Los Angeles-based BODYTRAFFIC takes steps to spread the love of dance
Pure joy and energy infuse the company’s upcoming Vancouver program
BODYTRAFFIC in A Million Voices. Photo by Rob Latour.
DanceHouse presents BODYTRAFFIC May 5 and 6 at 8 pm at the Vancouver Playhouse
TINA FINKELMAN BERKETT grew up in New York City, where she discovered and fell in love with dance, going on to tour internationally alongside legendary artist Mikhail Baryshnikov and become a founding member of Hell’s Kitchen Dance. Having also worked with Aszure Barton & Artists and performed at lauded events like Jacob’s Pillow and the Spoleto festival, she later relocated to Los Angeles, where she co-founded BODYTRAFFIC. Her extensive background comes with high expectations of her dancers, and she’s crystal clear about her ultimate goal when it comes to pulling off a performance: give the audience a lift.
Tina Finkelman Berkett. Photo by Guzman Rosado
“Something we’re really committed to anywhere around the world is to present a program that will make dance lovers love dance more and that will make people who are new to dance build their love for it,” Finkelman Berkett says in a phone interview. “Being an L.A-based company, we've always had a commitment to a sense of entertainment—I think it’s something about being in the land of Hollywood and having this understanding that dance can be something that enlivens you and lifts your spirit and say ‘It’s okay to leave the theatre feeling good.’ We love participating in the dance world in that way that’s — ‘Wow, that really lifted my spirits’—especially coming out of such a challenging time.
“For many, this will be their first time back in a theatre, their first show in years,” she adds. “We really need to remind people of why it’s so important for them to go out and participate in live performing arts.”
The mixed program that BODYTRAFFIC is bringing to Vancouver is a celebration of the return to the stage, Finkelman Berkett says, with four short contemporary works by internationally recognized artists.
The company opens the show with A Million Voices by dancer-choreogapher Matthew Neenan, co-founder of L.A.’s BalletX. The joyous work for seven dancers is an ode to Peggy Lee’s iconic jazz standards, a “total celebration of life and freedom”, Finkelman Berkett says.
BODYTRAFFIC commissioned The One To Stay With from New York’s Baye & Asa, a politically charged choreographic duo that Dance Magazine included on its 2022 “25 To Watch” list. Inspired by Patrick Radden Keefe’s 2021 book The Empire of Pain, about Big Pharma and the current opioid epidemic, the piece for eight dancers mashes theatre, hip hop, and African dance against a score of Russian waltzes and Romanian folk songs in its exploration of power and greed. “It’s heavier in tone but it really shows off the technical prowess of the company,” Finkelman Berkett says.
BODYTRAFFIC in PACOPEPEPLUTO. Photo by Tomasz Rossa
SNAP is crowd-favourite, the hip-hop-infused sextet by rising L.A.-based choreographic star Micaela Taylor set to James Brown hits along with other music. And in PACOPEPEPLUTO by Chicago-based Alejandro Cerrudo (who was Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s inaugural resident choreographer before taking on the same role with Pacific Northwest Ballet), three statuesque male dancers each don nothing but a nude thong to perform a fiercely physical solo set to a Dean Martin classic. “It’s the most wonderful celebration of human physique,” Finkelman Berkett says. “The intention was to get a peek into what someone might be doing if they were dancing alone in their living room.”
Overall, Finkelman Berkett says, the program is full of vigour, and she hopes that audiences feel that they are part of that energy.
“I want people in the house to feel important,” Finkelman Berkett says. “Our work is meant to be witnessed, and audiences play an important role in what we try to accomplish when there’s art that’s offered.
“I’ve loved dance since I was a tiny little human, and I have seen the power of it,” she adds. “I have had the incredible privilege of being in different countries and understanding the impact of giving dance to people who have never experienced it before in their lives. If I can touch people with dance and brighten their world, it’s a big win.”
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