On the Nature of Daylight - a ballet by David Dawson

I am going to start posting info and/or videos about dance, dancers, companies, and choreographers from the US to around the globe that are interesting to me. I haven't explored any companies from say South America in a while nor investigated some of the Russian touring companies besides the Kirov. While attending dance and blogging are my hobbies, I mainly like to educate myself on what and who's out there in the dance world that's worth knowing about. Besides, have you ever noticed that about 50-75% of the people living in Chicago will act like a quasi-expert about a topic, esp. if they find out that they know more than you. It never fails no matter where you are or what the subject is. It could be about Chicago area sports, theater, politics, history, street names, or weather but someone will make it their civic duty to enlighten you. Well, I'm the one who'll talk your ear off about any ballet or dance company that I may know a little something-something about. I'm certainly not an expert on ballet technique but I know how to critique it so to the person who's listening, I seem like a dance master. Call it narcissism if you'd like, but everyone either does it or knows someone who does :-)

My current interest is in knowing more about two principal dancers from the Dresden SemperOper Ballett, Yumiko Takeshima and Raphael Coumes-Marquet, who I saw on DancePulp, and their choreographer, David Dawson. So far, I am really enjoying this threesome. If you see any of the many videos about Mr Dawson, you'll find that his choreography is incredibly hard and physical. It sounded like the ballerinas and ballerinos were snapping apart during rehearsals, but it was just their clothing and shoes being put to the test. I've seen and heard the sensation about British dancer/choreographer Christopher Wheldon, and he's good; but, Mr Dawson, who is also a British dancer, has some pretty amazing contemporary cor. himself. I hope some of his work hits the US soon, and in particular, Chicago b/c its got a nice visceral, earthy quality about it.

Here's a clip of these 2 principal dancers in Wm. Forsythe's In the middle, somewhat elevated
FYI- The Joffrey Ballet will be performing this in their 2011-2012 season.