Bruce Wood Dance Dallas dancers Elliott Ludovic and Cole Vernon are featured in both
the company’s season closer Ignite and in the Bruce Wood Dance/Uptown Players collaboration Together
RICH LOPEZ | Staff writer
Rich@DallasVoice.com
Bruce Wood Dance Dallas close as its 16th season this weekend with Ignite, a show fusing the company’s signature style across three pieces. But this time, the company brings an immersive experience to the stage.
And while the season may end for BWDD this weekend, the work continues next week when select dancers will also take the stage in the collaborative piece Together, which pairs Bruce Wood Dance Dallas with Uptown Players for a special event of dance, music, cabaret and theater. Dancers Elliott Ludovic and Cole Vernon are featured in both.
BWDD presents Ignite Friday-Sunday at Moody Performance Hall. The show includes the late founder’s “Zero Hour” as well as choreographer Jessica Lang’s “To Familiar Spaces in Dream.” But also features a world premiere.
“This is a pretty quintessential show, but it also really feels new with Joy’s ‘Move,’” Ludovic said. “That one is a collaboration with visual artist J.M. Rizzi and the fabulous Dallas-based projection artist Courtney Ware, so it becomes an immersive art experience. Plus, we also have no clue what that will be like.”
Sorry, what?
As it happens with art, sometimes creation goes up to the very last minute — as do some technical elements. The dancers have been rehearsing Artistic Director Joy Bollinger’s premiere piece in studio. But amid the stage projection? Not so much?
Bollinger said that audiences can expect an experience that is exciting, dynamic and fresh, describing the piece as the precision of classical piano hitting the gritty energy of techno and the intersection of technical movement with the raw expression of street dance. And it’s all set against an immersive landscape of vivid color and light.
“Joy’s work is going to be very fresh to us as well [since] she just put in the final parts,” Vernon said. “We’re going to be experiencing it for the first time with the audience — or it’ll kind of feel like that in how it moves and, really, just how exactly those projections are going to work.
“But it’s thrilling, and Joy said she wants it to be a ‘feast for the senses.’”
With BWDD shows, the structure is typically a Wood number, an outside choreographer and a premiere, often by Bollinger.
Then once the Sunday matinee of Ignite concludes, Ludovic and Vernon are on to finalize the next company appearance — at Together with Uptown Players.
Last year, the two companies premeired Imagine. The cabaret, the first collaboration for both, was presented by James Lynn Williams. In its successful micro-run, the show mixed the worlds of dance and theater, with an emphasis on LGBTQ+ themes.
Following that success, Together combines live vocals, contemporary dance and theatrical storytelling in an uplifting celebration of Pride through unity, resilience, chosen family and community.
For the two dancers, returning to the experience is a newfound thrill.
“Last year was so fun, getting to collaborate with other artists. We all have the same end goal: to entertain and to tell stories and share experiences,” Ludovic said. “It was fun just seeing how easy everything was and how we had so much in common besides just being queer. And we all learned so much from each other”
He continued, “Coming back to this sense of community feels incredible, and it’s helpful to bring some of that back to our space because it does change us as artists to be influenced by something that is outside of our typical zone.”
Together is directed by Clayton Younkin and Vernon, with Vernon also serving as choreographer. Adam C. Wright is music arranger and director. Along with Ludovic and Vernon, the cast features a proper mix of Uptown Players favorites and BWDD dancers, including Peter DiCesare, Allison Glasman, Stephanie Godsave, Seth Paden, Weaver Rhodes, Coltin Snyder, Kylie Stewart, Megan Storey, L. Walter and Brett Warner.
“This year we have a little bit of an upper hand, as we now know them,” Vernon, who had an eye-opening experience last year, said. “I didn’t know Uptown Players. I had never seen the Kalita Humphreys, and I live by there. Now they are such a huge part of my life, and doing this again during Pride highlighting queer culture is exciting.”
Together runs June 20 and 21 at the Kalita Humphreys Theater. For tickets, visit BruceWoodDance.org and UptownPlayers.org.