Benn Widdey

Twenty years ago, former champion equestrian Judith Smith became involved with a movement class for wheelchair-bound women. She, herself, had injured her spinal cord in a car accident and could no longer ride. The class created its first choreography, which piqued people's interest and received a hugely popular positive response. So began AXIS Dance Company. Including both able-bodied and physically-challenged performers, the company has since performed throughout the United States, Europe, Russia, China and into...

Photo of Kristen Smiarowski by Derrick Bruce, courtesy of the artist With a press release that begins with "a South Korean, an Indonesian and two Jews walk into Highways Performance Space ," locally-based Kiha Lee, Sri Susilowati, Keith Glassman and Kristen Smiarowksi take over the intimate Santa Monica theater to premiere new dances April 10-12 at 8:30 pm. Known around town, nationally and internationally for making work that transcends the limitations of "eye candy,"...

Returning to Westwood after a five year absense, Montreal postmodern dance company La La La Human Steps brings its newest explosion of clasical technique, high speed dancing and punk attitude to Royce Hall this weekend through UCLA Live. Choreographed by Artistic Director Edouard Lock, "Amjad" re-fashions the romantic ballets that inspired it through the voracious dancing of nine extraordinary movers, film and original music composed and played live on stage by Bang on a Can's...

Director/choreographer/performer Liz Hoefner seems to bring her life to the stage. While this isn't a new or different way of making theater, Ms. Hoefner's life is filled with humorous moments that surround the challenges of being alive in our 21st century. Performed this past weekend at the Diavolo Dance Space downtown, her new work, Fear of Drowning/Fear of Flying, included a large cast of dancers, actors and musicians. These people loaded the stage with big...

See the video of this above picture below | Photo courtesy of the company En route to performances in New York, the highly acclaimed Irish company CoisCeim Dance Theatre, will make a stop at the Irvine BarclayTheater this Tuesday, February 26 -- its premiere West Coast engagement. Pronounced "kush came," the company will present their award winning evening length work, Knots, based on psychologist R.D. Laing 's book by the same title. Both the...

photo courtesy of artist Local independent dance artist Liz Hoefner has directed and choreographed Fear of Drowning/Fear of Flying and will present its premiere this Friday through Sunday at the Diavolo Dance Space in the Brewery Arts Complex. According to her, the new dance theater work is a collection of stories, dialogues and dances that relate to actual and metaphorical fears of traveling, flying, drowning and dying in a post 9/11, tsunami, and Hurricane...

photo courtesy of the artist This Thursday through Saturday, award winning Argentine choreographer Diana Szeinblum is bringing four performers to REDCAT to present "Alaska" in its theater below Disney Hall. In her promotional material, Buenos Aires-based Szeinblum calls the work a "container of memories where everything that has not been said regarding a personal experience is kept." With original music by Ulises Conti for piano and viola and a physical language Szeinblum calls "extreme,"...

As the culminating event of a fifteen week workshop that joined veterans, performing artists, and activists in a series of verbal and physical conversations about their lives and aspirations, "Action Conversations" was presented at Highways Performance Space for only three performances, February 8-9. Through a collaborative process under the direction of UCLA professor and choreographer Victoria Marks, the performers revealed some of the highlights of their explorations of identity, heroics, mortality and civic responsibility in...

Photo provided by the company Anticipation was high as people entered Royce Hall on Friday to watch Vietnamese-born/French-raised choreographer Ea Sola bring her company of eight dancers and five musicians to the stage in their Los Angeles debut. They presented "Drought and Rain Vol. 2" and I don't think this turned out to be what people expected. It wasn't a European, Asian or American company filled with athletic virtuosi, dramatic visuals and a densely...

This looks good -- an artist not yet heard in our neighborhood and a timeless theme. Plus references to things we may know something about. In its welcome mission of bringing outstanding international artists to our local performance scene, UCLA Live is hosting the Los Angeles debut of award-winning Company Ea Sola at Royce Hall for two shows this weekend. Raised in Vietnam during the war and trained in Paris, the female choreographer-performer Ea...