Give props to choreography that draws inspiration from everyday life

• by alicia greenleigh
• October 1, 2010
• Salt Lake Tribune article link

Ordinary objects like jackets or pillows might not seem like the stuff of great artistic inspiration, but for choreographers Nick Cendese and Natosha Washington, everyday life is where they find the most ideas.

In their latest work, “The Story of Eight,” the co-founders of RawMoves dance company focus on eight props, such as rope, a ladder and roses, which appear throughout the show. They’re restaging the concert that debuted in January.

Cendese and Washington, who met ten years ago as modern dance students at the University of Utah, founded RawMoves in 2004 because of their shared interest to create dance around the ordinary and unnoticed aspects of life.

“Some types of dance are created as an escape from everyday life, but Natosha and I want to really magnify it,” said Cendese, who has been a dancer for Repertory Dance Theater for nine years. “I think there are so many different complexities that occur in regular life that really speaks about our generation today — the technology, images and priorities — and there’s something unique about living today at our age that’s different from other times.”

Washington, who teaches dance at Salt Lake City’s Judge Memorial High School, says using ideas and objects that everyone recognizes is an attempt to make dance more accessible.

“A lot of times it’s easy for artists to get caught up in our own worlds, and we sometimes forget about the people that are watching our work,” she said. “So my goal is to really let people feel free to make their own interpretations [of dance] and not feel like there is a right or wrong answer.”

“The Story of Eight” is made of 13 different dances about love, relationships, freedom and oppression, which are woven together with the eight recurring props.

One work features a ladder that represents the sky. Cendese says the work considers the idea of “Chicken Little” in that a dancer feels trapped by a ladder while trying to escape.

Another piece uses roses, but turns on its head the flower’s traditional connotations of love and romance. “The dancers use the roses to beat themselves and it becomes a weapon in some way,” Cendese said. “It’s just a poignant image of what love can do to someone and how something that’s really beautiful can be dangerous.”

The props help create a cohesive structure, but the “real meat is how the prop lends itself to the emotional landscape” of the pieces, says Karin Fenn, one of seven dancers in the concert.

“In the first production, so many people were moved to tears because [the work] struck a chord emotionally,” Fenn said.

Washington says she couldn’t have wished for anything better, and hopes the work will resonate with audiences again this time around.

“There are places where you will cry,” she said. “Places that make you uncomfortable. When I see work that makes me feel, that’s the stuff that stays with me the longest. I hope people are able to come into it open and allow whatever it is they see to wash over them,” she said.

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RawMoves’ ‘The Story of Eight’

When • Friday and Saturday, Oct 8-9 at 8 p.m., and Sunday, Oct. 10 at 2 p.m.

Where • Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 W. 300 South, Salt Lake City

Info • $15 at 801-355-ARTS or www.arttix.org

More • For information about RawMoves, visit www.rawmovesdance.com.