For Kim Robards Dance, February was a very good month.
Not only was the Denver troupe invited to perform Feb. 8 and 9 at Joyce SoHo, the 74-seat downtown branch of New York City’s respected Joyce Theater, but the program also received a substantial and, it must be said, positive review in The New York Times.
Dance critic Jennifer Dunning praised the 21-year-old modern-dance company’s “old-fashioned values,” including its strong sense of craft and affinity for lyrical movement.
“But that in itself qualifies for revolutionary status these days,” she wrote. “So do the dignity and joy with which Ms. Robards’ eight company members perform, and the pleasure Ms. Robards seems to take in dance without clumsily concocted themes and other gimmicks.”
To be presented at Joyce SoHo is a major coup in itself, but to gain a Times review, let alone one so enthusiastic, considerably enhanced the company’s New York success (the word “triumph” does not seem out of line) and elevated its stature.
As a result of the performance, Kim Robards Dance has been invited to take part in “New New York! New Beijing!” a week of dance performances at the Beijing Olympics. But for that venture to become reality, the company has to find the necessary funds — no easy task.
For some regular followers of the Denver dance scene, the company’s New York trip and resulting hubbub are a little startling. Who knew that this community fixture, with an annual budget of just $250,000, harbored such ambitions?
“It’s hard,” Robards said last week, “because it’s such a struggle every day to keep it all operating, that to get the word out to the community that you have these larger and broader aspirations is challenging, too. We’re a small staff. We don’t have our own P.R. and marketing person.”
The hard-earned success of Kim Robards Dance has to be seen as more evidence of a dance boomlet, if not a full- fledged boom, in Colorado. Other signs of the state’s rising dance profile include:
In August, the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble was one of 10 American dance companies, including such big names as the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, to receive a dance reconstruction grant through the American Masterpieces program of the National Endowment for the Arts.
For the fourth time, Robert Sher-Machherndl, artistic director of the Boulder-based Lemon Sponge Cake Contemporary Ballet, has been invited to take part in the annual BalletBuilders choreographic showcase in New York City. For this year’s edition, April 12 and 13 at Hunter College, he will present a 20-minute duet titled, “I Trust You To Kill Me.”
Ballet Nouveau Colorado is earning national recognition for its innovative 21st Century Choreography Competition, in which entrants were asked to submit five-minute videos of their works via YouTube. Votes by viewers were counted in determining the three finalists, whose pieces will be performed and judged in April.
With new artistic director Damian Woetzel at the helm, the Vail International Dance Festival gained unprecedented attention last season with its debut presentation of the New York-based Morphoses/ The Wheeldon Company, easily the world’s most talked about new dance troupe.
The Aspen Santa Fe Ballet continues to be the state’s most traveled and visible company, with upcoming performances in Dallas, New Orleans and Milan, Italy. In January 2007, the company made its third appearance at Joyce’s main venue, gaining its own set of plaudits along the way.
Colorado is a long way from competing with New York or California as a major dance center, but Kim Robards and others are making it increasingly difficult for the dance world to look past the state.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
