NOT OUR GRANDFATHER’S DANCE

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

NOT OUR GRANDFATHER’S DANCE

If your notion of a dance concert is one of toe shoes and tutus and little girls that aspire to become famous ballerinas showing off for moms and dads with cellphones at the ready to take videos, you will not get any of that when you go to a dance concert by Mam-Luft & Co. Dance. (www.mamluftcodance.org) mamluft

MLC, for short, is all about Modern Dance. No, actually, make that contemporary dance. Modern Dance has been around for over a century while Mam-Luft & Company and its dancers have been around for just ten seasons, which, as dance troupes goes makes them both youngsters and survivors in the touch-and-go world of dance.

They have a three-concert season that begins this coming November 9th with several performances at the Clifton Cultural Arts Center. In that opening concert, aptly titled 5 of 10, the MLC dancers bring back five dance pieces from their ten-year repertory. Of these, the one voted audience favorite will be repeated in their May 5-6 pair of concerts – Homecoming – at the Aronoff Center’s second space.

Those are their two Cincinnati concerts. On March 31 through April 2 they will be at NKU collaborating with their students on a new work.

MLC is led by Jeanne Mam-Luft, who functions as the company’s leader, artistic director and business manager. She supplements the company’s modest ticket income by teaching dance to kids and adults throughout the year and in various locations around the area within an outreach program partially supported by Artswave, Ohio Arts and the generosity of a handful of donors.

I can personally vouch for the high artistic quality of this indispensable member of the small but growing Cincinnati dance scene, having reviewed and raved about their work for the past three years.

But remember, this is not our grandfather’s dance..

Rafael de Acha

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”