From left to right: Kerry Ann Ring, Theresa Baker, Beth Elkins, Melanie Aceto, and Jennifer Golonka.

(photo: Gene Witkowski)

Buffalo saw the premiere of Nimbus Dance over the past two weeks with six sold-out performances. Due to popular demand, the production, Story of a Girl, will run two more nights, this Thursday and Friday, April 20 and 21.

Nimbus Dance is the creation of dancer and Pilates instructor Beth Elkins and architect/artist Brad Wales. The company’s first full-out performance incorporates dance, architectural space, spoken word, theater and video in an intimate, cabaret-like atmosphere.

The space in which Story of a Girl is performed, Gallery 164, is as much a player in the production as the artists. A double wide storefront space that is owned by Wales and Elkins is used as an architecture studio, gallery space, dance rehearsal space and performance space. Elkins’ Pilates Loft is located on the second floor. The space has evolved over the past several years to incorporate all of these uses; the latest introductions are three video projectors mounted on the ceiling, which are utilized throughout the performance to project moving images as the 30-foot backdrop of the performance.

Gallery 164 has seen notable exhibitions in many media, ranging from watercolor landscape, to blown glass, to steel sculpture and furniture, to digital and new media works. In the near future, artists will be commissioned to create works to utilize the three-channel video technology, and more live performances can be expected as well.

Story of a Girl makes use of the unusual space in its choreography. Different from a traditional theater, Gallery 164 is approximately square, and because seating occupies half of the room, the stage is shallow and wide. Two steel columns run up the middle of the space, and there is a two-foot-high platform in the storefront display window. All of this is used in the choreography. The dancers climb the columns and create vignettes at various heights on rolling, architectural steel platforms. The dancers push the limits of the space, crashing into walls, leaping into the display window and speaking to the audience, breaking down traditional dance barriers.

Elkins worked with the dancers—Jennifer Golonka, Kerry Ann Ring and Melanie Aceto, alnong with narrator Theresa Baker—to create the choreography, each contributing their own experiences as women and young girls to the story. Each of the dancers is clearly trained in ballet and modern dance, and classically perfect forms are as evident as popular grooves.

The production is composed of several stories, contemplating various stages of a girl’s life. The typical distractions of beauty, weight and height for a young woman are played against the horrors of war throughout the evening. Poet Kristi Meal, an offstage voice, reminds the audience continuously of the current war the United States is waging, as she counts the lives lost in Iraq, starting with one and reaching close to 2,000 by the end of the performance.

The content is incredibly layered throughout, ultimately describing the complicated position of parents raising a girl in today’s society. It is the struggle to create a valuable, cherished life for your child at the same time as being outraged by the actions of governments around the world.

Often, the video projection becomes a partner to the dancers. The video beautifully incorporates images of the dancers’ shadows in the first piece, “Once Upon a Time,” and throughout the evening we see images of war, nature, supermodels, words and Elkins’ daughter Valerie Wales as she goes from a baby to a four-year-old. The video was created by Wales, collaborating Brian Milbrand, technical director at Squeaky Wheel.

Jennifer Golonka is featured in “Once Upon a Time” as a young girl playing and dancing with vigor and delight. She is a Buffalo native now working in New York City with the Jessica Lang Project.

“Once You Get to Know Her” has Golonka giving Melanie Aceto, who plays the part of the teenage girl, her red dress, as if handing down her wisdom or leading her into womanhood. The “Keep Young and Beautiful” section has all of the dancers preoccupied with their bodies, and they eventually stop the performance to make hummus for the audience. Aceto attended New York University and is currently a professor in the University at Buffalo Dance Department.

“Once in Awhile” features Kerry Ann Ring as a woman with regrets. All of the dancers are particularly impressive in this piece, with powerful music selections creating a driving rhythm.

Theresa Baker narrates the performance and occasionally takes part in the choreography. A Real Dream Cabaret veteran, Baker brings us back to the ravages of war, the inequities of life and the fearsome future, over and over again. Just as you start to settle into a comfortable wistfulness with the dancers, she reminds you of the horrors we as a country are multiplying on the world. Throughout the performance she ranges from an uptight conductor of auditions, to a mother reading a Dr. Seuss book, to herself, distraught with feelings of helplessness.

The performance closes with a piece titled “Once Is Not Enough,” about the home birth of Elkins’ and Wales’s daughter, Valerie. The artistry leads the audience to a place of power. This piece shows how the two artists have made choices that move their life in the direction of independence and unwillingness to accept the status quo. Still, the feeling at the close of the performance is overwhelming; images of the Iraq war and haunting music by David Kane are the backdrop to the dancers asking, “What happens next?” and answering, “We’ll see.”

Elkins’ rich experience feeds this work. She has performed internationally in ballet, led Chautauqua Institution’s Dance Department for four years and has extensive training in modern and jazz dance. Unlike ballet, Elkins’ choreography is natural, emphasizing the weight and shape of bodies. The movements are alternately pedestrian or sensual or contorted and often break out with quick movements and big jumps into space.

Elkins credits Elaine Gardener, of Pick of the Crop Dance, as an influence on her modern choreography. Elkins notes, “Elaine’s always talking about ‘keeping it real’ and that’s exactly what we tried to do with this piece.”

Brad Wales co-founded a multi-media performance group, Nuncio Flash Theater Company, in Boston in the 1980s. This production brings him back to the possibilities of mixing art forms. Wales is an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and has an independent architectural practice.

There will be two command performances of Story of a Girl Thursday and Friday (April 20 & 21) at 8pm. Tickets are $15 and can be reserved by calling 866-8200. Seating is first come, first served, so arrive early to Gallery 164 at 164 Allen Street for the performance.

—cynnie gaasch