N.Y. choreographer and Santa Barbara Danceworks board member Larry Keigwin teamed up with longtime collaborator Nicole Wolcott to create a fast-paced and hilarious new piece called Places Please, for what Larry calls “giving the dancer in me one last last shot.” It’s a return to the humorous and playful beginnings of Keigwin + Company, which they co-founded in 2003. Larry and Nicole made their first Santa Barbara appearance in 2002 as part of Dianne Vapnek’s Summerdance, the precursor to Danceworks, wrestling with a mattress and each other, in their underwear, at the SB Mission rose garden.
Larry Keigwin & Nicole Wolcott – SUMMERDANCE 2003, Rose Garden at the Santa Barbara Mission
Places Please is a crazy-funny high-energy romp compressing into 30 minutes all the nervous pre-show energy and anticipatory interplay between the performers, with interactive forays into the audience. There is no fourth wall as everyone is onstage in a Cabaret-like setting. Costume quick changes, banter with and to each other and the audience, and even a brief backstage tour for a lucky few halfway thru the proceedings. The dancers “rehearse” some “numbers” and carry on as though getting ready for a real show. In fact, that is the show, real and totally successful! The event also featured an introduction to the next Danceworks artist-in-residence, Kate Weare, Brooklyn choreographer and artistic director of Kate Weare Company. She will be creating a Tango based work as the tradition of giving dance artists a unique opportunity to spend a month in the Lobero Theatre to create a new piece of dance art continues, and it promises to be a performing arts high point come August 2017.
