Yesterday, we had the pleasure of presenting a lecture demonstration with the San Diego School for Creative and Performing Arts. Students from SCPA and COSA performed an excerpt of Missa Brevis , a piece choreographed by José Limon. Francisco Ruvalcaba, a San Diego native and principal dancer for the Limon Dance Company, has been working with the students and also presented a lecture for the audience.
Congratulations to everyone involved! The students have been working incredibly hard, and they looked amazing. We will be excited to welcome some of them back to our studio for our upcoming Master Class Series and our Summer Intensive!
We can’t share the entire performance, due to copyright issues, but we have been given permission to share the following clip from yesterday’s event. Enjoy!
Save the date for the third master class in the 4 Sundays in February Master Class Series ! In this exciting series of master classes, Malashock Dance proudly presents four Master Teachers/Choreographers from Los Angeles, Orange County, Long Beach, and San Diego. Each Sunday in February, experience the innovative techniques and powerful repertory of Method Contemporary Dance, Backhausdance, Keith Johnson/Dancers, and Malashock Dance.
Location: Malashock Dance
Dance Place San Diego
2650 Truxtun Road, Studio 200
San Diego, CA 92106
Class Fee: $20; BUY 3 CLASSES, GET THE 4TH ONE FREE!
Sign up now!
Jennifer Backhaus’ master classes are representative of the movement style and vocabulary of her professional contemporary dance company, Backhausdance. Ms. Backhaus’ classes are crafted to give dancers the technical ability to find balance between control and release. The combination of ballet technique and modern dance principals, such as the use of weight and momentum, create exercises that are designed to challenge the dancer’s dynamic expression and increase their range of movement and quality. Ms. Backhaus places strong emphasis on the use of space and moving with fluidity and abandon. Her gymnastic background enables the seamless integration of floor work and weight-shifting between feet and hands, encouraging students to feel comfortable with inversions. Class combinations occasionally include selections from the Backhausdance repertory, partnering work and focus on the facilitation of the expression of the dancer’s unique points of view.
Malashock Dance and the San Diego School for Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA) present a Lecture Demonstration:
José Limón, The Artist as Outsider
Reflections of his Life and Work
Sunday, January 31, 2010 • 6 pm
Dance Place San Diego
2650 Truxtun Road, Studio 200
San Diego, CA 92106
Tickets: $10 ($5 students)
Featuring dance excerpts from Missa Brevis , choreographed by Jose Limon, performed by the dancers of SCPA and COSA. Lecture and Q&A by Francisco Ruvalcaba, principal dancer with Limon Dance Company.
Francisco Ruvalcaba
Principal Dancer, Limon Dance Company
Free Day of Dance 2009 was a blast! We had over 150 students in Malashock Dance’s classes, and San Diego Dance Theater and San Diego Ballet had full classes, too. It gives a whole new meaning to the word "turnout"! (If you are groaning at that joke, you can thank Molly, our Education Director. She thought up that gem!)
Michael Mizerany, Associate Artistic Director at Malashock Dance, had 65 students in his class! Check out these video clips from Saturday:
Michael will be teaching Company Class this semester at the Malashock Dance School. Company Class is open to the public every Tuesday and Thursday, 10-11:30 a.m., starting January 12. It is the perfect class for an advanced or professional dancer looking for a challenge. I have taken Michael’s classes, and they are definitely a challenge—but they are fun, too! Michael is a very dynamic and encouraging teacher.
If you missed the Free Day of Dance, mark your calendar now for next year—December 26, 2010! And check out our classes for Winter Semester at the Malashock Dance School, starting January 11, 2010 . Download the brochure (pdf) or sign up now!
Congratulations to all of the Malashock Dance School students who performed in the Winter Showcase this weekend! We enjoyed the choreography of Malashock Dance School faculty John Malashock, Molly Puryear, Erica Buechner, Matt Carney, Julianne O’Brien Pedersen, and Jaami Waali. Congrats to all of them, as well as faculty members Katie Griffin and Diana Nicastro, for a great semester of dance classes!
Take a look at a slideshow of photos from the Malashock Dance School Winter Showcase here:
Associate Artistic Director Michael Mizerany shares what it is like once the curtains have closed on a show—and what he does with the rest of his time.
What was the best part of seeing your choreography on stage?
Seeing WAYWARD GLANCES come together as a dance piece, as an idea. Also, seeing the audience react the way I wanted them to react—you never know how the audience will respond to a dance piece!
What do you like most about SURFACE TENSION being over?
I don’t have to stress anymore about my first time premiering a work with Malashock Dance! And I don’t have to worry about compartmentalizing. It was hard to dance in two pieces plus be the choreographer for another.
What do you like least about SURFACE TENSION being over?
Now I have to go back to the day-to-day work of running the company: booking tour dates, talking with presenters, making sure the information on our website is up to date.
What is going on now that SURFACE TENSION has ended?
Our performance for Classics 4 Kids is coming up in just three weeks—It’s never over! I am also back to the administrative side of my job.
Check out EVERYBODY WANTS YOU , an excerpt from the Malashock Dance performance of Michael Mizerany’s WAYWARD GLANCES :
Time flies when you’re having fun, and we’ve been having an absolute blast preparing for our Third Annual Malashock Thinks You Can Dance! Don’t miss your opportunity to be a part of the audience this Saturday night for the big production. This high-energy performance competition pairs your favorite local San Diego celebrities with professional dance partners – and faces them off head-to-head in an exciting dance contest. It’s all taking place in just a few days – Saturday, September 26th at 8:00pm (with the VIP reception starting at 6:30pm) at Qualcomm Hall .
