VaBang! Dance Company West Coast Premier August 30, 2008

VaBang! debuts its work on the west coast with 4 exciting pieces.

"Imagined Communities" is predicated on breaking down boundaries between constructed and imagined "forms" of dance, music, identity and culture. Inspired by Rodrigo y Gabriela's music.

Identity is seen here as a mosaic project, where one adopts what one sees, hears and experiences around oneself. The "imagined community," a concept coined by Benedict Anderson, states that a nation is a community socially constructed, which is to say, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group.

"Under My Thumb" explores the ambivalent relationship between women and society's depiction of an ideal woman. The piece speaks to the simultaneous seductive and repulsive nature of the idealized woman-at different times she can be sexy, violent, a subject of jealousy and a model of self-destruction. Sabangan has worked closely with composer Emily Joffee.

"Julia's Solo" is a patchwork of choreography, created from the experience of working in the studio day to day, performed in silence. The piece reflects personal emotional states from one day to the next. Just as in life, each episode is distinct, but they all come together as a complete and unified string of events.

"A Study in Communication" (Premiere) is inspired by the novel "History of Love." It explores the origins of love and emotion, both linguistic and embodied in gesture. The choreographic method was to translate the text from the novel into gestures and movement. Here is one excerpt from the novel:
"The first language humans had was gestures. There was nothing primitive about this language that flowed from people's hands, nothing we say now that could not be said in the endless array of movements possible with the fine bones of the fingers and wrists. The gestures were complex and subtle, involving a delicacy of motion that has since been lost completely...." (Krauss, 72)

$18 Advance/$22 Door.

Official Website: http://www.vabang.org/archives/category/events