Modern Dance

Eileen Rivers created her professional modern dance troupe shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- a date that is the focus of her latest work. Rivers, 33, will use the universal language of dance to communicate the horrors of Sept. 11 and the Iraq war for the Mustard Seed Dance Company's staging of The Art of War on March 24 at the Chesapeake Arts Center. The MSDC, as it is known, plans to use film footage as a backdrop for the seven-part performance and has been soliciting photos of service members who have died in Iraq.

My dance career began inauspiciously, nearly ending in third grade when I missed the cut for The Nutcracker. Prancing around for the role of a mouse, my mind wandered out of the audition studio that day. Those little-girl ballerina dreams escaped me. Had I ever even asked to take ballet? No, my Francophile mother must have forced the rigid dance, not to mention the French language, on me. Nor did I enjoy my second brief encounter with ballet some three years later. To improve my ice-skating moves, a friend suggested I join her class.

Modern dance choreographer Eva Anderson readily admits to being shocked that her dance company is still alive and kicking after 25 years."It doesn't seem like it's been that long," the 66-year-old Anderson says with a laugh. "It feels good, you know, because to be an arts organization means being totally dependent on grants and individual donations."Running a dance company is not the easiest thing in the world," she adds. "It's tough, but we're still here."The Eva Anderson Dancers will celebrate its silver anniversary with a concert Saturday at Jim Rouse Theatre for the Performing Arts in Columbia.

For the first time in its 12-year history, the Columbia Festival of the Arts will feature three national dance companies that will premiere works and offer master classes to area residents.The stellar lineup is further evidence of the festival's growing regional importance as a multifaceted arts event.With the inclusion of such well-regarded dance companies as the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Doug Varone and Dancers, and Joe Chvala and the Flying Foot Forum, this year's festival likely will secure Columbia's reputation as a city that embraces the arts, said Katherine Knowles, the festival's executive director.

Jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis, the acclaimed Dayton Contemporary Dance Company and classical guitarist Christopher Parkening are some of the headliners for the 11th annual Columbia Festival of the Arts, which begins in June.Other performers include Michael Moschen, a theatrical juggler and former Cirque du Soleil performer, and the Jimmy McGriff/Hank Crawford Quartet. The Doug Varone & Dancers, famous for athleticism and split-second moves, will present the world premiere of a performance, and poet laureate Rita Dove will read from her latest collection of poetry, "On the Bus With Rosa Parks."

When a great modern-dance choreographer creates a solo for herself, it's like a writer turning from novel to short story. The materials and the method are the same, but the result is more concentrated, polished and personal.And the great modern dancers -- who were, by and large, American women -- all began working out their signature styles by creating work for their singular bodies.That's one point "Tribute to the Solo," at the Kennedy Center tomorrow through Thursday, is trying to make.

Members of Surge Dance Company began offering instruction last spring at Harbor Arts Center in Federal Hill and will expand its program this season.Classes for children and adults at all levels of experience are now being offered in swing, ballroom, jazz, ballet and modern dance, as well as theater and singing, Tuesdays and Thursdays through May 15. The teachers are Ruth Skrzesz, a singer and actress, and dancer Stephanie Thibeault.Harbor Arts Center is in Olive Branch United Methodist Church, Fort Avenue and South Charles Street.

Rudy West,65, one of the original members of the Five Keys, which recorded such 1950s hits as "The Glory of Love," "Close Your Eyes" and "Out of Sight, Out of Mind," died of a heart attack Thursday in Chesapeake, Va.William Louther,56, a leading American modern dancer who also directed the Batsheva Dance Company of Israel and helped to establish modern dance in England, died of esophageal cancer May 7 in London. He performed on Broadway and in many American modern dance companies in the late 1950s and '60s, most notably with Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey and Donald McKayle.

Surge Dance Company, in a short and pleasing program given this weekend at the Carver Center for Arts & Technology in Towson, showed there's nothing fearsome or off-putting about modern dance.All Surge's dances are easy to read, though by this I don't mean simple-minded. They relate meaning and movement in a legible, accessible way.Linda McDevitt's "Why Look Back," to music of New Age string players Edgar Meyer and Mark O'Connor, complements its score with gently folk-flavored movement. It was danced by a quintet of women who circle, break apart and reunite in a series of ritual figurations: a round dance of friendship and support.

Lawrence Goldhuber is more than 6 feet tall and weighs about 350 pounds. Heidi Latsky is not much more than 5 feet and carries 100 pounds. Yet, as the title of their signature dance work says, "It's Not What You Think."Goldhuber and Latsky will perform that work tonight at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, along with the first part -- which is actually two pieces -- of their "not-yet-to-be-completed" full-length work, "I Hate Modern Dance."Audiences can see then that the odd couple of dance are not at all what they seem at first glance.

