Excerpted by kind permission from The Dance Journal
The Trenton-based dance company DanceSpora premiered two works. Pennsylvania Ballet alumnus Heidi Cruz-Austin’s Near Dark, set to music by LOG.Os, shared a program with her sister Felicia Cruz’s ScrapBox. What is clear from both pieces is the skillful and spirited dancing power of this youthful company.
In the psychodrama Near Dark, Cruz-Austin tackles the ambitious theme of the interplay between ego and awareness. The work makes remarkable use of the ensemble to express its abstract idea…. ScrapBox opens with Felicia Cruz sitting in an armchair downstage, looking through scrapbooks, saying, “I remember…” The piece could easily be a nostalgic trip down memory lane, but instead Cruz gives us a feverish dream about the loss of childhood innocence and the intense struggles of growing up, fitting in, and finding one’s identity,… DanceSpora focused its resources on choreography and dancing, however it would be excellent to see what they could do with a larger budget for sound and lighting production. In a fantasy art world where money is no object (we can always dream), the directors would surely take their artistic vision to the next level. Read the full review on The Dance Journal >>>
[Conwell Dance Theater, 1801 North Broad Street, 5th Floor] September 23, 2016; fringearts.com/convergence.