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Every Wednesday Anthony Carter, 15, suits up for practice. He throws on a T-shirt and joins the other boys as they sweat through 90 minutes of complex combinations, draining jumps and — on a hard day — upward of 200 push-ups. Afterwards, they head to the barre to decompress and leave feeling focused, energized and confident. Continue reading
Burlesque is just stripping for hipsters, right? Or the kind of show to which Don Draper from Mad Men would take clients (performed at places with names like “The Boom Boom Room”)? Wrong. The truth of the matter is burlesque has a long and storied history, and while dance is vital to burlesque, the popular variety shows also feature comedy, live music and social commentary. Continue reading
There is perhaps no one better known in the local dance community than international dance visionary Alito Alessi. The Eugene-based dancer, teacher and artistic director for DanceAbility International created the Joint Forces Dance Company and DanceAbility — a globally renowned method that explores artistic expression between people with and without disabilities through movement — with his dance partner Karen Nelson in 1987. And, naturally for a dancer, he just can’t stay in one place. This spring, he was chosen as an “arts envoy” by the U.S. Continue reading
Lounging on the overstuffed chairs and couches of All That! Dance Company’s studio, Jordan Ross and twin brothers Coleman and Kaelen Byrum look like any clean-cut, athletic 18-year-olds. Only Ross’s I.C.U. Dance Crew T-shirt gives any indication that the guys might not be into just the usual track and football. Yet get them and the other two crew members, 18-year-olds Logan McGann and Aidan Ziegler-Hansen, on stage and there’s no mistaking that these guys are an award-winning hip-hop dance group. Continue reading
This year, Betty Waterhouse decided it was time to give competitive ballroom dancing a whirl. After a mere month and a half of training, she sashayed through the Emerald Ball, a competition held each May in Los Angeles that attracts over 15,000 participants, earning seven first-place titles in her age division. Continue reading
All That! Dance Company Ballet, jazz, tap, hip hop, ballroom www.allthatdancecompany.com Argentine Tango Practica Argentine tango 541-681-9681 / jackethanger@gmail.com Ballet Fantastique Ballet www.balletfantastique.org Ballet North West Academy Ballet 541-343-3914 / www.bnwa.net Celebration Belly Dance and Yoga Bollywood, Zumba, samba, capoeria, African, 40+ www.celebrationbellydanceandyoga.com Continue reading
A brilliant politician who would be king is brutally stabbed to death by a group of senators … right in the middle of Amazon Park? Now that’s drama. With daggers at the ready and poetry popping from their lips, it is time again for Shakespeare in the Park’s annual show. This year they take on the bloody, ever-relevant The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. I managed to fire off a few questions to Artistic Producing Director Sharon Se’love as she raced about in the final week before production. Continue reading
Irish playwright Martin McDonagh is a fecking, foul-mouthed arsehole with a shite attitude, but he sure is one hell of a writer. McDonagh’s plays, the earliest of which take place in rural Ireland, tend toward high satire in low settings. His dialogue, laced with profanity and steeped in dialect, is whip-smart and viciously funny, and he has a keen eye for the absurd. Continue reading
Oliver!, 1986: The Eugene mall is home to a popular summer theater program. Eric Millegan and Josh Daugherty are having a high time in their respective roles as Oliver and the Artful Dodger, dreaming of a life in the theater. Continue reading
On its surface, Les Misérables, the operatic adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel, can come across as a maudlin chain-yanker that nabs every low-hanging fruit it can reach, including issues of abject poverty, human degradation and the tragic death of a good-hearted prostitute. The show seems, in a way, beneath common dignity, if only because it strives so hard to achieve it. And because of this, people of high-aspiring intellect (snobs) tend to avoid Les Miz, ranking it on a level with Cats and other shitbird musicals by Andrew Lloyd Weber. Continue reading