Beyond audacious acrobatics, something I find striking about live dance performances—especially contemporary dance—is the sound. The pattering jump and thump of feet on wooden floors and the gentle twist of toes in twirl—audible only in the quietest heart-wrenching moments—somehow make the performance feel more real and raw. But international contemporary dance company Azure Barton & Artists— at the MACC this Thursdy—would be real and raw in a vacuum. The Santa Barbara Independent raves, “Like sex, it is urgent, embarrassing, raunchy, satisfying, complex,” while the New York Times says it’s “full of surprise and humor, emotion and pain, expressed through a dance vocabulary that takes ballet technique and dismantles it to near-invisibility.” At the helm of the company is Azure Barton, an artist in residence at The Banff Centre in Canada and The Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City who was named the official Ambassador of Contemporary Choreography in Alberta, Canada. In 2006, she choreographed the Broadway revival production of The Threepenny Opera, and has created works for Mikhail Baryshnikov, Hell’s Kitchen Dance, The National Ballet of Canada, Nederlands Dans Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal, Sydney Dance Company and The Juilliard School, among others. Sounds good to me. 242-7469; mauiarts.org
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