Hometown, March 4, 2006, Hobby Center's Zilkha Hall

This was just the program to see during my last month in Houston. Travesty Dance Group presented a reprise production of Karen Stokes's affectionate look at Houston, which premiered in 2003. The cast of 12 excellent dancers included Ms. Stokes, as well as other faces familiar to the Houston modern dance scene: Toni Leago Valle, formerly of Suchu, and Sonia Noriega and Sophia Torres of Psophonia. Julie Fox, a collegue of Ms. Stokes at the University of Houston, shone especially bright in this production, like a diamond set among sapphires.

The show was divided into six sections, each exploring some facet of Houston's identity. Range, Bayou, and Weather formed the first half, and Ranch, Traffic, and Space formed the second. The show opened with the cast standing on stage singing. Yes, singing. It was immediately obvious why; Ms. Stokes has a lovely voice and clearly some training. It would never occur to me to include singing in a dance show - at least, not me singing. Trust me, you are all happy about that. Anyway, the cast was game and good enough at singing that I was able to focus on the song and not the singers.

Voices, both song and spoken word, were interspersed with music and sound collages throughout the show. The Bayou section included a description of various swimming holes on Buffalo Bayou (from True Stories of Old Houston and Houstonians) back when it was a bayou and not a glorified drainage ditch. This led to a beautifully lit swimming scene in which the dancers made innovative use of "towels" (actually large sheets). A montage of thunderstorm sounds made me long for some rain. Do you realize that Houston has only had 5 days with substantial rain (> 0.5 in) in the past 3 months? Makes me thirsty just to think about it.