A & E

New Dance Company on the Block

Attention modern dancers and dance fans: There’s a new modern dance company on the block — actually it’s a transplant from Dallas — Mam-Luft and Co. Dance. They’re holding auditions Oct. 13 at the home of Contemporary Dance Theater (in the College Hill Town Hall building). Registration begins at 2 p.m., the auditions start at 3. Possible callbacks are scheduled for 1 p.m. Oct. 14. According to their announcement literature, divas and egos need not apply. Rather, they are seeking dancers with engaging performance skills, strong technique and comfort/experience in being a part of the choreographic process. This is not a ballet, jazz, classical or lyrical company. Men are strongly encouraged to audition. Visit www.mamluftcodance.com for details and an audition packet (as a PDF).

Mam-Luft and Co. Dance sounds like they might be the forward-thinking person’s modern dance, or makers of modern dance that makes you think — with their incorporations of video, photography and other media into their works. They also reconsider what dance is and is not as well as what it could be. Their Web site features “conspirators” and a “manifesto” about what the company is and is not. With our lone local Moving Art Dance Company being on potentially indefinite hiatus, this might be just what Cincinnati needs.

— Julie Mullins

To Kill and to Thrill at Cincinnati Dancesport

I spent some time at the 2007 Cincinnati Dancesportcompetitions Aug. 18 at the Sheraton Hotel by the airport.

Due to scheduling conflicts, I was able to attend only the last couple of competitions, but I also took in a lovely showcase in waltz and tango along with a few stints of open dancing in various styles: waltz, foxtrot, swing, salsa and more.

Outside the ballroom in between awards, I perused some of the gowns for sale by a Florida-based vendor. To say they are dramatic would be an understatement. Think of extravagant combinations of the most brightly colored, heavily sequined and beaded garments you can imagine. Often daringly cut and loaded with mesh and elaborate design work, they were heavy with the weight of glass or crystal beads. And the prices made me dizzier than dancing — a grand or two on average for these babies — but not surprising given how labor-intensive they must be to create. Several were made by London couturiers.

Gaga Over Gala

I had the pleasure of enjoying a glut of fine dancing at ballet tech cincinnati’s Gala of International Ballet Stars Saturday evening at the Aronoff Center, where a flock of international dancers from prestigious global companies converged for a single night’s performance. Find out why locals should take great pride in Cincinnati Ballet, too. Check out my review here.

— Julie Mullins

Gold Medal Gatti

Kick up your heels for Cincinnati Ballet’s Joseph Gatti, who just took home a gold medal (and a cool $7,000 cash prize) in the men’s senior division from the inaugural World Ballet Competition in Orlando, Fla.

Gatti also danced with his onstage (and offstage) Cincinnati Ballet partner, Adiarys Almeida, in the fiery Don Quixote pas de deux in the competition’s closing “Gala of the Stars” on July 8. Orlando Sentinel Dance Critic Diane Hubbard Burns described their performance as a “shooting-star delivery” that garnered fervent audience response.

Locals can catch the duo Aug. 11 in ballet tech cincinnati’s Gala of International Ballet Stars at the Aronoff Center where they’ll represent our fair city among the evening’s host of the brightest ballet stars from prestigious companies across the globe.

— Julie Mullins