…And Dances
This Saturday, Dancing Wheels presents a world premiere by Cleveland’s foremost choreographer, Diane McIntyre, a live performance by Gloria Gaynor of Gaynor’s hit song, I Will Survive, and a look back over the dances and the dancers of the last 30 years in a retrospective of the company’s repertoire and its alumni. To get a better idea how the whole show fits together, we watched some rehearsals and spoke with Founding Artistic Director Mary Verdi-Fletcher and with McIntyre.
Mary Verdi Fletcher: We will be telling the story of the 30 years of Dancing Wheels in several different ways. One — the first half of the program — is a multimedia event, a mix of video clips, live performances, and guest speakers who have been instrumental or who have been a part of our 30-year history.
For that first half of the program, we looked back over our body of work. With all those fabulous choreographers and over 40 pieces in repertoire, we obviously couldn’t select all of them. Some of the works are 40 minutes long so it was quite a challenge narrowing it down to the seven we eventually chose for Saturday’s program.
Then the second part of the program is the world premiere choreographed by Diane McIntyre. That piece has such an impact for me personally and, I think, as a signature piece for the company.
When I met Gloria Gaynor I felt a connection. Her song, I Will Survive, is an anthem for women but it’s also my anthem because we have gone through a tremendous amount of struggle and many metamorphoses with this company. Ever since I met Gloria four years ago I’ve kept her card on my desk, thinking the right moment would arrive. And here we are.
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On another day we watched McIntyre rehearsing the dancers to a recording of I Will Survive. After rehearsal, we asked her about her new piece for Dancing Wheels, the second half of Saturday’s program.
Diane McIntyre: Mary invited me to do a new work using popular music from the 1980s. The piece could be, if I wanted, reflective of the history of the company. So I interviewed Mary about her own history and the development of the company, all the steps along the way. And I was struck by the way she dismissed what might have been obstacles. On top of what people thought she couldn’t do, she had the whole obstacle course you have as an artist. So I said, let me see if we can capture some of the milestones.
This reminds me very much of your process with GroundWorks Dance Theater. You interviewed people…
Yes. I was inspired by their stories and I interpreted their stories through movement. Of course, this work is different in that we don’t have words. It’s all done through dance, but, even though people won’t necessarily read a synopsis, it should be pretty clear.
So this is a story of the artist — as you say — dismissing obstacles. How does Gloria Gaynor fit in?
She’s kind of the finale. Originally Mary didn’t have any set ideas of what the music selections would be. However, she knew that she wanted I Will Survive. That is somehow a theme of her life. That song is very important to her. The dancers and I selected all the other songs.
What songs did you select?
We’re not going to tell people what the playlist is, because they’ll be like “Oh, I remember that song from…” But I can tell you, they’ll hear songs by Aerosmith, Eurythmics, Lionel Ritchie, Whitney Houston, and other artists from that era, sometimes whole songs and sometimes snippets.
Mary’s husband, Bob Fletcher, developed a whole list of music from the ’80s and of course the list went on and on and on. We had some of the songs on audio — one of the dancers, Emma Parker, is very good at getting music from the internet — and the dancers, young people, were singing along. They knew the songs, either through technology or because their parents had listened to this music when they were little. And Mary knew all of this music because she started out social dancing in clubs.
Does the story of an artist dismissing obstacles remind you at all of your recent part in Fly: five first ladies of dance, a dance concert performed by five women aged 60 plus?
You could say that many of us have dismissed obstacles over our careers. And all of us have challenges now that we didn’t necessarily have in our younger years. During the run of Fly, we talked together a lot about how we’ve had to shift in certain of our physical expressions because hips, knees, or backs aren’t as expansive or as limber as they may have been in the past. You don’t say “I can’t.” You shift to a new mode that you might not have thought of before, and that new mode might be more creative or more expressive.
Just like in Dancing Wheels, there are things the wheelchair dancers can do that a person standing can’t do — the way they can swirl or glide. It can be an asset.
Dancing Wheels and Gloria Gaynor will perform at 8PM on Sat 6/4 at the Cleveland Agora, 5000 Euclid Ave., Cleveland 44103. General admission tickets @ $30 include performance and after-party. Special rates for groups. $100 VIP tickets include pre-party and cabaret seating at the performance. Phone DW office 216-432-0306 or online at http://DancingWheels.org.
No Dancing Wheels performance would be complete without an after-party. Following the performance, theater goers will be invited to join Dancing Wheels Company members and VIP guests for a night of dancing complete with disco ball, sunken dance floor, and Cleveland’s own ’80s tribute band, The Breakfast Club. The party will kick off with a cake and champagne toast followed by an ’80s costume contest.
From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas. Elsa and Vic are both longtime Clevelanders. Elsa is a landscape designer. She studied ballet as an avocation for 2 decades. Vic has been a dancer and dance teacher for most of his working life, performing in a number of dance companies in NYC and Cleveland. They write about dance as a way to learn more and keep in touch with the dance community. E-mail them at vicnelsaATearthlink.net.
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