Portland Stage Reviews

12 hours later, I’m still in awe of what I saw last night. I can’t stop thinking about it. The images in my head, the way I felt, and being able to witness the stunning ability of what the human body can do, and the type of music they can do it to, I haven’t seen a dance company that was able to make me feel that way in a really long time. Ok, some of the companies in the 2009 Dance United did, but I can’t remember who they were so does it really count?

Last night White Bird presented Portland with the Trey McIntyre Project. They were here once before in February of 2009, then again for Dance United in June of 2009. A total of 10 dancers took the stage last night for the beginning of their three show performance run at the Newmark Theatre. I wish there were more time for them to perform here as I do believe last night was sold out – certainly looked that way!

The evenings performance began with 5 dancers dancing to a total of 7 Roy Orbison songs. Wait, what’s that you say? Roy Orbison? Trust me… I’m not a huge fan of Roy, but that’s part of the brilliance of choreographer Trey McIntyre. He has this amazing ability to take songs like Crying, Dream Baby, and I Never Knew, and turn them into pieces that were fun, lighthearted, spunky, and highly entertaining. The precision of these 5 dancers was amazing. The similar dance moves throughout this set were consistent and challenging. One of the things that stuck me right away was how sharp they all were dancing together as a group. So clean and extremely polished.

After a brief pause, Gravity Heroes came to light before our eyes. With music by Antony & The Johnsons, Benjamin Britten, Tommy James & The Shondells, Ray Lamontagne and of course, no dance piece would be complete without the awesomeness of the Sex Pistols. You heard me right. This piece was so delightful & sporadic, I’d venture to say that no other set of dancers and certainly no other choreographer has even been able to capture so many emotions out of me in approx. 20-30 minutes. Starting out with a brief bit of punk rock it was enough to get the “hell yeah” juices flowing with what was about a minute worth of ‘street dance, anarchy, rebelliousness’ all rolled into one but then, the lighting changed and pinatas dropped down from the ceiling and it seemed that the angst still continued, but then got wrapped up into this beautiful moment three times over and ended with a moment at the end of the act that left me in tears. I could seriously watch Brett Perry dance forever. What an amazing dancer – Thanks Trey McIntyre, you made me cry.

After a brief intermission, the dancers came back with The Sweeter End inspired by the New Orleans jazz movement and broken into 4 subsets. Highly fun, entertaining, sweet and powerful. To explain them all would be giving too much away and I really want people to go see this so I’ll shut it.

Bottom line: I am constantly amazed at the quality of performance art that Portland has to offer and also amazed at what White Bird pulls together for their audiences. I mentioned before, the pleasure of working with them, and seeing their hard work presented onstage has been nothing short of awesome. Trey McIntyre Project is no exception. With tickets starting at just $22 for the remaining two shows, it’s so very worth it to become educated, blown away, cultured, and sucked into this wonderful thing called dance.

Thanks White Bird.