is likely to be seen by many more people than those prestige plays.

Sweeney is given top billing as Millie, a down-on-her-luck ex-convict looking to land any type of job so as not to break her parole. She finds a too-good-to-be-true lifeboat with Nina (Seyfried), who hires her to be a housemaid for her large house on Long Island, where she lives with her husband, Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), and daughter, Cecilia (Indiana Elle).

After a warm interview, Nina almost immediately becomes highly erratic, whipping back-and-forth between happy-go-lucky and rageful. It seems clear that Nina is suffering from mental health issues, as she’ll often accuse Millie of misplacing or stealing items that she didn’t take. Andrew, apparently used to Nina’s tirades, tries to protect Millie from the worst, something that grows increasingly difficult as Nina ups the ante.

Directed by Paul Feig (A Simple Favor) and adapted by Rebecca Sonnenshine from the bestselling book by Freida McFadden, the film is likely the trashiest mainstream movie to come out in 2025. The first half of the movie relies not on story but on moments as Nina embodies the word “hysterical” to an unbelievable extent. The resigned acceptance of the abuse by Millie, as well as the saintly patience of Andrew, make almost every scene laughable, as nobody seems to be acting anywhere close to how a person would normally react to such extreme situations.

The scenes and the performance of Seyfried are so over-the-top, in fact, that it’s clear that the filmmakers are in on the joke. It’s next to impossible not to have a little bit of fun while watching the actors react to outrageous incidents as if nothing is out of the ordinary. The worse Nina acts, the more Millie and Andrew retreat into their chosen roles, and the funnier the film becomes.

Fans of the book will know that the story changes course, eventually turning into a more stereotypical thriller that also has some relatively gnarly visuals to offer. But the trashiness continues, with Sweeney’s, um, assets repeatedly on display in both clothed and unclothed ways. The sex appeal of the R-rated movie makes it an outlier, as recent studio films have shied away from asking their big stars to disrobe completely.

Both Seyfried and Sweeney are far from their Oscar hopeful roles here. Seyfried is given free rein to act as brazenly as she pleases, and she takes full advantage of that ability. Sweeney seems to have been told to be much more reserved, and unfortunately that results in too many wooden line readings. Sklenar continues his breakout streak (It Ends with Us, Drop) with a role that allows him to show more range than either Seyfried or Sweeney.

The Housemaid is an unusual type of movie to be released at a time of year when most films are either those aiming for awards or more family-friendly fare. Despite its many flaws, it’s still an enjoyable watch that features a variety of crazy scenarios not typically seen in movies nowadays.

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The Housemaid is now playing in theaters.

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