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Performance Reviews

Excerpt from

Review: ‘Look Back: Move Forward’ at Kennedy Theatre

NOV. 16, 2013

REVIEW BY CAROL EGAN / Special to the Star-Advertiser

 

“Examples of “Looking Back” are Jean Erdman’s “Hamadryad,” originally choreographed in 1948, and Carl Wolz’s “Blue-Green” from 1980. Erdman, born in Hawai’i in 1916, had a successful career in the New York modern dance world before returning home. The first dance performed on Kennedy stage in 1964 was a work by Erdman. Carl Wolz founded the UH-Manoa dance program in 1966 and is credited with developing the basis for the strong training for which the university is known.

 

These early works both show a respect for form and spatial exploration. “Hamadryad” teams up a solo dancer and flautist (Debussy’s “Syrinx” is musical accompaniment). Although created 65 years ago, the dance struck my companion as being “very modern.” Wolz’s “Blue-Green,” a mere 33 years of age, features a statuesque duo, the excellent Mareva Minerbi and Blythe Stephens, dancing to Francis Poulenc’s lyrical “Sonata for Oboe and Piano.” Echoing each other’s movements at first, with broad and full sweeps of arms and legs, they traverse the stage, sometimes in unison, often in counterpoint. Whether together or apart, one feels they are united.”

 

 

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Blythe did an excellent job at helping me discover who I AM, drop some of my self-bashing (a BIG issue for me), and discover why these ‘simple’ steps are so vital to moving OUT of my old pattern!  Let me recommend her to you, whatever the ‘stuck spot’ you find yourself in now.” 

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