R E N E W A L

Emer Kinsella has created a work of art that not only speaks to the moment, it sings to it, dances with it, and reverberates outward. The premier performance of ‘Renewal: Harmonizing Our Tomorrow’ at the Culver Steps offered compelling art, and tonight’s final performance should not be missed. 

The six composers who collaborated with Kinsella under the umbrella of Emersion Music were all vital co-creators; Hannah Parrott, Yuichiro Oku, Carla Patullo, Denise Santos and Matthew Wang each composed a portion of a ‘chapter’, with the music being presented as if it were a book. 

The six chapters of the music – Stepping into Uncertainty, Inward Voyage, The Upheaval, Emerging from the Shadows, Glimpse of the New Horizons, and finally, Metamorphosis, offered a tonal narrative and musical expression that opened towards storytelling.

The dancers, Malik ‘Gumby’ Bannister, Allie Costello, Darrel ‘Friidom’ Dunn, and Alyse Rockett were listed in the literature as Movement Artists, and directed by Dunn. Adding the visual element of dance in the confined space of the seating at the Steps brought the performance both closer to the audience then much farther out, using the whole plaza. In a flow from mechanized robotic stiffness to an almost liquid fluidity, the dancers graphically passed energy back and forth, balancing each other’s weight, turning fleeing into pursuit and then reversing again. 

—Culver City Crossroads, Judith Martin-Straw

Photography by John Nyboer @estnyboer