Cambridge Chronicle, 1/15/03

Improvisational Performance Art

This Friday at Dance Complex

By Susie Davidson

CORRESPONDENT

For more than 25 years, dancer, choreographer and teacher Andrew de Lotbiniere Harwood has been devoted to improvisation as a performance art form. This Friday at 8 p.m. at The Dance Complex, Harwood will unveil his project Shifts, an improvised yet slightly structured concert with dance, visual and musical components.

The Central Square dance and moement arts center, located at 536 Mass. Ave., is a non-profit organization housed in the historic Odd Fellows Hall. Dance classes, rehearsals, performances and educational programs are regularly presented in its six studios as well as initiatives such as DanceMonth, a collaboration with the Cambridge Mayor’s Office, where for a month, dance events are sponsored throughout the city; DanceMonth in the Schools, where curricula for Cambridge public school dance workshops are created by dancers with classroom teachers; the thrice-yearly Shared Choreographers' Concerts, where both mentors and emerging artists join in the production of a large-scale event; and Read/Dance, where Cambridge Public Libraries, in conjunction with the Complex, host movement and reading workshops.

Mainly staffed by volunteers, the Complex gives valuable experience and exposure to performers of this most liquid and creative human art form. Founder and President Rozann Kraus teaches an original course in mentoring through the arts at Stonehill College, and dances with McCusker/Dance.

On Friday evening, Harwood, who directs and produces eclectic and experimental performance projects, will present Shifts, which he conceived and dances in, to music performed by Peter Jones and Mike Vargas. The production’s slides are created by Bill Arnold, lighting is produced by Angela Thibault, and Harwood will also handle the set design.

Harwood, the founder of Montreal-based AH HA Productions, began dancing in 1975, studied Aikido for five years, and has taught and performed in myriad international festivals. His current show promises to be as unpredictable as it is creatively diverse.

“Shifts is structured around the unexpected,” said Dance Complex Contact Improvisation, Yoga instructor and publicist Patrick Crowley. “It invites us to the risks of the unforeseen and the playful discovery contained in every instant. Juxtaposing dance, music and visual arts, this new creation presents itself as a multi-disciplinary work performed by an all-male cast who are each renowned artists and masters of spontaneous creation.”

Harwood has collaborated with Jones since the Bates Dance Festival 12 years ago, where they first performed together. He recently appeared with Vargas at New York’s Improvisation Festival; the two, who play piano, percussion and wind instruments, have occasionally performed together over the past two years. “The range, textures, and moods provided by these talented composers are phenomenal,” Crowley added.

In the early 1980s, Harwood worked with Arnold in documenting Contact Improvisation within performance art. A black-and-white photographer for over three decades, Arnold’s photos have appeared regularly in the Contact Quarterly publication.

“All the artists involved in this performance have a deep love for the unexpected,” said Crowley. “All are involved in an artistic process rooted in instinct.”

In a format where total control is impossible, even irrelevant, both audience and performer instead live in the moment, appreciating the often subtle triumphs of responsive interaction. Rather than ultimate aim or defined progression, the measure of achievement becomes the deft manipulation of time, wit, action and sensitivity, both individual and collective. It appears by all accounts that in Shifts, this troupe of extraordinary performers will fulfill this undertaking in a highly enjoyable, transcendent and memorable manner.

SHIFTS, an improvised concert with dance, visual and musical components by Andrew de Lotbiniere Harwood at the Dance Complex, 536 Mass. Ave., this Friday evening at 8 p.m. Admission is $15; $12 for BDA members, seniors, and students. For reservations, please call 617-320-9792.