Publication Date: Friday, January 21, 2005
Seven by three
Seven by three
(January 21, 2005) Dance show includes tribute to choreographer's late sister
by Molly Tanenbaum
When dancer and choreographer Tammy de Jong-Todd premieres her latest work tonight, she knows her sister will be watching from a better place, free from the pain of cancer.
De Jong-Todd dedicated her dance, "A Moment in Time," to her older sister, Pam de Jong-Aviles, who died less than a week ago after a 14-month battle with ovarian cancer.
"My prayer is that I can dance this dance for her and that she'll have a front row seat in heaven," de Jong-Todd said.
"A Moment in Time" will be performed at Cubberley Community Center Theater tonight and Saturday, as part of "Seven by Three." Presented by DanceVisions, the show will feature seven dances by three local choreographers: de Jong-Todd, Laura Zweig, and Natasha Carlitz.
DanceVisions is a 12-year-old nonprofit dance project that promotes awareness and support of dance. Housed at Cubberley Community Center in Palo Alto, it offers classes in hip hop, ballet, modern, Indian fusion, cardio salsa and yoga.
Dancers in the show are of all ages and come from many professions and dance backgrounds, from a college math teacher to a software developer to dance teachers.
"It's a nice reflection of our community that people who are professionally involved in so many different things can make the time to get together for weekend rehearsals and long rehearsals to make this happen," Carlitz said.
De Jong-Todd's piece is a suite of four solos for four women that explores moments of tension, fear, compassion, forgiveness, anger, helpless, hope and strength. Each solo captures a different stage in the choreographer's process of coping with her sister's illness.
"Kara," the second solo, portrays how de Jong-Todd and her sister supported each other during this difficult time. The title means "Reaching Out" in Greek.
"My journey with my sister at that point in time was searching for ways to help her, the give-and-take to help me. She gave so much and I would take and I would give it back, so there was a lot of back-and-forth, of helping one another, reaching out to one another," de Jong-Todd explained.
"Neshama," the third solo, is the most emotional. The name means "Soul" in Hebrew. De Jong-Todd choreographed this piece during the most critical time in her sister's illness.
"Diagnosis after diagnosis was not good and the tension for me was just rising, my trying to deal with that within myself and trying to maintain hope for her and for the rest of my family," de Jong-Todd said.
"The solos are really my gift to her and everything she's given me. Not tangible gifts, but spiritual gifts," she said.
The other dances in "Seven by Three" range from light-hearted to politically charged.
Zweig's "Resistance" is a suite of six dances set to lively South African music by Johnny Clegg. It honors resistance to apartheid with a multi-generational cast that ranges from a 7-year-old dancer to a 59-year-old.
Zweig, a longtime dancer and teacher in Palo Alto, usually choreographs pieces to be "just dances, movements for movement's sake." But, like "Resistance," her themed pieces tend to be anti-war.
The messages in "Resistance" are both particular to the South African resistance movement and pertinent to resistance movements across the globe.
"It feels very current because I've been very opposed to the war and been involved in a lot of anti-war marches and I don't feel like I have put my life on the line or anything but in some small way, it feels related to me personally and to a lot of other people, just the whole issue of seeing something is wrong and doing something to change it," she said.
One dance in the "Resistance" suite, called "One (Hu)Man, One Vote," features sixth and seventh graders in an "upbeat kind of in-your-face sort of dance," Zweig said.
"The way I keep describing it to them is 'One Man, One Vote,' duh!"
Along with "A Moment in Time," two more dances by de Jong-Todd will be performed. "Punctuation" is a quick, upbeat rhythmic dance by four women set to music by the African, all-female group, Zap Mama. "No Kick-Flips, No Preemos," is a "funky, silly, quirky" piece in which seven dancers wear Hawaiian shirts and jeans and slide around the stage on skateboards.
Carlitz, a member of Palo Alto-based High Release Dance, will show three of her dances: "Principles of Magnetism," "Palindrome" and "Circulation."
"Magnetism" is "an exploration of force," Carlitz said. "I realized that a lot of my work was very placed and I wanted to experiment with throwing people into a more fling-y kind of movement," she explained.
Like its name, "Palindrome" is a mirror image of itself. "Seven by Three" marks its premiere.
"It's a duet, very cerebral," Carlitz said. "I was experimenting with a specific thing, with movement regression, taking the same movement forwards and then backwards. Each phrase comes forwards and backwards and the whole piece goes forwards and backwards."
Editorial Intern Molly Tanenbaum can be reached at mtanenbaum@paweekly.com.
What: "Seven by Three," presented by DanceVisions.
Where: Cubberley Community Center Theater, 4000 Middlefield Road in Palo Alto.
When: Tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m.
Cost: Tickets are $15 for adults and $12 for students. Tickets will be available at the door. Children under 10 can see the show for free.
Info: Visit www.danceaction.org.
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