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Repertoire
"Flamenco Takes a Surreal Leap: Chicago dancer-choreographer Wendy Clinard cuts a path through the opposing worlds of life and death in her latest flamenco-based performance, Jondo Portraits. In the process, she probes the surreal manifestations of grief, especially in times of war... Jondo Portraits is not a depressing dirge. It can take on the tragically whimsical qualities of a Pedro Almodovar film. And it places the intricate presentational aspects of flamenco in a vital contemporary context."
- Lucia Mauro, Chicago Tribune
Featuring Flamenco guitarist Pedro Cortes, Composer Kinan Abou-afach, The work of painter Thomas Masters, and Sculptress Susan Clinard.
Flamenco, cello, guitar, spiraling surfaces, flesh and wood, multiple frames, swirling fabric, live sculpture, painting, and video projection integrate to create Clinard Dance Theatres new work, JONDO PORTRAITS. In Clinards quest for new ways of communicating personal and global events she has chosen the Jondo (Spanish translation of deep song) branch of Flamenco music and dance as the springboard for JONDO PORTRAITS. The traditional boundaries of flamenco are stretched, culminating into this contemporary dance theatre work.
JONDO PORTRAITS is structured as three vignettes surrounding the themes of madness, loss, and longing. It aims at creating still and moving portraits that recharge our astonishment, our questioning, our grief, and our compassion in our contemporary climate of war. Historically, through their song and dance, the Jondo forms transcended human sufferings by communion with the unknown. It was art intended for the community that encompassed not only the human but the divine.
In the creation of this powerful and moving work, Clinard has sought the artistic collaboration of legendary flamenco guitarist and composer Pedro Cortez, Syrian-born cellist and composer Kinan Abou-afach, world-recognized sculptress and sister Susan Clinard, and renowned painter Thomas Masters.
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_____________________________________________________________ Unraveling Rhythms Wendy Clinard and Siri Sonty Unraveling Rhythms is a work aimed at both transcending and including the musical and dance forms of flamenco and classical Indian. The work is in tryptic format with line-ink paintings documented by a video artist bridging the three sections, as a handing off of the baton of energy is created between 2, 3, and 4 dimensions of space and time. All aspects of the work — music, painting, and dance move from the purity of traditions into a hybrid treatment of forms, and culminates with a total departure of traditions. The application of the 3 sections morphs from rigor and foundation into a larger sense of space & energy, into the interior world of the human form in time. Contextually, the work travels from the mythology of our traditions into our mythology’s living embodiment through people (the human form on earth) to the expression of these living people in our current times. The third section is treated as a meditation acknowledging the recent tsunami 2004. All contributing disciplines — dance, painting, and music — gradually move from a general sense of “fullness” to “emptiness.” The work culminates in the meditative assemblance of 295,000 — the human loss incurred in tsunami 2004 — ink dots slowly amassing. That dense blackness then shatters off the projected screen onto the living dancers, leaving whiteness behind. Our loss is carried by our living wrapped in the emptiness; the silence of our loss we embrace, we sit, we acknowledge.
Photo by John Boehm
Featured artists: Siri Sonty and Jeff Abbey Maldonado
SIRI SONTY is a student and performer of the Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi styles of South Indian classical dance. She began her training in 1981 under Sudha Srinivasan, student of the eminent Bharatanatyam guru Padmasri Adayar K. Lakshman, director of the Nrityalaya School of Dance, Downers Grove, Illinois, and was introduced to the Kuchipudi style in 1988 by Prof. Dr. K. Uma Rama Rao, director of the Lasya Priya School of dance, Hyderabad, India. Siri, along with her sister Sita, has given over 300 performances, including four nationwide performance tours in the U.S. and in India. She has performed for academic, cultural, and religious organizations, the 1994 Parliament of World Religions among them, and has had the honor of performing for the Dalai Lama of Tibet and Sri Chinmoy of India. Siri and Sita were awarded the titles “Nrityakala Manjari” by Vamsee Arts International, Hyderabad, India, and “Natya Sudha Lahari” by the eminent musician of South India, Sri Nookala Chinna Satyanarayana in 1998, among other awards for dance. She has also been involved in theatrical productions with “the Neo-Futurists”, a Chicago-based experimental theater company, and was featured in the critically-acclaimed “A 60-Minute History of Humankind” and “Inside My Mouth”. More recently, Siri has been involved in cross-cultural collaboration with Flamenco performer Wendy Clinard, director of Clinard Dance Theatre, Chicago, IL, and world-fusion music group Las Guitarras de España (The Guitars of Spain). Their maiden hybrid choreographic venture, Unraveling Rhythms, met with critical acclaim and is currently being developed into a full evening of hybrid performance to be taken on tour. Siri is currently an MD-PhD student at Northwestern University Medical School and is honored to have been the recipient of the VEDANTHAM LAKSHMI NARAYANA SASTRY award this year.
JEFF ABBEY MALDONADO is a Chicago based Artist whose wide range of work has been exhibited in galleries, museums, cultural centers and universities. In Chicago he has exhibited solo at the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum and Jan Cicero Gallery. In group form, the Artist has exhibited in New York, Paris, Istanbul, Mexico, Canada, Nicaragua, Texas, Ohio, California, Arizona, Michigan and Indiana. Mr. Maldonado is the recipient of the Community Artist Assistance Program Grant, the Governor’s International Artist Exchange Program Grant and the Illinois Arts Council Special Assistance Grant. Some of the numerous commissions have come from the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, the Chicago Historical Society, Northwestern University Settlement Association, Delray Farms, Inc., Cuervo Tequila and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has been featured on television, radio and print. He was on the first episode of ARTBEAT CHICAGO, also, CBS-TV Channel 2, WLS-TV Channel 7 , Fox Morning News and Turkish CNN. He was featured in the first issue of Museums Chicago, as well as National Geographic Travel Magazine, Turkish Art Magazine Akadamist , UR Chicago, Vuelo: Mexicana Airlines Magazine, The Daily Herald, Contemporary Chicano/a Art , by Arizona State University and in Francisco Hinojosa’s book, Mexican Chicago.
Quest of Theseus( July 2002 Vittum Theatre) |
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Originally premiered in December 1999 at Vittum Theatre. LightingDesigner- Russell Drapkin Sound Designer- John Benya Puppeteers- Thierry Emonet,Susan Clinard, Karen Fisher, Helena Segovia, Sabrina Patino, and Maria Meder.Dancers- Joel Maisonet, Karen Stelling, Wendy Clinard, Domingo Rubio, Shanti KumariJohnson, and Makiko Yamashita . Set Designer and Master Builder of sets/puppets-Susan Clinard. Costume Designer- Amy GabbertMusicians-Chanson Sefardite sung by Monserrat Figueras and original compositions byLas Guitarras de Espana (Carlo Basile, David Gonzalez, Doug Brush, and JenniferTrowbridge). |
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Shifting Landscapes |
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Lighting Designer- Russell Drapkin Sound Designer- John Benya Master Builder- SusanClinard Costume Designer- Amy Gabbert Musicians/ musical arrangements- Original workby Las Guitarras de Espana (Carlo Basile, Hector Fernandez, Jennifer Trowbridge, LuisLoubriel, David Gonzalez and Doug Brush.) Dancers- Domingo Rubio,Wendy Clinard, Makiko Yamashita, Karen Stelling, Joel Maisonet,Darrell Dautrieve,andShanti Kumari Johnson Puppeteers- Helena Segovia, Maria Meder, Sabrina Patino, andThierry Emonet. Stage Manager- Kathi Beste. |
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