Victor Quijada left Los Angeles’ b-boy scene to train with Twyla Tharp and dance with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. He’s since formed his own company, RUBBERBANDance Group, which World Music/CRASHarts brings to the ICA for a genre-bending show on April 10-11. // Sarah Hagman
WHAT WAS IT LIKE MOVING TO BALLET WITHOUT FORMAL TRAINING? I was surrounded by people who graduated from Juilliard, dancers from Sydney Ballet and ABT and New York City Ballet. It just made me want to be as good as them. I guess the competitive nature of hip-hop was driving me. It was one of the toughest things that I ever decided to do…. For a while it meant leaving behind everything that I was good at, the free-styling, the battling, the showing off in hip-hop circles. I was going to start from zero and work my way up.
HOW HAS YOUR BACKGROUND INFLUENCED YOUR CHOREOGRAPHY? I had two separate lives. From 9 am to 6 pm I was in the ballet studio, and from 10 pm to 4 am I was out in the clubs being the person that I knew myself to be. But I had to keep those two things separate. In 2000, hip-hop culture was bubbling [in Montreal]. There had been this sort of b-boy renaissance. I reconnected with all of this, and I felt compelled to bring these two realities together…. When we think of breaking, it’s so spectacular and so many fireworks, but what more could that accomplish? Could that be sensitive, communicative? Could that tell different stories, human stories?
WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM EMPIRICAL QUOTIENT? This show is a sum of many different trials and failures, and experiments and experiences. There are six dancers personifying that. The music is an original composition by Jasper Gahunia, who I’ve been working with for the past seven, almost eight years. He has formal training from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto but also was a competitive hip-hop DJ. We’ve taken the hip-hop approach and set it to different genres of music.
Two very different takes on romance are taking the stage this spring. First, Saint Petersburg’s Eifman Ballet jetés into the Cutler Majestic Theatre on May 2-3 for Rodin, a retelling of the sculptor’s 15-year relationship with mentee, muse and mistress Camille Claudel. Expect dancers to be sculpted into works of art, appear as cancan performers and play patients in a mental asylum—where the jilted Claudel spent the final three decades of her life.
June brings a less tragic look at love as Boston Conservatory grad Anna Reyes settles into the BCA’s Mills Gallery for a four-week residency to expand on her recent dance film The Good Parts of Being Alive, an exploration of romantic relationships using movement inspired by painter Egon Schiele. On June 26-27, the footage will set the background for performances of the finished product, which Reyes imagines will feature duets playing on a Chinese myth claiming a red thread connects soul mates’ pinkie fingers. #Aww.
On April 30-May 10, Boston Ballet brings three contemporary works—all created in Boston—to the Opera House stage in Edge of Vision. Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar’s scores power Hellen Pickett’s reworked Eventide, and Lila York’s Celtsfeatures Irish footwork with music from the Chieftans and Celtic Thunder. Plus, resident choreographer Jorma Elo premieres Bach Cello Suites.
Local choreographer Caitlin Corbett’s latest work, smashnightinfinity, draws on everyday life in seven vignettes—“a collection of fully formed half-thoughts”—set to tunes by the Beach Boys, the Grateful Dead and Judy Garland. It’ll join three other pieces, including Flutter (set to Marvin Gaye grooves and made for performers sans dance backgrounds), in New and Recent Work, a program coming to Somerville’s Center for Arts at the Armory on April 3-4.
Celebrity Series brings Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater back to the Citi Wang Theatre on March 26-29 for a number of Boston debuts, including one piece inspired by folk musician Odetta Holmes, plus repertoire mainstays like Duke Ellington tribute Night Creature. It’s also a chance to bid farewell to locally raised-and-trained dancer Kirven Douthit-Boyd, who’ll be moving on to a position with St. Louis’ Center of Creative Arts at the season’s end.
