Libby Hanssen, Proust Eats a Sandwich

We all carry, even those most thoroughly self-convinced otherwise, an internal palette that colors every moment, past and future. The present is impossible to discern, inaccuracies rife, yet it is all we have. As the crimson blends with orange or umber or sky-blue: a muddied rust. It’s that rust that bleeds through everything, a patinated through-line, which may tarnish or make more desirable dependent on one’s perspective, regarded as either corrosion or a ripening.

Libby Hanssen, Special to The Kansas City Star

A dancer’s steady, isolated tread is interrupted, her elbow drawn back by an unseen energy.

With Icarian force, a man leaps around her. The woody timbre of the cello, underscored by a repetitious drum beat and layered backup vocals, accompanies a mournful voice.

This is the first music and dance rehearsal for “Memory Palace,” the Owen/Cox Dance Group’s world premiere on Saturday at the Spencer Theatre featuring New Orleans-based Belgian-American cellist/chanteuse Helen Gillet (see D1).

Kansas City Live

"Memory Palace" by the Owen/Cox Dance Group opens June 28th at the Helen F. Spencer Theatre, UMKC Performing Arts Center. Tickets range from $10-$20.

Karen Hauge, KCMetropolis.org

The Bach Aria Soloists continued its “Season of Collaboration” by teaming up with Owen/Cox Dance Group for a successful performance of diverse sonatas at the Folly Theater last weekend.

The 2013–14 season has been one of exciting collaboration for the Bach Aria Soloists, who, since the fall, have joined their considerable talents with the likes of newEar contemporary chamber ensemble and the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival. Reaching into another facet of Kansas City’s local talent, the Soloists formed a partnership with the Owen/Cox Dance Group, known for their innovative work with new music and contemporary dance. This past Saturday found the pair of groups working together to create several new pieces against the backdrop of the historic Folly Theater.

Alex Morales, KC Studio

The story of The Nutcracker has been around for almost 200 years. In the hands of the dancers and musicians with the Owen/Cox Dance Group, the fairy tale takes on a vibrancy of movement that captures tradition and melds it with whimsy and charm. Like ribbons of color and light, the performers find energy and fun in this avant-garde rendition.

Paul Horsley, The Independent

For all its thorny monumentality, Bach’s Goldberg Variations has been choreographed dozens of times through the years, by such major figures as Jerome Robbins and, more recently, by adventurous folks such as James Kudelka, Mark Haim, John Clifford and Jurij Konjar. (Haim called it a “sort of Mount Everest of dance.”) Jennifer Owen and her husband, Brad Cox, formed the Owen/Cox Dance Group after Jen’s departure from the Kansas City Ballet, and their company has made quite a mark in the city’s artistic landscape – partly for its zany and now-annual The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. But holiday traditions aside, Jen has spent the last couple of years creating what is surely the largest work of her choreographic career. 

Laura Vernaci, KCMetropolis.org

Owen/Cox Dance Group’s presentation of “The Goldberg Variations” represented a collaboration with pianist Kairy Koshoeva and a fresh new style and subject of performance for the innovative Kansas City dance troupe.

On Saturday night at UMKC’s White Recital Hall, Owen/Cox Dance Group’s only showing of The Goldberg Variationsboasted a worthy turnout. Not known for lavish costumes and rarely relying on props or scenery, OCDG gave a performance based on pure movement and music. The decision to stage the nearly two-hour, full-length presentation of J.S. Bach’s Aria plus 30 variations stemmed from an earlier demonstration at ArtSounds at the Kansas City Art Institute last fall. Kairy Koshoeva proposed the collaboration to Owen, who accepted the challenge.

Libby Hanssen, Special to The Kansas City Star

The Owen/Cox Dance Group, with pianist Kairy Koshoeva, concluded their season with the world premiere of a delightfully inventive evening-length ballet set to J. S. Bach’s “Goldberg Variations,” performed in the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s White Hall.

 “The Goldberg Variations,” one of Bach’s monumental keyboard works, consists of an aria and its thirty variations. It is a testament of endurance, technical ability, theoretical understanding and interpretation for the performer.

Leslie Collins, Northeast News

As the Holy Cross Catholic School fourth graders lined up in the gym, they couldn’t stop from smiling. They were ready to dance.

Their gusto felt contagious as they executed their choreographed moves to the live keyboardist, keeping in time to the music and chanting simultaneously. During one dance sequence they shouted the ways to be excellent in life, which included “work hard, do your personal best and never give up.”

Laura Vernaci, KCMetropolis.org

On Saturday at the Folly Theater, Owen/Cox Dance Group will present its 4th annual production of "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King." It is a treat for all ages, encompassing a variety of elements, such as humor and magic, which is incredibly inventive and entertaining.

OCDG’s holiday interpretation strays from most dance renditions but actually stays closer to E.T.A. Hoffmann’s original tale. It highlights the story of the Hard Nut, which includes characters such as Madam Mouserinks, Princess Pirlipat, and Drosselmeyer’s nephew, who becomes the Nutcracker that we know after an unfortunate curse. Like some other famous fairy tales from the early 18th century, such as The Little Mermaid, Hoffmann’s story is dark at the core with strange twists and turns, although a surprisingly happy ending.