Earlier this month, Malashock Dance presented a sneak peek of “Excerpts and Encounters,” its upcoming dance concert being at The Joan and Irwin Jacobs Performing Arts Center, better known as The Joan, at Arts District Liberty Station.
The upcoming production, “ReGenerate,” showcases new works based on Malashock’s legacy, and it includes surprising flourishes, such as white crinoline skirts, a dancer supported by a cane and a stage layered with mounds of sand.
Former artistic director and founder John Malashock, arguably San Diego’s most famous modern choreographer, has emerged from semi-retirement to create a new work for the concert and two of his long-term collaborators have reimagined his original dances, including current artistic director Christopher K. Morgan and founding company member Debi Toth-Ward.
Morgan, a Malashock company dancer from 1995-1998 and artistic director since 2023, conceived of the “ReGenerate” project.
“Christopher was kind enough to ask if I was comfortable with this idea of taking the works and regenerating them in a different fashion,” Malashock said at the preview concert, presented at the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park. “I’m not interested in a retrospective, or in just restaging works the way they were 30-some years ago. I was very receptive to this idea of finding a fresh take.”
The preview event began with dancers Nick McGhee and Micah Parra wearing white crinoline skirts over black leotards, performing a lyrical segment from Morgan’s dance “Trajectory.”
Malashock Dance company members Jessica Rabanzo Flores and Nicholas McGhee perform a piece choreographed by John Malashock that will be reimagined for the company’s upcoming “ReGenerate” concert. (Doug McMinimy)
The dance was inspired by Malashock’s “Where the Arrow Landed,” described in a 1992 New York Times article as a performance that evoked a sense of yearning or “waiting for something to happen.” The costumes then were formal — velvet dresses and deconstructed suits — and the dancers were accompanied with “smoldering” music by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos.
Morgan said that he used Malashock’s dance as a springboard, rather than directly quoting from it.
Morgan remembered that when he danced to the Villa-Lobos score, it felt as if he were “transported to another world.”
“I knew I wanted to reconnect to that music, but I started to get a new sense of inspiration about where the work might go,” Morgan said. “There are some things about an arrow flying through space and also that I might go to a different place from where this type of trajectory comes from.”
“Trajectory” has a costume change, as well. Morgan had kept and refitted the skirts from a Shakespearean-inspired dance he created for a 2008 commission by the Shakespeare Theater Company in Washington D.C., where he lived at the time.
His research revealed that Shakespeare’s sonnets had “gender neutral themes,” or a lack of clarity about whether they were written to a male or a female.
And a dancer’s legs, regardless of whether they are male or female, are also often similar.
“It’s kind of bridging from my own artistic history,” Morgan said. “You’ll see them (dancers) with the skirts, without the skirts, skirts half-way up. And they evolve and transform the trajectory within the work that the costumes help to support.”
A segment of Toth-Ward’s dance, titled “Paths of Milk and Honey,” reconceived Malashock’s 1993 work “The Near Reaches,” which was hailed in the New York Times for its “intense, intimate partnering.”
It was accompanied by 15th-century Sephardic songs by Hespèrion XX, an early music ensemble.
Toth-Ward, who worked with Malashock for nine years and performed in “The Near Reaches” on multiple occasions, said that a dance can continue to live inside the body.
She remembered the original music as being exotic and envisioned a desert vibe for her “Paths of Milk and Honey,” which included multiple athletic partnering lifts in the preview.
“I often find myself using props and the desert theme really resonated with me. So, we are bringing in sand — beautiful mounds of sand on stage.”
The final, riveting excerpt was a new work by Malashock titled “The We of Me.” It’s based on the dramatic and emotionally wrenching personal life of Southern Gothic author Carson McCullers, a physically frail but powerful novelist, adept at portraying the loneliness and isolation of misfits and outcasts.
Dancer Jessica Rabanzo-Flores, dressed in a brown suit jacket and representing McCullers, approached the stage with a cane before joining company dancers who performed the gravity-defying balancing acts that reflect Malashock’s choreographic style. The work was accompanied to a haunting score by longtime friend and frequently commissioned composer Mark Attebery.
Malashock said that his earlier work, “Stan’s Retreat,” was based on McCullers’ novel “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,” but this time, he chose to tell a story related to McCullers, rather than “re-telling something about the novel she wrote.”
“The process of going back and looking at original works and the many steps along the way is a form of time travel,” said Malashock, who will also include his original duet, “Silver and Gold” in the “ReGenerate” program.
“But when Christopher talked about this idea of regenerating works they wanted to reconceptualize, I decided that’s the way I want to go here.”
Malashock Dance presents ‘ReGenerate’
When: 7:30 pm Saturday, May 2, 2:30 p.m. next Sunday, May 3 (this performance will be relaxed and sensory friendly). A pre-show reception on Saturday includes special guests, wine, and food by chef Damaso for an additional fee
Where: The Joan and Irwin Jacobs Performing Arts Center, 2880 Roosevelt Road, Liberty Station
Tickets: $25-$45
Phone: 619-337-1525
Online: malashockdance.org