Archive for the 'Arts' Category

Reactions: Keeping Dance Alive 2010

April 8, 2010

I have been blown away by the reactions to our Irish dance piece “Waiting for Conrad” at this year’s Keeping Dance Alive. People really seemed to enjoy it! But this just about takes the cake:

anonymous from “Tell It to the E-R” in the Chico Enterprise Record, 2 April 2010:

Irish dancers stole the show
Went to see “Keeping Dance Alive” at Laxson Auditorium and just wanted to say bravo to the Irish dancers. They were so wonderful they literally stole the show. Would love to see more of them. The hip-hop was also good. Have to say the rest of the performances were disappointing, but kudos to the Irish dancers and thank them for all the work they did to bring us such a delightful performance.

My reaction: !!!!!!!!!

To the anonymous caller: whoever you are, you are my new best friend. Thank you! I thought this year’s KDA was particularly good and I thought all the performances were really high quality, so this is amazing to hear. It’s true, we did work hard (and had fun doing it!) so thanks to Maria, Rose, Kelsey, Shannon and Abby for all their hard work!

Review: Keeping Dance Alive! 2010

March 11, 2010

The Chico Enterprise Record published a review of this year’s Keeping Dance Alive today, with the following snippet about my piece:

“Waiting for Conrad,” choreographed by Kate Spanos, was a delightful Irish step performance featuring six talented dancers, including Chico Community Ballet alumna Kelsey Wilson. The performers’ talent was so big that, despite their small number, they filled the stage with quick, light and lively dance.

You can read the full article here: Review: ‘Keeping Dance Alive!’ succeeds with lively performances.

Not mentioned in the article was my personal favorite, “Splatter,” which was a contemporary dance choreographed and performed by Cassie Johnston (a Chico Community Ballet alumna) and two other dancers from Vispo Dance of San Francisco. The strength and quality of movement that these dancer possessed was exquisite, and the long 9 minute piece only left me wanting more.

Congratulations to all the dancers!

Keeping Dance Alive! 2010

February 10, 2010

The annual dance showcase Keeping Dance Alive! is coming up in less than a month, so get your tickets now! This year I am choreographing a contemporary Irish dance piece called “Waiting for Conrad” (music by Shooglenifty, Venus in Tweeds, 1995) that will be performed by dancers from the community and from the Maria Oliver Academy of Irish Dance here in Chico (including myself!).

“Waiting for Conrad” is a contemporary Irish dance piece that emphasizes rhythm and attitude, taking the dance form beyond its focus on competition and athleticism while remaining true to its tradition. As a choreographer, I am aware of the history and influences of Irish dance: many different Irish dance styles contribute to the overall genre (including the old sean-nós style, modern competition style and the theatrical style seen in Riverdance) and Irish dance itself has influenced and been influenced by other percussive dance forms such as tap, flamenco and clogging.

In creating “Waiting for Conrad,” I have started from the traditional base of Irish dance technique that my dancers are familiar with, which is marked by footwork, rhythm and verticality, and have added an element of attitude and expression that is not frequently seen in Irish dance. I have borrowed some movements from tap dance that break the crossed-leg/turned-out foot positions of Irish dance and have incorporated some upper body movement that disrupts the vertical axis of the dancers. In addition, the movement of dancers across the floor creates a spatial map that is non-traditional in that geometric shapes are avoided. Paths have been determined through organic and somewhat random methods, similar to those frequently used in some contemporary dance forms, in contrast to the mathematical precision of traditional Irish céili dance.

Despite having broken a few basic rules of Irish dance in this piece, I have asked my dancers to maintain their best technique and to focus first and foremost on rhythm so that the dance is still undoubtedly Irish. But unlike the steps performed in the competitive realm of Irish dance in which my dancers train, “Waiting for Conrad” conveys a vague story that requires some attention paid to attitude through facial and upper body expression. This contemporary style of Irish dance is relatively new: it goes beyond our “old jigs and hornpipes” as well as transcends the virtuosic glitz of stage shows such as Riverdance, and aims instead for a more subdued exploration of technique and rhythm that may lend itself to more intellectual themes. Irish dance has come from the crossroads of rural Ireland to a new crossroads, where it is pushed to new boundaries of style and form.

Other acts include ballet, contemporary, modern, jazz, hip hop, and tribal belly dance. Don’t miss it–it’s going to be a great show!

Image from last year’s Keeping Dance Alive! 2009
Chaos Interne, choreographed by Chelsea Beights
(check it out: that’s my hand, third from the right, with my head right behind it!)

Show times:
Friday, 5 March 7:30 PM
Saturday, 6 March 2:00 PM and 7:30 PM
Laxson Auditorium, CSU Chico
$18 adult, $16 senior, $14 student/child
Order tickets now!

Rhythm Synesthesia in Irish Dance

December 22, 2008

I have said that I experience rhythm-induced synesthesia, but I’ve never been able to elaborate on this experience. In Irish dance, for me hornpipes are dark brown earthy colors, light jigs are bright green and yellow, slip jigs are purple and pink pastels, reels are bright primary colors (treble reels are the same, but with some black inky undertones), and treble jigs are uplifting blues and green.

I’ve never elaborated because I didn’t know if these colors were actually rhythm-induced, or if they were just my personal associations about how dance steps should be performed to these rhythms. For example, slip jigs are typically meant to be feminine, elegant, light and airy, so my pretty-pastel association makes sense.

However, the other day I was thinking about my set dances. All my hornpipe sets are typically dark browns, such as the Ace & Deuce of Pipering, the Roving Peddler, the Rambling Rake, etc. The Drunken Gauger is a treble jig, and is very light blue and green.

