Sixteen companies, 150 dancers, two hours—that’s the bill for Saturday night’s Dance Houston performance at the Wortham Center. Advertised as the only multi-genre event of its kind in Houston, the event, now in its 11th year, goes far beyond traditional ballet, showcasing dance styles like Bollywood, flamenco, hip-hop, Chinese, salsa, modern, African, and jazz.
Dance Houston
April 6 at 8
$16–42.50 ($5 discount for students & seniors)
Wortham Theater Center
500 Texas Ave
832-487-7000
dancehouston.org
“Anybody who’s anybody in Houston dance is performing,” says Dance Houston executive director Andrea Cody. “The whole point is to increase dance appreciation by showing all the different styles. There’s a lot of bodies on stage, and they’re all beautiful and talented.”
Participating companies include Hope Stone, Collective Sound Cloggers, Hepcats, Kucheza Ngoma Dance, Dance of Asian America, cori dances, and Uptown Dance Co. Ad Deum will premiere an original composition, “Before the Sun Falls,” choreographed to the music of Elton John, and Houston Metropolitan Dance will perform an excerpt of their upcoming production “The Vessel,” which they’ll be presenting in its entirety next weekend at the Wortham Center.
Unlike Houston Ballet performances, during which audience members usually maintain a respectful silence, Cody says that Dance Houston encourages audience participation.
“It’s a really enthusiastic audience—they cheer, they get out of their seats.”
