SOLE Defined: An Engaging Experience for All
SOLE Defined — a dance company working to fuse tap, stepping, and other percussive dance styles — presented an exciting show the morning of March 24 at their resident theatre, Dance Place in Washington, DC. This show that I attended titled R.E.M.I.X. was constantly engaging and exciting for all members of the audience consisting of people of varying ages. The company made important efforts to fully engage and involve the audience members like myself throughout the performance.
The company exists with the mission of empowering and educating through performances, workshops, and arts integrated programming, as stated on their website. The company has an impressive history having performed on stages at The Kennedy Center, Jacobs Pillow, The World Children’s Festival, as well as many others. SOLE Defined is quoted to be “a power packed show” by The Kennedy Center, as I experienced in my experience viewing of this specific performance of theirs.
This specific show was titled R.E.M.I.X., which stands for rhythm, energy, musicality, improvisation, and excitement. The show was split into five sections, each one representing these different words as explained throughout the show. In the first section, rhythm, sand was placed on specific parts of the stage. They played with this while performing this section as the sounds created were very different between the normal stage floor and the stage floor with sand on top of it. This was something I had not previously seen or heard of being done and thought was very innovative. The company aims to be interesting and groundbreaking in all of their work.
During the show, strong efforts were made in order to continuously engage the audience. One of the dancers acted as more of an MC, introducing and explaining the different sections in an exciting and personable way. The third section, musicality, was made interactive as a short combination was taught to the audience that could be done in their seats. Children and their parents who volunteered then got to go up on stage and perform this musical combination for everyone and participated in a dance battle.
There was also strong audience interaction created in the excitement section as one of the company members lead the audience in a vocal exercise to bring up the energy for the final section catered around this characteristic. The company placed emphasis on the fact that all five of these qualities from the section are what it takes to be a strong dance performer. The group of performers truly embodies all of these elements as shown when they were broken up and in culmination in the ending final section.
Emphasis on all of these characteristics is present throughout the entire creative process in working to put their works on various performance stages. I had the opportunity to work with the company’s artistic director, Ryan Johnson, on a piece titled Intersections, fusing percussive dance styles from around the world. Johnson is an alum of my performing arts high school, and was brought in to set guest choreography for the 25th anniversary of the school. Working with him pushed me to understand my dancing and choreography from a stronger standpoint physically with this previously unfamiliar style of choreography. Stephanie Powell, one of my high school teachers said, “It’s always great for them to have another perspective and see another aesthetic defined by someone outside of their regular teachers just to facilitate their growth”, in speaking about this work.
Ryan Johnson’s work with SOLE Defined is created for many different audiences. R.E.M.I.X. caters to all audiences, especially younger children and their parents. They currently have three different shows: Zaz, which portrays the evolution of New Orleans, Vibez, which journeys back in time, and R.E.M.I.X., which is also often used in arts education settings. They also have custom performances to fit the needs and wants of specific events and audiences they are booked for. SOLE Defined does a strong job catering towards their audiences with these different types of and themed performances.
SOLE Defined is quoted by Dance Place to be “a crowd please for all ages”. The company truly has done this in their work thus far and are likely to continue to prosper with their unique and engaging style. Their performances have the ability to leave a lasting positive impact of their vast range of audiences. Check out the innovative work of this company for your own eyes when they are performing in a city near you.