Auditions * The Columbia Orchestra will hold auditions 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. today and 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday at Christ Episcopal Church, 6800 Oakland Mills Road. Call 410-465-8777, ext. 4, or e-mail join@columbiaorchestra.org. * Silhouette Stages (formerly Shadow Block Productions) will hold auditions for a cast of 18 to 30 actors, singers and dancers ages 16 and older, for its production of "Sugar," a Broadway musical based on the screenplay of the film "Some Like it Hot." The play is about two musicians who are witnesses to a murder and are forced to hide from the bad guys by disguising themselves as women and joining an all-female orchestra.

FRIDAY BALTIMORE SUMMER RESTAURANT WEEK STARTS: Close to 100 restaurants participate in the latest incarnation of this now oft-repeated tradition. Select Baltimore-area restaurants offer three-course lunches for $20.09 and three-course dinners for $30.09. Scour the list on the Web site to spot the best deals, then make your reservations and enjoy a meal at a restaurant you've never ventured to before. Runs through Aug. 16. Go to baltimorerestaurantweek.com. For reservations, go to opentable.

Janette Sullivan has dedicated her life to teaching people of all ages how to "twirl with grace" in her ballet classes, and three years ago, she broadened her influence to encompass all types of aspiring young dancers, regardless of their training background, with the Westminster International Dance Festival. "I found inspiration from spending many summers as a youth attending dance camps around the country," Sullivan said. "Those camps really strengthened my dance skills, and I knew there were no similar camps in the Westminster area."

My dance career began inauspiciously, nearly ending in third grade when I missed the cut for The Nutcracker. Prancing around for the role of a mouse, my mind wandered out of the audition studio that day. Those little-girl ballerina dreams escaped me. Had I ever even asked to take ballet? No, my Francophile mother must have forced the rigid dance, not to mention the French language, on me. Nor did I enjoy my second brief encounter with ballet some three years later. To improve my ice-skating moves, a friend suggested I join her class.

Eileen Rivers created her professional modern dance troupe shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- a date that is the focus of her latest work. Rivers, 33, will use the universal language of dance to communicate the horrors of Sept. 11 and the Iraq war for the Mustard Seed Dance Company's staging of The Art of War on March 24 at the Chesapeake Arts Center. The MSDC, as it is known, plans to use film footage as a backdrop for the seven-part performance and has been soliciting photos of service members who have died in Iraq.

The fourth annual Dancing for Dancers held Saturday at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts raised about $7,000 to benefit the Edward Stewart Memorial Scholarship Fund. Stewart was the founder of the Ballet Theatre of Annapolis (later the Ballet Theatre of Maryland) and served as the company's director for 22 years until his death from lung cancer in July 2002. He had expressed his wish to establish a scholarship fund to provide financial assistance for classical ballet training for promising students in Maryland.

Nicole Dortch, Samuel L. Banks SPORT BADMINTON GIRLS STATS -- Dortch, a junior who has run cross country and been a member of the varsity dance team, is in her first season on the badminton team. A student of modern dance in middle school, she has performed spiritual dancing at her church. SIDELINES -- Carrying a 95-percent academic average, Dortch has wanted to become a surgeon since she met Dr. Ben Carson, the prominent neurosurgeon, when he operated on her cousin at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Forget the pink tutus, rhinestone tiaras and pancake makeup - there's a new spin on ballet. Garth Fagan Dance, a dance company and school, is on the cutting-edge of modern dance, using the "Fagan Technique," which combines the flair of rhythmic Afro-Caribbean styles with the speed and precision of ballet turns and "high extensions," a term for how a dancer lifts the leg. The dance troupe performs at the Hippodrome Theatre at the France-Merrick Performing...

Just like Tony, the character he portrays in Movin' Out, Keith Roberts is getting to know the stranger in himself. Mostly, he likes who he finds. Not always, though. "There are times when I'm dancing when I stop being myself and start becoming the character," Roberts says. "I start becoming whoever I'm dancing at the time. I become anybody but me. I get to put all my issues aside and work through other issues that never would crop up in my life. It's a great escape, really." It must be. He's spent four years perfecting the role.

QuestFest - an international visual theater festival - will present 11 productions ranging from clown theater to dance at three Baltimore venues Jan. 9-22. The festival is the second spearheaded by Quest: arts for everyone, a Lanham-based organization whose mission is to "use the arts to promote understanding among all people and enable people who have been marginalized to realize their full potential," according to Tim McCarty, the company's founder and executive director. McCarty defines visual theater as "non-text-based" performance that "involves mime, dance, gesture, also digital media, and it really blurs the line between what is dance, what is theater, what is mime."