It’s important to note that this event serves as Malashock Dance’s biggest fundraiser of the year – and proceeds benefit the Education Outreach & Scholarship Programs of The Malashock Dance School, which provides quality dance performance and instruction to thousands of children throughout San Diego every year. Added this year to Saturday night’s competition is a new and unique feature through which our contestants can battle it out. On our website , contestants are matched-up against each other to see who can garner the most monetary support pre-show for their dance duo! The suspense builds to see which partner pair will have prompted the most donations for this worthy cause.
Right now, KPBS General Manager Tom Karlo and his partner Irina Chalkevitch are at $915 and racing to catch up with the team that is in the lead right now, Kristy Gregg and Pepe Alvarez – who have $2,550 credited to their efforts. Perhaps it’s a bit helpful that people know Kristy from San Diego National Bank! No matter which hard-working dancers win, at the end of the night, raising the goal amount of $100,000 to support Malashock Dance efforts makes everyone involved a winner in the San Diego arts community.
Today’s blog post comes from Bradley Lundberg, Malashock Company Dancer. See Bradley perform in the Malashock Dance production SURFACE TENSION, October 10-11 at the Lyceum Theatre in Downtown San Diego.
I can’t believe the show is almost here and summer is over. As I look forward to going back into rehearsal for Malashock Dance’s Fall production, SURFACE TENSION, I can’t help but wonder if it will hurt as much as last time. The rehearsal process has been very fun, but interesting to say the least. Being able to work intensely everyday for 3 weeks when I was on summer vacation from my job as a Special Ed Teacher allowed me the opportunity to dance more in the show than my busy schedule normally allows. But leaving the material for almost a month (Michael and John had to fly to Minneapolis to reset the dances for THE PEARL FISHERS) before we bring it back for the show in the next couple of weeks is not the way things are usually done. Thank God for muscle memory. I am constantly amazed at how organized Michael can be with all our conflicting schedules and is able to find the rehearsal time each piece needs.
I enjoyed dancing Michael’s movement and was especially looking forward to it after I saw the material that he created on the summer workshop dancers. But, OW!. Yes I said it. OUCH!!!! That first week of rehearsals were very intense cuz I’m not as young as I used to be. Where as, I love to dance floor work, I forgot how demanding learning new choreography is until you figure it out and dance it more efficiently. I have new sympathy for my students when I throw a new floor phrase at them. Of course, I still make them do it, but now I’m sympathetic.
For 2 weeks we worked on Michael’s piece and we used every minute of his rehearsal time. Except for maybe the first few days where he let us go a little early since I was cramping up so bad. Apparently when I cramp the sound I make is a mix between me laughing hysterically and crying. Who knew? Luckily, Michael was very understanding. He would laugh at me and then let me lie there for 5 minutes moaning before he would make us run it again. (Monster, right?)
Right in the middle of those two weeks of rehearsal for Michael, I had a week of rehearsals for a new duet by John for Nicholas and me. I was very excited since I love dancing with Nicholas. But a bit wary. John’s partnering is beautiful and sculptural, but very demanding. Sometimes you’re in rehearsal trying different things out and you find you self saying things like, "So let me see if I understand this. I’m kneeling and I lift Nicholas over my head and just hold him there?" So you can see why I was nervous to have 6 hour rehearsals scheduled. But in the end the piece made it known quickly and I think it is beautiful. Even if I do say so myself.
I’m very excited for the premieres of AFTER DUST and WAYWARD GLANCES so everyone can see all the hard work we have done, what beautiful dancers I am blessed to share the stage with, and the exciting new work we have created.
If the household DVR has been set to record the season premiere of SYTYCD and Dancing With The Stars since before Independence Day, your enthusiasm for dance waits no longer – Malashock Thinks You Can Dance LIVE in San Diego is less than 2 WEEKS AWAY! Ushering in what will be another breath-takingly beautiful, and ground-breakingly beautiful season – 22 seasons going strong – this exciting benefit event ensures that San Diego’s Malashock Dance continues to move to keep San Diego on the map in the world of professional dance.
The 2009 Celebrity Contestants and their Professional Partners are:
∙ Edgar Bonner, Eye Exclusive with Cristina Santana
∙ Gail Bryan, Museum of Photographic Arts with Dan Gibbons
∙ Mitchell Dubick, Higgs, Fletcher & Mack with Stephanie Olsen
∙ Kristy Gregg, San Diego National Bank with Pepe Alvarez
∙ Tom Karlo, KPBS TV/FM with Irina Chalkevitch
∙ Dr. Michael Levy, Pediatric Neurosurgery, UCSD with Vanessa Williams
∙ Anita Norton, Sycuan Casino with Tyler Ryan-Allen
∙ Chairman Daniel J. Tucker, Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation with Miki Jennings
∙ Delicia Turner Sonnenberg, MOXIE Theatre with John Selby
∙ Lydia McNeil, Las Patronas with Steve Showers
Tickets are still available by calling 619-260-1622 or visiting www.malashockdance.org – all tickets include an after-show coffee and dessert cast party.
José Limón, The Artist as Outsider
