Rhythmic
movements shine with ‘No Loitering’
By Christine G. Adamo
On-line Forty-Niner
 Standing
outside a liquor store on Seventh Street
in Long Beach mugging for the camera, members
of the Cal State Long Beach graduate dance
group were inspired.
Sue Hogan, the producer of “No Loitering,”
a high drama dance concert staged over the
weekend at the Martha B. Knoebel Dance Theater,
said that while the group was taking photographs
around the city they noticed a sign at the
establishment’s exterior and took its message
to the stage.
“There was a ‘No Loitering’ sign by the
door,” Hogan said.
That twist of fate led to “No Loitering”—an
eclectic thesis concert infused with moves
that are modeled after Tai Chi, modern dance
and ballet—to its aptly chosen name. Friday
night’s performance broke new ground, devoid
of established rules and could, in no way
be misconstrued with what “The Merriam-Webster
Dictionary” calls “hanging around idly.”
“One doesn’t stand still too much in a dance
concert,” Hogan said.
The seven-act performance’s student choreographers
were Holly Clark, Filip A. Condeescu, William
F. Lett, Amanda Lipsey, Rogelio Lopez Garcia,
Shana Menaker and Erin Mitchell. Each of
their productions was imbued with messages
of tolerance, movement and action that were
played out with drama, diversity and electricity.
Garcia’s “Que es un Fantasma?” was an eerie
look at the underside of sleep, and was
rich in gymnastic elegance and metaphoric
device. Bodies hung over to create a tattered
human skirt around the scene’s main perpetrator,
an architect of nightmares with narcissistic
reign over a band of nimble, nagging dream
thieves.
Clark and Menaker brought light-hearted
relief to the otherwise sobering, reflective
program—save Hogan’s comical pantomiming
in “Medicine Man’s Eye”—with “Out of Time”
and “Mannequin Americans,” respectively.
Seven was definitely the concert’s lucky
number: seven acts, seven choreographers
and seven female dancers using stop-motion
arm and leg postures to track the hands
of time in Clark’s memorable, energetic
offering.
Lett’s “Medicine Man’s Eye” used lighting
and sound to exceptional effect. Recordings
of conversations with Holocaust survivors,
Maya Angelou waxing romantic about aging
and stings of Native American music ran
through the piece, opening the audience
up to the world of dance as a healing medium.
But none of these successes would have been
nearly as sweet were it not for the efforts
of the graduate and undergraduate dancers
it employed. Participating students helped
bring the choreographers’ dreams to life
and deserve, and in some cases received
a round of applause all their own.
Whether groping and gyrating their way across
the stage in Condeescu’s emotional male-o-drama,
“Male-inism,” basking in brilliant costumes
and lighting effects, such as those used
to in Menaker’s “Mannequin Americans,” the
dancers backed up their choreographers with
skill, style and grace.
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