At opening night of the VelocityDC Dance Festival, three performers got the Sidney Harman Hall crowd to openly gasp. One was a ballerina with her legs split in a 90-degree angle, one was a breaker who nailed a one-hand handstand, and one was a flamenco hoofer pounding his heels in full throttle.
They hailed from three different traditions, but they’re all dancers, and putting them all on the same stage is what Velocity is all about. Modeled after New York’s Fall for Dance, the third annual Velocity festival opened its four-day stand Thursday. In New York, $10 gets you the likes of New York City Ballet and Mark Morris Dance Group. It’s a better deal. Velocity is more like a showcase for the second string of DC’s dance companies--Step Afrika!, Dana Tai Soon Burgess and Dance Exchange are among the notable troupes not present--but $18 is still money well spent.
(Courtesy of Washington Performing Arts Society) - Chong Sun of the Washington Ballet Studio Company.
The thrill of a showcase is the unexpectedly brilliant excerpts. Edwin Arparicio’s percussive flamenco performance certainly charged the crowd, but Anna Menedez of Pastora Flamenco was equally virtuosic in her display of slower, ramrod-straight turns. Hyo Seon Park and Chong Sun of Washington Ballet’s Studio Company performed solos with a modern sense of urgency, but attuned to the flexibility and strength of ballet dancers.
Ensemble performances were hit and miss. Urban Artistry sent 15 of its breakers, tappers and lockers to the stage to give a tantalizing overview of what the troupe can do. A trio from Jane Franklin Dance, however, was less-than-vivid in “A Vivid Sense of Place,” and the women of Next Reflex Dance Collective failed to convey much more than repressed anxiety in a petticoat ripper called “Frayed.”
Tickets remain available for Saturday’s 2 and 8 p.m. performances (Program B), which include a suite from The Washington Ballet’s “The Great Gatsby” and a solo by the retired but still formidable Alvin Ailey dancer Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell.
 Washington Ballet Studio Company.jpg)
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