Presenting its 42nd annual end-of-year concert at the Barclay Theater in Irvine this Thursday through Saturday, May 29-31, 2025, the highly acclaimed after-school program, The Wooden Floor, connects young dancers to adult contemporary choreographers. The four performances of “Curious Currents of Possibilities” take place each night at 8 and a matinee on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
The artistic collaboration between the youth and the dancemakers is what separates this from the typical culminating dance recital. Each of the up-and-coming invited movement directors comes with a solid choreographic history of her or his own and an openness to new ideas. They invite and welcome input from the younger movers and often push the envelope of what’s expected at events like these.
This year’s adult directors are: Eva Stone, Jennifer Bassage Bonfil and Billy Smith.
After earning her MFA from Arizona State University and studying in London, England, Stone created her own company, The Stone Dance Collective, that is based in Seattle. At The Wooden Floor, after the students shared their own stories of love, they re-imagined them into visual and physical moments that fuel “A Rough Translation of Love.”
Billy Smith, currently dancing with the world-renowned Mark Morris Dance Group, earned his magna cum laude undergraduate degree from George Mason University in his home state of Virginia. The artist and his collaborators explore family relationships: sharing, arguing, empathy, saying goodbye and celebration. Accompanied by an original piano score by Daniel Manoiu, the work is described in promotional materials as a juxtaposition of “structure and formality with raw, frenzied and vulnerable moments.”
The artistic director of The Wooden Floor, Jennifer Bassage Bonfil, works with the dancers’ words and bodies and composer Patrick Vargas’ vibrant rhythms to “embrace the quirky and remarkable.” Their piece offers “a reminder of our responsibility to honor personal uniqueness within a shared community.” The director says, “Moments of bold physicality highlight agility and stamina, while quieter introspection reveals the beautiful superpower of self-discovery.”
There’s a pre-show conversation with the out-of-town artists moderated by Bonfil on Friday at 6:45 p.m.
—Benn Widdey, Culture Spot LA
LOCATION:
Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine 92612
TICKETS:
$20 General Seating; $10 seating for children under 13 and students; $50 Benefit Seating, which includes a $30 tax-deductible contribution
INFO:
https://thewoodenfloor.org/annualconcert
https://www.thebarclay.org/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle
Photo courtesy of The Wooden Floor