‘Moves After Dark’ returns to Music Center

The Music Center’s Moves After Dark returns for a second season this August, featuring four contemporary dance companies that will provide compelling and inventive performances in a variety of distinctive, non-traditional performance spaces around The Music Center campus and in Grand Park.

Moves After Dark asks audiences to travel to where the dancers are performing and select their own vantage point for a distinctive, personal experience. The companies include: contemporary Indian dance theatre ensemble Blue13 Dance Company with Artistic Director Achinta S. McDaniel; Decadancetheatre with Artistic Director Jennifer Weber, including an all-female hip-hop crew; Invertigo Dance Theatre with Artistic Director Laura Karlin, which focuses on making dance compelling, fun, thought-provoking and accessible; and Afro-Brazilian Viver Brasil Dance Company led by Artistic Directors Linda Yudin and Luiz Badaró.

Moves After Dark will be held on August 8, 15, 16 and 17, 2016, at 8:30 pm each night. It’s sponsored by Center Dance Arts, a founding supporter of Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at The Music Center, which brings distinct dance experiences from around the world to the center’s stages.

According to Rachel Moore, president and CEO of The Music Center, Moves After Dark features atypical settings that let choreographers take contemporary dance to new levels.

“Audiences who join us for Moves After Dark will witness some of the most innovative choreographers as they take on the challenge of creating new work in unexpected places,” Moore said.

“We are excited about providing these four companies with a platform to weave a narrative and captivate audiences, including dance fans and those new to contemporary dance,” she added.

Michael Solomon, associate vice president of programming for The Music Center, explained that Moves After Dark takes away “the fourth wall” as audiences find themselves close to and sometimes encircled by the performance.

“As we curate the Moves After Dark experience, we remove all real or perceived barriers for the work, so the artists and audiences can collaborate to create the experience,” he said.

“Couple that with the social nature of the evening, as audiences walk throughout The Music Center campus and in Grand Park to different locations, and we have a distinctive concept unlike any other in Los Angeles,” he offered.

Each evening of the engagement will feature the same companies and works with performances lasting approximately 15 minutes each. Audiences will gather in groups and follow three different paths around The Music Center’s campus and in Grand Park that lead to each of the four performances; all groups will end with a culminating presentation on The Music Center Plaza. There will be a free special post-performance dance party featuring a DJ and cash bar.

General admission tickets for Moves After Dark are $30. There is no seating available. Tickets are available online at musiccenter.org/moves, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Box Office in Los Angeles, or by calling 213-972-0711.

Photo courtesy of The Music Center.