Anne Plamodon & Victor Quijada | Photo by Natalie Galazka

Victor Quijada started dancing when he was a student at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, taking his first classes with postmodern dance pioneer Rudy Perez. Known as "Rubberband" in the clubs and streets of LA, he began breakdancing with the best and soon found himself dancing for Twyla Tharp, Eliot Feld and Les Grand Ballets Canadiens de Montreal. Put it all together and in 2002, he formed his own collection of dancers and ideas that fuse the best in street and contemporary dance. Rubberbandance Group will be performing two shows in the area--this Friday, May 9 at the Irvine Barclay Theater and Saturday, May 10 at the Luckman Theatre at Cal State LA.

Sharing artistic direction of the company with ballet dancer Ann Plamandon, Quijada and the Rubebrbandance Group explore humanity and human relationships in this innovative mix of hip hop dynamics and contemporary classicism. They've already won some prestigious international awards and commissions from dance companies across our continent and on the other side of the pond (Great Britain) and are bringing a program they call Elastic Perspective Redux to our shores. The evening is an assemblage of work created for various hip hop and contemporary dance festivals in the US, Canada and Europe. The unknown is always a little bit scarey, but oh, what a rush. I saw the pair of directors perform excerpts at a recent dance conference and the work was beautifully gritty and elegantly performed.