The Triangle
Nashville’s winter dance season will seem remarkably contemporary, with some of the world’s finest choreographers presenting a slew of new works and area premieres in a breathtaking variety of styles.
Social relevance seems to be on the minds of many of these artists. Banning Bouldin, artistic director of Nashville’s adventurous dance collective New Dialect, has created a work that explores the nexus between physical disability and opportunity. The internationally renowned Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will delve into the ramifications of racial inequality in America, while Nashville Ballet ponders the meaning of gender in the 21st century.
New Dialect’s performance of The Triangle, which runs Feb. 20-22 at OZ Arts Nashville, has its origins in great personal hardship. In November 2016, Bouldin began losing sensation in her arms and legs. She underwent a battery of tests, resulting in a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.
For one of the world’s foremost dancers, the onset of illness was life-altering. “I had to give up my career as a dancer, because I no longer had the ability to perform challenging works,” Bouldin tells the Scene. Sidelined from the stage, Bouldin focused on choreography, soon producing works of daring originality.
In particular, she created a set of dance etudes intended to challenge our perceptions of weakness and limitation. For these works, which eventually coalesced into The Triangle, Bouldin bound her dancers together with elastic straps. The straps were intended to convey a sense of tension, and the triangular shapes they made during rehearsals inspired the work’s title.
New Dialect’s OZ program will also include the Nashville premiere of Cuban-American choreographer Rosie Herrera’s Tropical Depression, a delightful cabaret that incorporates film and burlesque to celebrate Caribbean culture. Following its performance at OZ, New Dialect takes its program on a U.S. tour as part of South Art’s Momentum initiative. *
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which presents Ailey Revealed Feb. 28-29 at TPAC’s Jackson Hall, will perform three Nashville premieres along with a pair of beloved classics during its visit.
Ailey Revealed
Ailey founded his company in New York City in 1958 and began choreographing works that many in the dance world found revelatory. Indeed, his most famous work, Revelations — created in 1960 when Ailey was just 29 — broke ground with a mixture of modern and African dance set to spirituals, gospel and blues. The company will present Revelations at TPAC along with another Ailey classic, Cry, a work made famous by legendary dancer and choreographer Judith Jamison.
The company will also stage the Nashville premieres of Lazarus, a ballet by hip-hop choreographer Rennie Harris that explores racial inequality; The Call, Ronald Brown’s vibrant mix of modern and African dance; and EN, Jessica Lang’s Bessie Award-winning dance that ponders the inevitability of fate.
Nashville Ballet’s Attitude series, which runs Feb. 14-16 at TPAC’s Polk Theater, serves as a kind of dance laboratory, allowing choreographers to experiment with novel themes and new techniques. This year’s series, titled Other Voices, looks at gender in the 21st century from very different perspectives. Choreographer Jennifer Archibald, for instance, contemplates what it means to be a woman of color in America. Choreographer Erin Kouwe, meanwhile, surveys her own family’s history, considering the things women once couldn’t do.
Paul Vasterling, Nashville Ballet’s artistic director, found inspiration for this year’s program after reading a 2017 issue of National Geographic devoted entirely to the topic of gender. Vasterling tapped a group of choreographers — Archibald, Kouwe, Carlos Pons Guerra and Matthew Neenan — and asked them to create works that examine our changing ideas about gender.
“Our choreographers all drew on their own experiences,” Vasterling says. “And they produced some deeply expressive works.”
Update: New Dialect has opted to perform a different work by choreographer Rosie Herrera. Instead of Tropical Depression, the collective will now present the world premiere of new, still-untitled work..
