Making the moves

Choreographer Joshua L. Peugh, top right, and Dark Circles Contemporary Dance
(Photos by Brian Guilliaux)

Queer choreographer puts the moves to local music at Pegasus Contemporary

RICH LOPEZ | Staff writer
rich@dallasvoice.com

The weekend of March 31, Pegasus Contemporary Ballet will debut a new show that mixes classical ballet with local musicians. The collaborative effort is appropriately titled Synergy, Dallas Music in Motion.

Choreographer Joshua L. Peugh returns to Dallas to present a piece that reunites him with someone who is not only a Dallas-based musician but also a friend.

Synergy will feature new works by founder Diana Crowder, Daniel Ojeda and Peugh alongside the music of DJ and alternative electronic composer Elkin Pautt, singer-songwriter Dev Wulf and the jazz fusion band The Kwinton Gray Project.

“Synergy, Dallas Music in Motion is a meaningful and important project for Pegasus Contemporary Ballet because it perfectly embodies who we are as a company — innovative and vibrant,” Crowder, the artistic director and founder of Pegasus Contemporary Ballet, said in a press release. “Through this performance, we’re collaborating with artists of other disciplines to create a work of art that is truly unique and captures the spirit of the entire Dallas arts community. Not only will this show be fun and energetic, but it will bring diverse perspectives together, which is essential to our mission.”

Pegasus will perform Synergy on March 31 and April 1 at Moody Performance Hall. Tthis program is supported by the Dallas Office Of Arts and Culture and the Dallas Arts District Foundation.

Peugh’s collab is with Kwinton Gray.

“Diana reached out to me about a year ago and asked me to create for her company,” Peugh said by phone.

“When she mentioned collaboration with local musicians, I knew exactly who I wanted to work with.”

Peugh had worked with Kwinton Gray before. First for a production of Oklahoma at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, directed by Joel Ferrell. Since then, they’ve worked together numerous times during Peugh’s Dallas tenure.

This time around, he and Gray will work as one for the production where Peugh choreographs dancers to new music by Gray, who will perform onstage with his ensemble.

“He’s just so insanely talented,” Peugh said. “We will all be part of the same work onstage.”

Although a native of Las Cruces, N.M., Peugh spent time at SMU in Dallas as an undergrad then went to South Korea for six years. He moved back to Dallas and, for 10 years, worked with several companies.

“It’s been fun to come back here. The reason I moved back was to be a resident choreographer at Bruce Wood Dance, and I was there for a couple of years,” he said. “But I’ve also worked with Dallas Theater Center, Dallas Black Dance, Booker T — so I was certainly part of the artistic landscape here.”

He also created his own professional company, Dark Circles Contemporary Dance, which celebrates its 10th Anniversary this year. But Peugh moved the company and himself back home three years ago.

“My partner and I moved to Las Cruces in 2020 where I’m closer to my family,” he said. “His family is here. What’s so interesting is that, growing up, I couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

Las Cruces was a conservative, agricultural town when he left. But when Peugh and his partner moved back, taking Dark Circles with them, he found a whole new place.

“I saw a Pride flag on a billboard in front of a Lutheran church. There’s a queer youth center now, and I see nothing but possibility there, even for the dance community now.”

That intersection of his own identity and dance is important to Peugh, wherever that may be.

“It’s always in my work. I’ve made it my mission to create what I want to see and have these same-sex partnerships in my works — particularly men with other men.”

But he’s giving no clues to what Dallas audiences will see — not to tease but merely to revel in the energy that he has found in finalizing the piece with both the dancers and Gray.

“Even I don’t know what surprises are going to happen, but I hope this work can belong to the dancer and to the band and then to this city,” he said.

Visit PegasusBallet.org for more information and tickets.