Commotion Dance Theater and Friends

Commotion Dance Theater returns to Fringe with entertaining and evocative dances that incorporate live music, poetry, and shiny red objects! Performances are Saturday, September 19 and Sunday, September 20 at 6:00 pm at the Rose Room, 295 Gregory Street, Rochester. Admission is free – no ticket required! Ruben T. Ornelas will offer dances to the music of Neo-Romantic Mexican composers, Manuel Ponce, Felipe Villanueva, and Silvestre Revueltas, performed live by pianist Kevin Wang, and violinist Cynthia Qiyue He. Ornelas will also present, “Trozos,” a dance theater work to poems by Mexican American poet José Olivarez. Laurie MacFarlane will present “Mostly Red,” a dreamlike trio in which characters move through space like magpies collecting shiny red objects for their nests. The piece is performed to an original sound score by Emmy award winning artist Dan Farkas. Performers include Nanako Horikawa Mandrino, Alaina Olivieri, Ruben T. Ornelas, Cynthia Qiyue He, Kevin Wang, and Roy Wood. Commotion Dance Theater specializes in multi-disciplinary, movement-based works, offering “a light-hearted performance that required zero effort to enjoy” and “a very different type of dance performance” (City Magazine). Under the direction of long-time creative partners Laurie MacFarlane and Ruben T. Ornelas, Commotion has appeared locally at MuCCC, the Avon Opera House, Writers and Books, and the Karpeles Manuscript Museum in Buffalo. This is their tenth appearance at the Fringe.