But my Piper, a hornpipe set that I dance at an uncommonly slow speed (73 bpm) is also light blues and greens. I also have another normal speed (~104 bpm) Piper that is dark brown and forest green, just like any other hornpipe. Then I remembered that when a hornpipe (4/4 or 2/4 time) is slowed down enough, it essentially becomes a jig (6/8), in that the multiples of 4, 6, and 8 will “meet” at some point. So this means that maybe these simple mathematics could explain the changing colors of the Piper, going from a brown hornpipe at speed 104 to a light green/blue treble jig at speed 73.

Of course, although this is pretty interesting and it is some compelling evidence, it still isn’t proof that I have rhythm-induced synesthesia. It is totally possible that since the choreographer of the slow Piper (Michael Ryan) was using a slower tempo, and therefore was choosing more jig-like steps, I came to associate the dance more with a treble jig than with a hornpipe. It isn’t that the choreography was originally styled for faster hornpipe, and I’m just doing those faster hornpipe steps to extremely slow music. The steps are actually even faster (physically, my feet are moving faster) than they would be in a hornpipe at speed 104, and the steps feel much more similar to treble jigs that I’ve danced.

My logic has circled back, so again, I’m back to the question as to whether my synesthesia is induced by the actual rhythm, or if it’s just an association that helps me perform the steps in a way that congruent with the music. Anyway, it’s food for thought, and definitely something to experiment with at some point.

Samhain 2008 in Chico, CA

November 26, 2008

Last month I performed with Maria Oliver and Oliver Wong at the Blue Room Theatre’s second annual Samhain celebration. I performed a solo Aoibhell the Fairy Queen, and Maria and Oliver and I danced a treble reel together, with live music provided by the brilliant Ha’Penny Bridge.

It was reviewed by The Orion!

Sound Play

November 2, 2008

Theatrical solo choreography by Kate Spanos for MA in Traditional Irish Dance Performance, University of Limerick. Performance at the Performing Arts Center at the University of Limerick on 27 November 2007.
Music is “The Eccentric” from “Troots” by Shooglenifty, with sound manipulation by John Greewood.

View all of my videos on YouTube

Soggy’s Slip Jig

Modern slip jig dance performance by Kate Spanos (choreography by Michael Ryan) for MA in Traditional Irish Dance Performance, University of Limerick. Performance at the Performing Arts Centre at the University of Limerick on 27 November 2007.
Music is “Soggy’s/Waterboogie” from “A Lovely Madness” by Beoga.

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Color Play at ASA 2008 (video)

October 15, 2008

Contemporary Irish dance choreography by Kate Spanos presented at the 7th Annual Conference of the American Synesthesia Association (ASA) (original blog post). Performed at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario on 28 September 2008.
Music is “Pulses” from Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians” with voice-over text by Kate Spanos.
More information about the ASA can be found at http://www.synesthesia.info.

View all of my videos on YouTube

Color Play at ASA 2008

September 30, 2008

Color Play (May 2008, Belltable Arts Center, Limerick, Ireland; photo by Maurice Gunning)

This weekend I presented at the 7th Annual National Conference of the American Synesthesia Association in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I performed a solo dance entitled “Color Play,” choreographed as part of my MA work at the University of Limerick. This choreography is the beginning of what I hope will become future research exploring synesthesia in dance, the language of dance, and dance perception and cognition.

Color Play (September 2008, McMaster University, Hamilton Ontario Canada; photo by Carter Jones)

Read a review of the performance by Amy Ione at the University of California, Berkeley.

Color Play (September 2008, McMaster University, Hamilton Ontario Canada; photo by Carter Jones)

“Color Play” is the second in a series of dances exploring dance perception, the first being “Sound Play,” which was created and performed in Fall 2007 at the University of Limerick. “Sound Play” is an Irish dance choreography that aims to create a visualization of space as a “ball” of sound that moves from corner to corner of the room through a surround-sound speaker system. The music is “The Eccentric” by Shooglenifty, with sound manipulation by John Greenwood.

Sound Play (November 2007, Irish World Music Academy, University of Limerick; photo by Maurice Gunning)

The abstract below describes a summary of the motivation for and the goals of “Color Play”. The dance is a contemporary choreography informed by Irish dance vocabulary, with music Music For 18 Musicians: Pulses (tracks 1 and 7) by Steve Reich and voice-over text by myself.

Kathleen A. Spanos, University of Limerick, Ireland
Color Play: Synesthesia in Irish Dance

Unlike other art forms dance is uniquely multi-sensory in that it exists in both space and time simultaneously, with a literal mixing of visual, auditory and kinesthetic stimuli in dance perception. This is particularly true in Irish dance, which is highly rhythmical and thus consists of an additional acoustic element. As an Irish step dancer I experience synesthesia in the form of colored movements and rhythms. I have created a choreography in which I deconstruct some Irish dance vocabulary by way of synesthesia and that is built around four basic movements, each of which is paired with a primary color.

In dance the basic units of movement are kinemes, morphokines and motifs, which in language translate to phonemes, morphemes and phrases. Dance is similar to language in that both communicate something by relying on our ability to understand the syntax of these basic elements. The “grammatical” rules of dance are applied to its minimal units so that we can understand the overall concept or symbol communicated by the dance. In dance perception a fusion of the senses is required to understand an overall concept and this is often referred to as a symbolization process. In my choreography, this process is illustrated through overt colored-movement associations.

For a select group of people, the basic components of language give rise to synesthetic experiences. Because dance is analogous to language in the sense that it can be broken down into minimal units it stands to reason that there can exist a form of synesthesia that similarly associates colors with dance elements. In my choreography I will demonstrate a practical analysis of colored-movement associations with the aim of elucidating the symbolization process involved in dance perception.

Color Play (May 2008, Belltable Arts Center, Limerick, Ireland; photo by Maurice Gunning)