What people are saying about Myriad Dance
Myriad TIDES, July 2017
Myriad Dance Company’s dance aesthetic could be described as contemporary modern dance; movements that flow between jumps, extensions, and floor work, and accompanying head rolls and gestures. To this vocabulary, Kendall Fischer’s “In a Drop” added surprising moments of partner work, with dancers appearing out of the group to fling each other in a circle, or transfer a performer onto the stage upside down.
– Liz Ivkovich, loveDANCEmore
Myriad LIGHTS, December 2016
I felt Myriad’s intent and hope from the moment I walked into the space . . . “Lights” was not only Myriad Dance Company’s reaction to 2016, but a call to action.
. . . Performer Ashley Creek exhibited compelling clarity, hers such that it travelled through and articulated her entire spine. Kendall Fischer radiated honesty and warmth in her sweet, short vignette with another dancer.
Seeing the performers’ unique identities onstage was a reminder that we all possess complex inner realms, though not all do or are able to express their hopes and concerns as openly as through performance. For me, “Lights” was a shared experience in vulnerability, empathy, and inclusivity, and a call to remember those things in our daily interactions.
. . . Sometimes the net was cast directly from performer to audience, such as when Alyx Pitkin began to fall forward, only to then be caught by the group, suspended over the first row of audience members.
- Amy Falls, loveDANCEmore
Myriad DOORS, APRIL 2016
Two dancers came bursting through a door in the split second before it was pushed away, a dancer shot through a doorway into a strong plank, a duet repeatedly slithered through a doorway and back again. A duet I could have seen over and over again featured Elle Johansen and another dancer who quickly chopped their arms through the air then dipped into an arabesque-turned-forward somersault.
. . . Vilos made her way out of a doorway flanked by two cloaked, hooded figures. Drawing in audible, sharp breaths, Vilos contracted, spiraled, dropped suddenly, and liquidly snaked in the most visceral display of movement seen yet. A dynamically varied as well as emotionally engaging performer, Vilos radiated a passion-infused, emotionally-heightened drama . . .
- Amy Falls, loveDANCEmore
Lavender Words / Saltwater resolutions, July 2018
The vignette never felt rushed and allowed me to live in the moment with the dancers. Choreographically, it was minimal and gestural but, with the dancers’ focus tending to be internal, I felt every emotion they did as their hands shook and grasped at themselves.
- Natalie Gotter, loveDANCEmore
PERSPECTIVE, January 2018
The company’s first publicized performance under the artistic leadership of Kendall Fischer, Perspective lived up to its name by subverting expectations for the venue and format in which dances are presented... That gray area between connection with and separation from the performers below was a thread throughout, intensified by the layer of glass that wouldn’t normally come between a viewer and a dance... I would eagerly press my nose up against UMOCA’s mezzanine glass for Perspective, round two.
- Amy Falls, loveDANCEmore
PENUMBRA, October 2019
Myriad used the impetus of light to shape movement, and the way that the dancers embraced a combination of detailed articulation, emotive tension, and swirling patterns of momentum created an ode to light’s mysteriousness...
The show provided an excellent framework for connecting multiple pieces by distinct artists in a cohesive experience... Each piece also overlapped with the next, transitions seamed tightly together to create an overall sense of unity.
- Rachel Luebbert, loveDANCEmore
OVERSLEPT:OBSCURA, November 2021
This is elegant contemporary dance, combining abstract and concrete expressions of movement vocabularies.
- Les Rokka, The Utah Review