Dance Review: Dance Connection's 'Rewind' rarely falters

Saturday, March 05, 2005

In just two years, The Pittsburgh Dance Connection has moved from "Fastforward" to "Rewind." But there was no sign of backtracking Thursday as this collective of mostly young, independent dance artists performed at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater in East Liberty.

Producer Gina Desko did rework a pair of dances, with mixed results. "Fastracking," its 16 performers in colorful warm-up suits with racing stripes, revved up the engines (pictured behind them in Buzz Miller's video) and scooted along a pleasant path. "No Angel Came," however, with its heavy-handed Goth overtones and sensual dance palette, suffered from repetitive stress syndrome in its undulating adagio, crashing falls and numerous outbursts.

Desko has a real eye for the real world and how to translate it into a taut dance vocabulary, best illustrated in her solo, "Bookmark," based on a sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browing. Slowly turning in a full wedding dress, her movements were slight, but nonetheless compelling -- yearning, distraught, radiantly in love -- a telling portrait of a Victorian woman.

Co-producer Amanda Schneider had her strongest showing to date in a "Custom-Made" duet with Desko and the playfully quirky "ToshiTo," disarmingly childlike in its rocking motifs and striped costumes with purple pouf accessories.

Likewise for Michele Dunleavy, who presented strong images in "Right Here, Right Now." She showed a sense of perspective within a linear formation and a delicate touch in how the movement phrases evaporated into thin air, contrasted later by sharp hesitations.

Sarah Skaggs was the newcomer to the Pittsburgh scene but well-respected in New York circles. Tracy Pelkowski and Desko performed her "Dances for Airports," a minimalist dialogue nurtured in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Spiritual in tone, but never morose, it used a simple but highly effective vocabulary that included images of flight with hand-clasping and semaphore patterns in a comforting and beautiful setting.