Review: AteNine & “calling glenn”
"In 2013, Israeli dancer and choreographer Danielle Agami migrated from Seattle to Los Angeles with her young company, Ate9. In the past four years, she’s had so many gigs that I wondered if she had a magical Time-Turner (see “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”), to be everywhere at once. Two shows at Los Angeles Theatre Center; choreographer of the headphone opera “Invisible Cities” at Union Station; an out-of-the-box solo for ballerina Melissa Barak; an award-winning piece in Palm Springs; a residency at UCLA; other shows in L.A., Orange County and elsewhere.
I’ve probably left things out, but you get the idea. The woman pushes hard and works harder.
On Saturday (Nov. 11), Agami and AteNine (now Nine, instead of 9) premiered “calling glenn” at Royce Hall, and both the piece and the fact of being presented by UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance are important milestones for Agami. “calling glenn” is a strong, complex piece, 70 minutes straight through. It depends upon, and benefits from, the collaboration between Agami and composer-musician Glenn Kotche, who plays live during the work, upstage and behind the nine dancers. Kotche, of the alternative rock band Wilco, moves between a large drum set laden with strange and beautiful-sounding percussion instruments to two different xylophone-type pieces. (I’m hedging because technically they might not be xylophones.) Kotche delivers rhythmic assurance and a melodic backdrop that nicely contrasts with Agami’s twisted and distorted movement (more on that shortly). Kotche’s intent is never to overpower the dance, but to drive it forward and complement. He succeeds wonderfully. At one point the dancers pull chairs in front of him just to watch the concert, and you empathize."— Laura Bleiberg, Nov. 13, 2017
Read the full article at the Emphasis Dance website.