Moving Current recruited about a dozen senior citizens, many of whom had little modern dance experience, to perform in its season-ending concert.
By MARTY CLEAR
Published May 13, 2004
TAMPA - Every year, Moving Current ends its dance season with a concert called New Grounds that showcases promising choreographers. In the past, the choreographers have been young, most of them just out of college.
This year is an exception. Despite plenty of 20-something artists, the average age of the dancers and choreographers in this weekend's New Grounds concert pushed well upward, thanks to Forever Moving, a group formed last September by Lynn Norton, the director of education for the Arts Council of Hillsborough County.
Norton enlisted about a dozen seniors through the Life Enrichment Center, a multipurpose facility for active older people in North Tampa.
"Only one or two of them had any experience with dance at all," Norton said. "Most of them thought they were coming to a country line-dancing class or something. A couple of them dropped out after they found out what it was really about."
The remaining members, some in their late 70s, proved dedicated and talented.
This weekend will be their first time on a professional stage. They'll appear, along with Moving Current dancers and high school dance students, in the opening piece.
"It's called Trouble Shooting, and it deals with the complexities of life and the different ways we cope and deal with them," said Erin Cardinal, a Moving Current founder and co-director.
The piece, which incorporates original music and text, was coordinated by Moving Current's Cynthia Hennessy, another founder and co-director of the collective. But it was developed largely through improvisations, so all the members of Forever Moving had a hand in the choreography.
Moving Current, considered the bay area's finest modern dance organization, isn't putting septuagenarians on stage as a curiosity. The older dancers, Cardinal said, bring a different style of movement, and a different artistic sensibility, than younger artists. And the work is designed so that style and sensibility become integral to its artistic statement.
The rest of the nine-piece program is more in keeping with past New Grounds concerts. Most of the choreographers are either master's degree students or recent college graduates. For many, it's their first opportunity to have work performed in a professional setting.
Several young Tampa choreographers, including Kelly Rayl (a Moving Current veteran), Rosana Gonzalez Anaya, Maria Juan and Erin Taylor are among the emerging artists represented. Other choreographers are from Seattle, Gainesville, Boca Raton and Paraguay.
"It's mostly Florida people, but every year it seems that the boundaries get pushed," Cardinal said. "We created this, New Grounds, to let these new people perform outside of their hometown, and also to bring them here so audiences can see new artists."
PREVIEW: Moving Current's 2004 New Grounds concert is scheduled for 8 p.m. Friday and 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, Theater I, University of South Florida, Tampa. $12 general admission, $6 students and seniors. Call (813) 237-0216 for reservations or (813) 974-2323 for directions.
