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Choreographer Neta Pulvermacher's "2280 Pints!" combines 24 local dancers, five members of the Neta Dance Company and 80 garden buckets for an hourlong theatrical dance production.
And if the performance resembles its energetic and diminutive choreographer, the concert should be funny, insightful and full of pizazz.
"I've never tried including dancers from the community in a piece before," Pulvermacher said. "But 30 dancers onstage is something we rarely get to see in modern dance."
Now in her mid-50s, Pulvermacher regularly teaches international workshops in Senegal, Belarus, Costa Rica, Poland and Israel, where she was born and raised. So traveling between Gainesville, where she teaches dance at the University of Florida, and New York City, where her 27 year-old Neta Dance Company is based, probably seems like an easy commute.
"I'm 5 feet 2 inches tall on a good day," Pulvermacher jokes, "but when it comes to the things that really matter — the rhythm, flow and timing of a piece — I'm pretty demanding."
Pulvermacher's Utah connection is Brittany Reese-Dew, director of Sugar Space, the Sugar House art center. Reese-Dew was a member of Neta Dance from 1999-2007, and has adapted Pulvermacher's AWARDS Show concept for local audiences over the past three years.
Reese-Dew said she "wanted to share Neta's work with as many people as possible, in as many ways as possible." So she contacted the Jewish Community Center, the University of Utah and the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley City.
At the JCC, Pulvermacher will offer a public lecture and perform excerpts from "Five Beds/Children of the Dream," a work about growing up on a kibbutz in Israel.
At the University of Utah, Pulvermacher will teach master classes. It's always an "enriching experience to have students exposed to another aesthetic and artistic approach, and to have connection with someone currently working in the field," said Stephen Koester, interim chair of the U. department of modern dance.
In a Sugar Space partnership with the Utah Cultural Center, Neta Dance will perform for students from Granger, Hunter, Kearns and Taylorsville high schools. After watching a short video of the company, Granger dance teacher Adeena Lago said she's looking forward to a high-energy, innovative performance, while her students feel excited to host the professional dancers.
Pulvermacher's packed schedule seems to leave little room for local dancers to learn their part of "2280 Pints!" But all 24 are trained dancers and understand how hard tech week can be.
"I am so excited to be working with Neta," said Rowland Hall dance teacher Sofia Gorder, "that rehearsing from 5 to 10 p.m. every night this week actually sounds really great to me."
Neta Dance Company
Sugar Space and SBDance present the Neta Dance Company in "2280 Pints!"
When • Friday and Saturday, Jan. 21 and 22, 8 p.m.
Where • Rose Wagner Black Box Theater, 138 W. Broadway, Salt Lake City,
Tickets • $12 ($10 students/seniors) at 801-355-ARTS or http://www.arttix.org.
More • Neta Dance Company residency lecture and performance Tuesday, Jan. 18, 7-9 p.m., at the Jewish Community Center, 2 N. Medical Drive, Salt Lake City. Information at 801-581-0098 or http://www.jccslc.org.