Review: Interiors by Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company
by David Glen Robinson

Interiors inaugurates the reformed and renewed KDH Dance Company under the artistic direction of Alyson Dolan, with Drew Silverman as co-artistic director and resident composer. The new management may have felt that it had something to prove, but if so, they not only proved it but may have turned a corner on the winding pathway of Austin contemporary dance. And they did it in a time of constricting resources and a worrisome social climate. The accomplishment attains even brighter luster as a result. Interiors was gorgeous.

 

 

The show started in a by-now conventional way for open stages without a stage curtain, as is common for most dance-accommodating stages in Austin. The six dancers of the company, Anna Bauer, Jairus Carr, Cara Cook, Lisa del Rosario, Love Muwwakkil Estes, and Carissa Topham Fisher, stretched and warmed up in full view. This pre-show event played under house lights and a modest stage lighting set, without music. The audience filed into the large Ground Floor Theatre (GFT) house with its raked seating.

 

Interiors came alive in one hour of duration without an intermission. The work comprised two parts demarcated by a contrastive costume change. Sections divided the parts further, but the movements of the dance sometimes blended into each other. That made the boundaries of the sections hard to distinguish but enhanced the flow of the performance. In a brief interview after the show, choreographer Dolan affirmed the section structure of the dance and said that the company in rehearsals gave each section names as aids to learning, but those names were not revealed to the audience or listed on the card programme. The striking clarity and diversity of movement throughout the dance concert may be attributed to this structure. And the high skills of the ensemble, of course.

 

The first section opened with walking entrances. These entrances segued from the pre-show walking and chatting  to the forming of shapes and the first uses of diagonals. The GFT stage is immensely horizontal, and diagonal lines and forms break up that spatial quality and create pleasing variety in space. The section showed us high-energy shapes and duet sets with enough diversity to surprise us. It also gave us the KDH signature smooth movement phrase terminating in stillness as other movement began at elsewhere on the stage.

 

Another section was Anna Bauer’s verbal description of making a sandwich. She walked slowly stage left to stage right, describing the process and how she felt about it. The other dancers lay on the marley floor and moved upstage of her. They crawled and gestured in the same direction as Anna. In a very easy synesthetic shift, they became to the viewer the ingredients of the sandwich she was building. The concept needed no further elaboration.

 

The solos in the first and subsequent sections spoke to the theme of interiors. These continued at various points throughout the dance. The heartfelt solos, all of them, gave us revelations of the self--the dancers’ interiors--beginning with the dancer’s characteristic movement, ending with new, equally heartfelt gestures as the section went on. The interior solos were the great sharing of the entire show, all performed with vulnerability and grace. Kudos to the ensemble.

 

The theme of interiors possesses much valence and, in varying degrees, the power to explain much and delve into the world--from the psychological, to the soul, to the emotions, and to architecture. The latter was explored by Technical Director Stephen Pruitt, who projected window frames onto the plain upstage wall. Some of the frames seemed to be interior framings, others exterior framings. Through their windows one could see exterior views as though we were looking from the inside out, on, for example, an expansive view of the Grand Canyon. Other views were looking into rooms as into a bedroom. The graphic design made us question whether we are looking out from our interiors or looking into our interiors with its many, sometimes perplexing, mysteries.

 

The music was composed, directed, and performed live by Composer Drew Silverman. It was diverse, but it harmonized with the dance in tempo and rhythm. In a brief interview after the show, Silverman said he was inspired by several composers and musicians: Miles Davis, Morton Feldman, Brittany Howard, the German band Neu!, EARTH, The Books, Boards of Canada, and Yoko Kanno. Silverman’s ensemble was comprised of Silverman himself on drums, all other manner of hit-ables, keyboards, and guitar; Andy Nolte on more keyboard and more guitar; Leila Louise Henley on flute and baritone saxophone; and Henna Chou on violincello and electric bass. The soundtrack would have made an exceptional music concert by itself but coupled here with the dance component of Interiors it became a thing apart and a near-unique artwork.

 

 

Two sections stood out in Part II. In the first, two dance couples in floorwork elevated and balanced a partner. The elevated partner created a static shape, seemingly in the air. The shapes of the two couples were identical, their shapes changing slowly in unison to other matching shapes. It seemed to this observer, who had a long career in field archeology, that the shapes were ancient sculptures the dream archeologist may have come across in a jungle clearing. The floral print patches on the tan costumes enhanced the reverie. To this observer, who sat at a distance, the patches looked like lichen and moss growing on brownish, sculpted stone. After the show, I was told that the unrevealed name by the dancers for that section was “sculptures.”

 

The other standout section involved the dancers in various static shapes on the stage. One of the dancers made small, sharp motions with a hand. Soon the other dancers made similar energetic motions with different body parts. The short section reminded one of a group of birds in a tree. The birds preen, move, and jostle the leaves. An observer away from the tree sees only the leaves shaking randomly. In Interiors, the random movement gradually integrated into uniform movement to a pronounced beat provided by Leila on the live soundtrack. The effect grew hypnotic. Kudos to Dolan who saw such small movements as a viable element of choreography. The small movements seem to be an outgrowth of the micromovements pioneered by Kathy Dunn Hamrick a few years back.

 

 

Costume design was essential to Interiors. Cara Cook and Carissa Topham Fisher received due credit for that work, and Cara Cook received a special credit for fabricating all the costume pieces. A final credit must go to Ground Floor Theatre for providing the venue and supporting all the work in it. Lisa Scheps and Patti Neff Tiven built the independent and spacious warehouse theatre and conduct hands-on management. Their nurturing attention to all things theatre, music, and dance in Austin cannot be overestimated. In the case of Interiors, Ground Floor Theatre has given KDH Dance Company a huge showcase for Alyson Dolan as she comes into her own as a producing choreographer with the diversely beautiful and flawless Interiors.

 

The shining Interiors glows doubly in the social and financial darkness that seem to be heightening around us. All in Austin must observe that producing art in a time of want grows rich in irony: to make a presentable work that's underfunded for required resources strains creativity but it also challenges it. The scarcity of material support drives the artist and company to solutions other than those envisioned and, possibly, to unexpected inspirations.

 

This is not a call to the City of Austin to cut KDH Dance funding further to stimulate better efforts; instead, it is a summons to artists to greater accomplishments in utter defiance of the City’s penurious, somewhat philistinish attitude toward its own arts children. The silver lining, as always, reverts to ticket buyers and funders, who, as consciousness rises, may find such art as Interiors worthy to be a larger part of their lives now and in the future.

 

Agree? Follow KDH Dance Company on social media. The rewards are all yours.

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Interiors
by KDH Dance Company
Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company

June 5 - 7, 2025

Ground Floor Theatre, Austin