Midwest RAD Fest: Not So Rad

Friday night was snowy and cold from the winter storm yet the small Wellspring Theater in the Epic Center was packed. The Midwest Regional Alternative Dance Festival—playfully dubbed the Midwest RAD Fest—started with a disappointing initial concert, featuring five separate routines. The bottom level of seating became the stage, allowing the audience a detailed view of all dancers, and this attention to detail is where the dancers fell short.
The group performances were out of sync, and the multiple thumps during landings made that obvious. The choreography, instead of allowing dancers to work together, only allowed each person to dance individually without hitting others in the group.
Corrine Imberski, in her solo performance, danced mechanically in a spot light on one side of the stage, broke away to dance more freely, then danced the same mechanical dance on the opposite side of the stage, as if dancing for only one half of the audience at once. With such a small stage and a small theater, the format didn't make much sense.
The duet, with Michael Miller and Francesca Pileci-Bates, was a dance of two halves: the first featuring slow acrobatic lifts and tumbles, the second featuring many of the same moves but faster with more upbeat music. Although the second half was enjoyable, the slow motion of the first half caused shaking, straining muscles since their actions had little momentum behind them. Many moves left them unbalanced and such faults were distracting, overwhelming the performance. Also distracting was the age difference between Pileci-Bates and Miller, she being much older than him.
If any of the dancers used their faces to convey a feeling, it was pain (and probably unintentional, too). Otherwise, the faces were blank or bored, and at the end of each performance no one looked pleased with his or her performance.
The final performance, "At This Very Moment Breaking," wasn't even supposed to be performed, but was the replacement for a dance by Barbara Mahler who couldn't come due to inclement weather. This piece, danced to sounds of water dripping made into music, was an incredible performance and by far the most enjoyable of the night—not only for the audience, but for the dancers, too.
Replacing strained and pained with excited, these dancers wore a smile throughout the performance that told the audience that they knew what they were doing, they enjoyed dancing this piece, and they were proud of how well they did it. Many of the dancers had been in one of the previous features of the night, yet were completely transformed this fun, upbeat presentation choreographed by Cori Terry.