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Night Howl
By Karen Reardanz

Flight Patterns: Moving & Storage Company/Crash, Burn & Die Dance Company's Karen Adams floats through the Museum of Art and History with the greatest of ease on Friday night as the twin companies premiere new choreography and visuals. Photo by Darryl Ferrucci Movers and Burners: Dance troupes unveil new footsteps this weekend at MAH AN UNLIKELY PAIRING OF THE MOST OBVIOUS KIND takes place this Friday night. Moving & Storage Company/Crash, Burn & Die Dance Company invades the atrium, stairs and upper gallery of the Museum of Art and History for a premiere showcase of new choreography and visuals. Company founders Therese Adams and Leslie Swaha have been whirling those creative wheels, putting together a dance performance specially designed around the subtle nuances of the museum. The women also incorporate the new visuals--paintings, photography and prints by Pedro Cosme, Alex Coveleski, Darryl Ferrucci and Dag Weiser--into their choreography, giving the dancers the artwork to manipulate on stage, twirling them around and hanging them on the walls. The art pieces themselves are all new and vibrant, many of them enormous. Ferrucci's digital prints are big, red fabric banner photos of Moving & Storage/Crash & Burn dancers falling gracefully through the air. Pipa Piñon, Bruce Lee and L.A. percussionist Richie West round out the show with their own brands of eclectic music and performance. Museum folks and the artists themselves are excited about the show, hoping it will bridge two like communities--art museum crowds and performance arties--that might not ordinarily be exposed to each other. The performances get hopping at 8 and 10pm at MAH, 705 Front St., SC. Tickets cost $10 and are available in advance at the museum. For more info, call 429-1964. Ugly Mug Gets Pretty Intense The nose-to-the-grindstone poet-mongers from Dragon's Breath Poetry--namely Julia Ann Delbridge--have been hard at work thinking up new ways to bring everyone the slam they love oh, so much. This time around, they've managed to rustle up a fine specimen and rope him all the way from New York City. Nuyorican poet Edwin Torres makes an appearance with his left-of-center, in-your-face (pardon the overused catch phrase) poetry at the Ugly Mug (4640 Soquel Dr., Soquel) on Monday night. Not a slammer but a performance poet, Torres has an elegant gift for the word, borrows from oral tradition, combines it with language and movement and ruminates on sex, class, race and culture. It's urban, vibrant and energetic, but don't worry about being bogged down by the power of the prose--Torres' work is like brain candy for the ears. The show starts at 7:30pm, it's free and if you need anything else, call those Dragon Breathers at 335-3991. Women Wanted One artsy venue seeks a group of strong-willed, passionate women with a penchant for guitar, song, theater and expressing what's on their minds. Must be dynamic, talented, original. The out-of-the-ordinary and weird welcome. Interested? If so, make a plan to audition for What Is Art?'s WomenFolk III--a collection of female performers known for breaking all the rules--on Thursday night at 6pm. Call 458-9508 for all the juicy details. FutureThink Dresden bids a bittersweet adieu to one of its own on Saturday at the Dance Gallery. ... Matthew Embry, Cassidy and John Burnson perform their musical ways at What Is Art?, also on Saturday. [ Metro Santa Cruz | MetroActive Central | Archives ]