2/25/2014 Lumina News - Your Coastal Community Newspaper Since May 2002

http://www.luminanews.com/article.asp?aid=2969&iid=127&sud=42 1/2
Staff photo by Al l i son Brei ner
al ban el ved dancers fl y the Sarus bi rd earl y Saturday morni ng,
Aug. 9, at Beach Access No. 4 to begi n a sessi on of the Sarus
Festi val for Performi ng Arts.
Staff photo by Al l i son Brei ner
Bri dget Morri s performs an aeri al dance off Johnni e Mercers
Pi er on Saturday afternoon, Aug. 9, duri ng the Sarus Festi val
for Performi ng Arts.
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In praise of sand and dancing feats
by Marimar McNaughton
Thursday, August 14, 2008
The sand is safe for a soft landing whether its for
Sarus, the worlds largest crane, or Sarus, the giant
Japanese rod puppet, ambassador of the international
Sarus Dance Festival that has embraced Wrightsville
Beach and the greater Wilmington area in its
wingspan with two weeks of site-specific outdoor
dance experiences.
The same sand at Beach Access No. 4 in
Wrightsville Beach provided a safe landing for a
sunrise concert on the beach on Saturday, Aug. 9,
and an encore performance later the same day.
Karola Lttringhaus, the maverick Berliner, New
Yorker and Wilmingtonian choreographer and
principal dancer for alban elved dance company,
conceived the idea for the festival in 2007, and now in
its second year, the annual event includes two weeks of dance diversity served by the multimedia dance
feast.
There is something about dancing on the beach that brings out the playful that proved an understatement
when Otesha Creative Arts Ensemble drew volunteers into its circle of African drumming and dancing in a
male/female call and response capturing the attention of even the most stalwart types who clapped
along to the rhythmic beating of the talking drum and djembe and the rattle of the beaded shakaree
with its engaging and uplifting ensemble performance.
A marked contrast was the alban elved companys sextet of trio, duet and solo pieces that summoned the
nagging imagination that comes along as an unwelcome sidecar during modern dance performances
trying to appliqu literal meanings to abstract body language. The sheer physicality of the form was
entrancing.
The largely volunteer audience, faced with the ever-looming threat of a thunderstorm, started to dissipate.
But not the family of six who bathed, nonplussed, fully clothed in the ocean, or the little girl in the pink
one-piece swimsuit, so enraptured that she mimicked the dancers choreography from the sidelines, or
the critics: seven sacred sea gulls that took over the dance floor after the curtain fell, squawking and
fluffing their wings, trying to horn in on the act, or the devotees and die-hards that followed the company of
movers and shakers to Johnnie Mercers Pier for the grand finale: aerial feats performed by Lttringhaus
with Bridget Morris and Janelle Eggleston suspended from harnesses above the sand and surf. Finally,
the clouds broke loose and showered rain over the crowd, which gathered in witness of these black-clad
fish-out-of-water and to the rainbow that appeared, arching over the Atlantic and its strange angels.
The run continues through the weekend with lectures and films on Thursday evening at Cameron Art
Museum, a dance jam Friday evening at Shell Island in Wrightsville Beach, and a gala fundraiser on
Sunday evening for alban elved at WHQR 91.3 FM public radios gallery on Front Street in Wilmington.
For details, visit www.sarusfestival.com.
2/25/2014 Lumina News - Your Coastal Community Newspaper Since May 2002
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