Historical April 1984 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
“Spellbinding . polished . . . lively, inventive movements peppered with slightly wacky humor . .. intelligent and articulate.” It is obvious that among New Art enthusiasts Off Track Dancers maintains an enviable reputation. Among other circles, however. even the name seems obscure. What. once and for all, is Off Track Dancers?
For starters, it is a non-profit professional performing dance company founded by Cynthia Kahn, Andrea Lebovitz, and Anne Patz in 1976. and dedicated to developing the young and rapidly changing art form known as New Dance.
As St. Louis’ only dance company developing New Dance, there is plenty to set Off Track apart from what other area dance companies are doing.
The dancers are acknowledged masters of improvisational dance. Globe-Democrat dance critic Jim Wierzbicki points out that improvisation is tricky business: “Besides the struetural problems common to improvisation in all media, improvisation in dance can be physically dangerous no matter how much a specific vocabulary of movement is rehearsed.. .. Yet, improvisational dance needs a certain speed of execution, a momentum, if it is to project the sought-after feeling of spontaneity.
In a successful performance the risk taking is real, not contrived, and it adds an element of surprise akin to that generated by a good high-wire act in a circus.” Steve Paxton developed “contact improvisation,” a loosely structured, athletically inclined style.
It is a new form that highlights the spontaneous interaction between two dancers moving together in a continuous flow of activity involving the giving and taking of weight and the exchange of active and passive roles. “Like all new forms,” Paxton warns, “contact improvisation asks the audience to look in a very different way.” Looking at dance in a very different way is what Off Track Dancers is all about. Nicholaas Van Hevelingen, executive director of the St. Louis Arts and Humanities Commission, recalls: “Since I arrived in St. Louis in 1979, I have been consistently impressed by the high quality and true innovation demonstrated by Off Track’s productions.
They are a constant challenge and delight to the viewer.” Dedicated to making dance more a part of people’s everyday lives, many of the company’s workshops and classes are taught at CASA Midtown School for the Arts where it is not unusual to find a BiState bus mechanic and science professor doing floor exercises alongside professional choreographers!
With financial assistance from the Special Projects Fund of the Arts and Education Council of Greater St. Louis, Off Track spent the fall of 1983 touring the city with performances of Dance Dialogues, an informal performance designed to promote an understanding of New Dance by giving an inside view of the way the company collaborates in designing new work.
The company is just as happy performing off as well as “on stage” and a list of Off Track’s performance settings runs like a guide to major St. Louis tourist attractions—the Mississippi levee, the Old Courthouse, Laumeier Sculpture Park, the Wainwright Building, the St. Louis Art Museum, Christ Church Cathedral, the Missouri Botanical Garden! Watching Off Track demands the viewer’s full attention and willingness to look at dance from new perspectives. OTD director Cynthia Kahn explains that “people often equate dance with physical virtuosity alone. We’ve developed our own technique but we’re also particularly interested in heightening the awareness of space and spatial relationships shaped or transformed by our movements.” Artists from other disciplines have often joined Off Track in meeting the challenge imposed by a given space for creating dance.
For example: “Summer Shade,” produced, choreographed, and directed by Off Track Dancers at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Kahn, Lebovitz, and Patz chose the site and worked closely with mural artists Sarah Linguist and Bob Fishbone, and Rich O’Donnell, director of Washington University’s Electronic Music studio. Fishbone designed the set and O’Donnell created the sound accompaniment using original instruments and lightsensitive reactive devices to control an electronic synthesizer. Tom Strini, former dance critic for the Globe-Democrat. was among those in the audience who enjoyed “Summer Shade” as a memorable performance experience in which “episodes seemed to melt into one another, and every movement was tied into every other, as well as to the music and the setting .. . a balance of randomness and premeditation, nature and art . . . grace and clarity.
And just enough of each.” Off Track’s Spring ’84 performance, “Bodies of Work,” will be danced in a traditional stage setting at the New City School Theatre, 5209 Waterman.
But what the company will do with the setting will be far from traditional! Both set and choreography for “Bodies of Work” derive from an intricate process of creative collaboration between the dancers, Cynthia Kahn, Eileen Kinsella, and sculptor, Amanda Degener.
In “Bodies of Work” Degener uses panels of paper which she has made of indigenous American fiber, and life-size figures, constructed of plexiglass sheathed in layers of molded paper, to delineate the dancers’ space. “Bodies of Work” is made possible through financial assistance from the Missouri Arts Council and the St. Louis Arts and Humanities Commission. Performance dates are April 27-28 and May 4-5 at the New City School Theatre, 5209 Waterman, 8 p.m. Tickets are $5 general and $3 senior citizens/children.
For more information please call 535-7576.
Originally published in The Paper, April 1984.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1984_04.pdf, printed page(s) 6; PDF page(s) 6.
