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Catch the Wave at the 2009 DUMBO Dance Festival
White Wave is back with its annual festival of contemporary dance
I-danse (Photo: Yi-Chun Wu)
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White Wave presents their ninth annual, four-day festival devoted to contemporary dance, boasting over 80 companies and featuring 400 dancers in 15 performances. Curated by artistic director and founder Young Soon Kim, the festival originated in 2001 when White Wave recognized the need for dance venues, capable of producing and financially supporting the works of imaginative choreographers, as well as offering a rehearsal space for performers. A seven-member selection panel, led by Kim, chose “companies with the most exceptional and original choreographic approach,” from amongst established and emerging artists, for the festival—the first of three festivals White Wave presents each season.
Begun with a benefit, the opening night gala is a fundraising opportunity that finances the remainder of the dance marathon presenting programs of excerpts and full-length pieces, free to the public. Gala tickets not only get you admission to a night of contemporary dance, but also access to a swanky black tie optional—that means you’re wearing one no matter what!—champagne reception, followed by a Korean buffet dinner and dance party, featuring live music by the Bossa Nova Beatniks, plus fancy gift bags filled with goodies from La Mer and Jo Malone Boutique. Gala performances, including the White Wave Young Soon Kim Dance Company’s “SSOOT III,” translated from the Korean as “charcoal” but referring to “fresh energy,” that celebrates Kim’s 30th anniversary dancing in New York, and abstract excerpts from intimate company johannes wieland; are merely a sampling of the festival’s extensive line up, featuring up to seven companies performing each hour over the following three days.
All events are staged in DUMBO at White Wave’s John Ryan Theater, an intimate but airy performance space, except for Sunday’s afternoon performances, which are held outdoors in Brooklyn Bridge Park, beneath the famous landmark. The city becomes a backdrop for dancers performing pieces including Gretchen Garnett’s “Edited For Time,” examining movement and time travel, a juxtaposition of fast and slow dancers, Becca Alaly + Dancers in “Traumland” (Dreamland), an exploration of memory from within the subconscious; Amanda Selwyn Dance Theater’s call and response piece, “Hearsay”; and Meghan McCoy’s “The Increased Use and Disuse of Parts, as Controlled by Natural Selection,” named after Darwin’s postulation from On the Origin of Species.
Indoors or outdoors, the DUMBO Dance Festival presents a diverse mix of imaginative ensemble pieces and reflective solo works, highlighting the best of contemporary dance today, as well as what’s to come.