PRESS - reviews and articles about "MiDi"

About "MiDi"
12-07-01
Old Gold and Black
Wake Forest University Newspaper, Winston-Salem, NC
review by Aaron Bokros

"In watching the alban elved dance company perform their piece "MiDi" in rehearsal on December 6th, I saw something I had never seen before.... they move with it as if their inner strings were attached to every nuance and subtlety contained within a passage of music.

...all the while, their bodies would snake under a beam to avoid it or to move in its path, a momentary red dot on their torso revealing the laser.... Through the use of technology, these dancers have bridged the gap between music and movement. The beautiful images and emotions evoked by the piece were due in most part to the total commitment of the dancers , both physically and emotionally."

12-07-01
Winston-Salem Journal, Winston-Salem, NC
review by Lynn Felder

"In MiDi, which opened at the Scales Fine Arts Center, alban elved's artistic director Karola Luttringhaus applies technology to dance in much the same the way that we use technology in everyday life. It is part of the landscape, unavoidable. The question might be: What will we do with it? Will we be its slave, or will it be our tool?

It is Luttringhaus' most cohesive work. The music changes. The lighting changes. The movement changes. But the emotional tone sustained for a quick 90 minutes is dark, witty and wondrous.

The dancers - Luttringhaus, Andrea Lieske and Catherine Lewan - emerge, and the flat, still stage explodes into glorious sound, movement and light. Jonathan Christman designed the lighting. The intensity of the collaboration among technicians and dancers is palpable and effective, paying off in a highly original performance.

MiDi is sometimes baffling, often beautiful and every minute fascinating. "

03-22-03
Anchorage Daily News, Anchorage, AK
review by dance reviewer Anne Herman

"Abstract Dance, music combo leaves much to be pondered

'MiDi': Company's work expands notion of what art can be like."

" ... These are potent images from a dance called 'MiDi'. The alban elved dance company presented this stark 75 minute piece thursday at Out North Contemporary Art House.

Combining strong physical movements with state-of-the-art technology, ... ('MiDi' is) a raw work that expands our notions of what art can look and sound like. ...

Although it sounds technical and left-brained, 'MiDi' was actually very visceral. It seemed a work about control; who or what had it, and how it was used,

... sharp cutting gestures often morphed into long movement phrases.

... Musical segments were layered and then stripped by the performers, creating a sonic flow that mirrored the activity onstage.

'MiDi' was not an easy dance to watch or understand. Its abstract dissonance forced the viewer to accept it in the here and now and then ponder its meaning afterward. It was, in the end, perhaps a commentary on life internal and external, personal and societal.

But even if the dance made little sense at the time, it touched the viewer powerfully. And this too is what art is about.

01/16/02
The Independent Weekly, Raleigh, NC
by Byron Woods

"Winston-Salem's Karola Luttringhaus is one of the new ninjas of modern dance in North Carolina. Her high-velocity alban elved dance company, populated with graduates from the North Carolina School of the Arts, has impressed the critics up to now as kinetic, precise, and laserlike in execution.

Now they're using actual lasers in performance, connected to musical computers. You can wait for their technology and dance symposium with Duke University's new photonics center, or you can catch a glimpse of things to come right now. "