OnStage: Seeking Momentum

Bored one day last summer, Eddie Oroyan was perusing Craigslist for an air conditioner, but ended up reading the personals. "I thought, 'Wow, these are so lame. I could do better,' " he recalled. So he wrote one, and received "a witty, sarcastic response" from a woman that led to a tumultuous relationship.

That liaison inspired "Brown Rocket," his new duet with Laura Selle-Virtucio, with music by a live four-member band (also assembled via Craigslist). The work premieres during this year's "Momentum: New Dance Works," along with pieces by the following emerging Twin Cities choreographers: Chris Schlichting, Maia Maiden and Ellena Schoop, and Anna Marie Shogren.

A program of the Walker Art Center and the Southern Theater, Momentum tends to be uneven in terms of artistic maturity. Still, there are always flare-ups of genuine up-and-coming talent. Last year's series was all about Justin Jones the first weekend and Cathy Wright the second.

A four-member jury reviewed 21 submissions this year, looking for "dedication to the field of dance in the application and work samples, as well as complexity, innovation, a research process and a professionalism evidenced in the work," explained Michele Steinwald, the Walker Art Center's Momentum program director.

Each of this year's young choreographers is "taking a uniquely personal approach to dance," said Steinwald. "In each work you can see the influences the choreographer is drawing on, but each piece is structured in a way that's non-traditional, and is personal to the way they see and react to the world. An individual voice is really clear in each of the works."

During the first weekend, she added, the works by Schlichting, and Maiden and Schoop, "have a personal reference point, but comment on the world."

The series opens with Schlichting's "love things." It's "fueled and informed by postmodern work," he said, "but I'm not just abandoning a classical aesthetic; I'm embracing it, too."

Maiden and Schoop's "The Foundation, et cetera" pays homage to the connections between African dance and hip-hop, Maiden said. But the work also incorporates narrative, character, civil rights history, spoken word and storytelling to "explore identity through different generations of dance and people."

Momentum's second weekend features two works "that are really internal," Steinwald says. "Every twitch and movement is absolutely true to who they are and what they've experienced, amplified for the stage."

Anna Marie Shogren described her piece, "I'm a Jerk," as "an autobiographical work coming from me and the stuff floating through my brain, with lots of subtle connections between memories and materials from the past and the present." Oroyan added that "Brown Rocket" is less autobiographical, and more "a child off of this relationship. It has the character of what the relationship was about, the river of emotional craziness that I dipped into to sift out the really potent stuff."

Steinwald said she's "impressed at how ambitious and clear each work is. The dance artists have taken risks and served their pieces well." This year's Momentum choreographers also "represent a generation that's grown up with more media and access to information and less rules; most of the rules have already been broken," she added.

"They're able to tap into what will move their piece along without restraining themselves into fitting into a particular mold," Steinwald said. "They're not falling on technique or tradition, even if they're inspired by it. Their movement vocabularies are thoughtful. Each one of these artists has stayed true and grounded, and are showing the best that they can do right now."

Camille LeFevre is a Twin Cities dance critic.