Capsule Stage Reviews: The Lighter Side of the Recession, The Nerd, 'night, Mother, Trey McIntyre Project

Comments (0) By D.L. Groover and Lee Williams Wednesday, Nov 18 2009

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Trey McIntyre Project He's been the choreographic associate for Houston Ballet and one of People magazine's 25 Hottest Bachelors. Now Trey McIntyre is running his own company, and a few lucky Houstonians got to see the work of the Trey McIntyre Project, based in Boise, Idaho, last Friday night, when the company came here for a one-night show brought to Houston by the Society for the Performing Arts. The program included four very different dances. The evening opener, Like a Samba, was a lovely collage of movement that coupled the traditional vocabulary of ballet with delicious samba music by Astrud Gilberto. Also on the bill was the laugh-out-loud-funny Shape, a short dance featuring three performers who used balloons to reshape our ideas of the body — think boobs and odd heads. The most dramatic performance was The Sun Road, danced to music as diverse as Young Grey Horse (traditional native American drumming) and Nina Simone. Commissioned by Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, Sun Road was a powerful homage to the natural world as well as a haunting reminder of the human footprint on the planet. Performed against video of images from Glacier National Park, the muscular choreography made the dancers look like powerful shadows moving across the landscape. McIntyre is not only hot, he's a stunning choreographer. — LW