Kerry Clawson
Beacon Journal staff writer
A new participant will grace the stage for the final weekend of Akron’s Heinz Poll Dance Festival — Neos Dance Theatre of Mansfield.
The company, founded by spouses Brooke and Bobby Wesner, will perform a program including two Poll originals at 8:45 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Goodyear Metro Park. The shows will be preceded by a 7:45 p.m. interactive children’s workshop by the Dance Institute.
Capping off the weekend, Verb Ballets will give a makeup performance at 7:45 p.m. Sunday at Goodyear Metro Park after its July 24 performance was rained out at Hardesty Park.
Neos formed in 2008 under the umbrella of the Renaissance Theatre in Mansfield, where it is in residence. In a unique business model where Neos, the theater and the Mansfield Symphony share administrative staff, a board of directors and development efforts, Neos has grown from six to eight dancers and has bumped up their contracts from 26 to 35 weeks a year.
”We’re all working 24-7 to keep it alive,” artistic director Bobby Wesner said. ”That’s what had to be done.”
I’m looking forward to seeing the fruits of this young company’s labors for the first time. Their dancers hail from the U.S., Latvia, Venezuela and Colombia. Locals include Jennifer Moll Safonovs, a Stow native, and Juliana Freude, an Akron native.
In company art picturing the Wesners, the couple look like dance gods in a Renaissance painting, she moving in a full gown with incredibly long, flowing sleeves; and he dancing nearly bare, revealing his incredible musculature. The Wesners, both Ashland natives, moved back to the area in 2001 after performing together for five years with Ballet Arizona. Bobby Wesner also spent several years dancing with the contemporary-oriented Verb Ballets.
Neos, rooted in classical ballet technique, will dance half of its Akron program on pointe. Pieces that should be familiar to audiences are Poll’s Summer Night and Eight by Benny Goodman.
Here’s what Bobby Wesner said about Summer Night, set to Chopin’s Concerto No. 1 in E Minor: ”It’s one of Heinz Poll’s signature works. The piece is very filled with just passion and joy and emotion between each couple.” The piece is set by former Ohio Ballet dancers Judith Shoaff Reading and Luc Vanier.
Wesner, who first saw the Benny Goodman piece while he was in Phoenix, has always wanted to restage the sassy, sexy, fun-loving work, which has been set by Richard Dickinson, formerly of the Ohio Ballet.
Also on the program will be Bobby Wesner’s Nuevo, a neoclassical piece that plays with balance, set to the music of Mexican composers and folk singers. Wesner’s Cities of the Future will premiere in Akron, a fast-paced, contemporary ballet-based piece.
Rounding out the evening will be the classic Don Quixote Pas de Deux by Marius Petipa, a showcase featuring Ezlimar Dortolina on Friday and Moll Safonovs and Bobby Wesner on Saturday. ”It’s got all the tricks, all the turns, all the jumps,” Wesner said.
For more information on the festival, see http://www.akrondancefestival.org. Cemetery performance
GroundWorks DanceTheater of Cleveland performed a program that was both thought-provoking and fun last weekend at Glendale Cemetery. Amy Miller’s Valence was a different experience viewed outside, but still fascinating. The fabulous lighting patterns created by Dennis Dugan at Akron’s industrial Ice House last fall couldn’t be replicated outdoors but there was much more to take in.
The dancers were like electrons bouncing off each other, creating rotating patterns akin to a propeller that stood out even more distinctly this time. That included one dancer rotating the other by the knees, troupe members rolling like logs over each other, and one dancer’s body briefly evoking the feeling of a propeller on the floor.
An electronic city soundscape was dominated by the pleasant sound of chimes. The dancers briefly mirrored each other and did pushups in tandem as a precursor to a quietly beautiful final coalescence.
The most emotionally evocative piece last weekend was Lynn Taylor-Corbett’s Unpublished Dialogues, in which Miller created a powerful characterization of English novelist Virginia Woolf, who wrestles with herself just before she commits suicide. Sarah Perrett is sprightly and adorable as Woolf’s younger self, until she’s tossed about roughly by her half-brothers in a subtle allusion to their sexual abuse.
Indelible images included Miller tenderly rolling her face up the outstretched arm of Felise Bagley as Her Romance, Miller later brushing Bagley’s sensual long hair and Todd VanSlambrouck cradling the haunted author.
GroundWorks finished off its program with light-hearted partnering in the world premiere of Saying Yes. Bagley and Perrett, wearing floral dresses with sweet pantaloons, frolicked youthfully with pedal pusher-clad Damien Highfield and VanSlambrouck. The couples executed rotating jumps of joy, and at one point, Highfield sweetly rocked Bagley on his knee while he was standing. The work is outgoing member Miller’s tribute to that adrenaline-filled moment when the body gives itself over to the dance.
Teen homelessness
Teen playwright Tyron Hoisten has created his fifth original play, the dramedy Life’s Not Over, which delves into the subject of teen homelessness. Hoisten, 18, was commissioned by the Akron Public Schools’ Project RISE (Realizing Individual Strength through Education) to create a play on the topic after the program visited at-risk youth last spring at Ellet High School, from which Hoisten recently graduated.
Program director Debra Manteghi invited Hoisten to a meeting of homeless teens in June. Their stories became the springboard for his new play, which he wrote in just three weeks.
The play will premiere in a free performance at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 11 at the Main Library Auditorium at 60 S. High St., downtown Akron.
One of the biggest things Hoisten learned was that being homeless doesn’t necessarily mean you’re out on the streets. Teens could be staying at a friend’s house and be homeless — without a permanent residence.
He illustrates teens’ struggles with homelessness through characters Courtney and Patience, both of whom are bright girls. One is staying with a friend, and the other doesn’t know where to turn after losing her grandmother, who was her guardian. An extraordinary volunteer at the Open Arms homeless center ends up making a difference in their lives, and they in hers.
Hoisten plays a minister who has an encounter with Courtney at her breaking point. Despite the play’s serious topic, the story has plenty of humor, the writer says.
Others in the cast are Shayla McReynolds, Taylor Gleespen, Le’Dejeuner Gordon, Jessica Edwards, Nellie Taylor, Jean Currey, Walter Ennis and Myrna Johnson.
”This [homelessness] is a universal issue, so it’s very important to get an interracial cast,” Hoisten said.
The play carries a spiritual message, too: ”We try to tell the kids to try to have faith in God and be strong, and in due season, you’ll come out on top,” the young writer said.
Arts writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com.