Oregon group brings diversity of dance
Rainbow Dance Theatre will burst onto stage at The Met on Saturday with a high-energy contemporary dance style that fuses West African, Haitian, and hip hop with martial arts movements. The company draws its unique style from the diverse backgrounds of its artistic directors, Darryl Thomas and Valerie Bergman.
Thomas brings nontraditional athletic dance movements and West African styles from performing with the Pilobolus Dance Theatre and Assane Kante’s Kankouran West African Dance Company. Bergman lends post-modern dance styles from performing with Merce Cunningham and Nina Wiener in New York. To that she adds classical ballet technique from dancing with The National Ballet of the Netherlands and Hawaii Opera Theatre Ballet and her proficiency in hula, West African and Afro-Haitian dance forms.
The company was founded by Bergman in Honolulu in 1991 where she met and married Thomas. Five years ago the couple moved to Oregon to head the dance program at Western Oregon University in Monmouth.
Rainbow Dance Theatre will present widely diverse dances from its varied repertory including one part of the “Camouflage” trilogy danced to an eclectic score that combines music from Taiko master Kenny Endo, African percussionists and rap. The dance examines the relationships of reality and virtual reality. According to the Honolulu Advertiser, this high-impact dance delivers “a blast of energy roughly equivalent to that of an atomic pile.”
A strikingly different style will be presented in “Some Waltz,” set to “The Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz” by Johann Strauss. It takes a wry look at the age-old battles of the sexes as it pits a cool, coy woman against her seemingly uninterested partner. To counterpoint that, a duo will present an exuberant hip hop dance from the repertory that combines the latest hip hop steps with modern dance staging. The hip hop selection, accompanied by the music of today’s popular Rap artists, emphasizes both the artistry and the rawness of the genre.
“One Village, Many Tribes” features movement from diverse cultures woven together as an expression of the unifying nature of dance among the world’s peoples. By contrast, “Yogaboyz” highlights the athletic ability, physical stamina, and versatility of the male dancers.
Finally, the company will dance their newest work, “Mixed Bag,” a humorous and poignant look at consumerism and its resultant generation of garbage.
In addition to the performance, Rainbow Dance Theatre, along with local dance teachers from the Inland Northwest Dance Association, will be teaching a two-day Dance Workshop on Saturdayand Sundayat Spokane’s Dance Emporium, 7410 N. Division St. For information and registration, call Isabelle Cook at 927-0972 or Gail Bongiovanni at 922-4493.