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Stage

A force in dance for 10 years

Moving Current celebrates a milestone with a series of performances showcasing its quality and quantity, two ingredients of its success.

By MARTY CLEAR
Published September 14, 2006

Moving Current, the Tampa Bay area's best and most active professional dance organization, is marking the season leading to its 10th anniversary with a program called "decaDANCE."

The concert Friday and Saturday at the University of South Florida brings together new works by company founders Cindy Hennessy and Erin Cardinal, plus pieces by some of the most acclaimed guest choreographers who have worked with Moving Current over the years.

Cardinal and Hennessy started the dance collective in 1997, along with Elsa Valbuena, another prominent local dancer-choreographer.

It's a bit confusing to mark the 10th birthday nine years later, Cardinal admits, but it actually makes sense.

"We started nine years ago," she said, "and that makes this our 10th season."

All its major performances in the 2006-2007 season will be under the "decaDANCE" umbrella.

The idea of Moving Current, and the element of its work that makes it a "collective" rather than a "company" is that it presents work by a variety of choreographers. Most of the choreographers have some local connection, but over the years, Moving Current has staged works by artists from all corners of the country.

Besides Cardinal and Hennessy, this weekend's "decaDANCE" concert features works by Andy and Dionne Noble, who studied dance at USF but have gained a national reputation through works with companies in Miami, Salt Lake City and Bellingham, Wash.; Paula Kramer, founder of the Detroit Dance Collective, who is now in St. Petersburg; and Jennifer Salk, a former USF dancer who teaches at the University of Washington.

The Nobles' piece, Small Spaces, is the only one that local audiences may have seen. It was featured in an informal Moving Current event called "Show and Tell" this year.

Salk's work, a solo called Beast performed by Cardinal, has been staged in Washington but never in Florida.

Hennessy's Shifting Sands, Cardinal's In Arms and Kramer's View From a Hummingbird's Heart are all world premieres.

Few dance companies in Tampa have endured as long as Moving Current, and probably none has had such a strong effect on the quality and quantity of local modern dance.

Moving Current continues to enhance its own performance and educational offerings every year, and as the collective's 10th birthday approaches, things are going according to plan - sort of.

"I can't really say we didn't expect that it would keep going this long," Cardinal said. "When we started, to get grants and things we had to come up with a five-year plan and a 10-year-plan. We're way behind. I'd say we're oh, about seven, eight years behind our original plan."

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Moving Current presents "decaDANCE" Friday and Saturday at Theater 1 on the University of South Florida campus in Tampa. Performances are at 8 p.m. Friday and 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday. $15 general, $10 for students and seniors. (813) 237-0216 or www.ticketleap. com.

[Last modified September 13, 2006, 13:06:18]