If dance is your thing, this is your week.
Critically appreciated and wildly popular Ballet Grand Prix is a classical dance supergroup featuring the winners of international competitions performing alongside the alumni winners of those same competitions who now appear as soloists for companies like American Ballet Theatre, Paris Opera, and Royal Ballet. The group’s performance of new and traditional work at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre on Saturday promises to be a celebration of virtuosity with all the pop appeal of Dancing with the Stars.
But maybe you’d prefer to see some homegrown dance? Or something with a little more grit and gray matter behind it? That is also possible.
Ballet Memphis’ latest installment of AbunDANCE returns to a theme the company first employed almost 10 years ago. In Where the Girls Are 2, a group of female choreographers, employing the music of classic girl groups and soulful singers, will use dance to examine how women perceive themselves and shape their world. Pieces include “I Will Follow Him: A Brief History” and a response to Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening.
Or how about something political and modern? “I think you will like the work by Peter Carpenter,” says Project: Motion’s Jay Rapp. Carpenter, an associate professor of dance at Columbia College Chicago, does theatrical dance, and a solo he’s performing for the latest installment of Project: Motion’s Axis series is a memory of the Reagan era and America’s response to AIDS.
Ballet Grand Prix at Germantown Performing Arts Centre, Saturday, February 19th, 8 p.m. $30-$50.
Ballet Memphis’ AbunDANCE “Where the Girls Are 2” at Playhouse on the Square, February 19th-27th. $10-$72.
Project: Motion’s Axis Series at Evergreen Theatre, Friday-Sunday, February 18th-20th. $15-$20