Spring Loaded
By Improper Staff | Photo Credit: Rodin and Boston Ballet: Gene Schiavone; Victor Quijada: Michael Slobodian | March 20, 2015
Rubberband Man
Victor Quijada left Los Angeles’ b-boy scene to train with Twyla Tharp and dance with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. He’s since formed his own company, RUBBERBANDance Group, which World Music/CRASHarts brings to the ICA for a genre-bending show on April 10-11. // Sarah Hagman
WHAT WAS IT LIKE MOVING TO BALLET WITHOUT FORMAL TRAINING? I was surrounded by people who graduated from Juilliard, dancers from Sydney Ballet and ABT and New York City Ballet. It just made me want to be as good as them. I guess the competitive nature of hip-hop was driving me. It was one of the toughest things that I ever decided to do…. For a while it meant leaving behind everything that I was good at, the free-styling, the battling, the showing off in hip-hop circles. I was going to start from zero and work my way up.
HOW HAS YOUR BACKGROUND INFLUENCED YOUR CHOREOGRAPHY? I had two separate lives. From 9 am to 6 pm I was in the ballet studio, and from 10 pm to 4 am I was out in the clubs being the person that I knew myself to be. But I had to keep those two things separate. In 2000, hip-hop culture was bubbling [in Montreal]. There had been this sort of b-boy renaissance. I reconnected with all of this, and I felt compelled to bring these two realities together…. When we think of breaking, it’s so spectacular and so many fireworks, but what more could that accomplish? Could that be sensitive, communicative? Could that tell different stories, human stories?
WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM EMPIRICAL QUOTIENT? This show is a sum of many different trials and failures, and experiments and experiences. There are six dancers personifying that. The music is an original composition by Jasper Gahunia, who I’ve been working with for the past seven, almost eight years. He has formal training from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto but also was a competitive hip-hop DJ. We’ve taken the hip-hop approach and set it to different genres of music.
Love is in the Air
Two very different takes on romance are taking the stage this spring. First, Saint Petersburg’s Eifman Ballet jetés into the Cutler Majestic Theatre on May 2-3 for Rodin, a retelling of the sculptor’s 15-year relationship with mentee, muse and mistress Camille Claudel. Expect dancers to be sculpted into works of art, appear as cancan performers and play patients in a mental asylum—where the jilted Claudel spent the final three decades of her life.
June brings a less tragic look at love as Boston Conservatory grad Anna Reyes settles into the BCA’s Mills Gallery for a four-week residency to expand on her recent dance film The Good Parts of Being Alive, an exploration of romantic relationships using movement inspired by painter Egon Schiele. On June 26-27, the footage will set the background for performances of the finished product, which Reyes imagines will feature duets playing on a Chinese myth claiming a red thread connects soul mates’ pinkie fingers. #Aww.
Bred in Boston
On April 30-May 10, Boston Ballet brings three contemporary works—all created in Boston—to the Opera House stage in Edge of Vision. Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar’s scores power Hellen Pickett’s reworked Eventide, and Lila York’s Celtsfeatures Irish footwork with music from the Chieftans and Celtic Thunder. Plus, resident choreographer Jorma Elo premieres Bach Cello Suites.
Pop Tracks
Local choreographer Caitlin Corbett’s latest work, smashnightinfinity, draws on everyday life in seven vignettes—“a collection of fully formed half-thoughts”—set to tunes by the Beach Boys, the Grateful Dead and Judy Garland. It’ll join three other pieces, including Flutter (set to Marvin Gaye grooves and made for performers sans dance backgrounds), in New and Recent Work, a program coming to Somerville’s Center for Arts at the Armory on April 3-4.
Firsts and a Last
Celebrity Series brings Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater back to the Citi Wang Theatre on March 26-29 for a number of Boston debuts, including one piece inspired by folk musician Odetta Holmes, plus repertoire mainstays like Duke Ellington tribute Night Creature. It’s also a chance to bid farewell to locally raised-and-trained dancer Kirven Douthit-Boyd, who’ll be moving on to a position with St. Louis’ Center of Creative Arts at the season’s end.
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