The Sequel! Just like in the movies

What happens when a movie succeeds? Sequel!

About this time last year, Danceworks Performance Company scored a big hit a concert based on movies, Lights, DPC… Action! So the company is about to do as Warner Brothers, Disney and United Artists do, The Sequel! The Sequel!

Last year’s show covered horror, musicals, romance, steamy Italian romance, war movies, spy movies and more. What’s left? Plenty. Dani Kuepper, the company’s artistic director, was holding a Darth Vader helmet when I walked into the company’s studio Wednesday. That’s right; they didn’t do sci-fi last year.

“Well, we didn’t do a Western or Bollywood,” Simon Eichinger said. So those two genres are on the program, which opens Friday, Jan. 20, and runs through Jan. 29.

Eichinger, one of seven DPC choreographer/dancers contributing works, fills the bill on both counts. His Bollywood piece refers not only to Indian films, but also to Michael Jackson’s Thriller. He didn’t go into much detail about the Western, but did mention Blazing Saddles.  Westerns, he noted, lend themselves to vivid movement; he’ll be “throwin’ a lasso and shootin’ a gun.”

Eichinger spoke while seated at a conference table with five choreographer colleagues. Only Melissa Anderson, busy teaching ballet, was missing from the interview. Anderson is co-creating the Bollywood Thriller with Eichinger.

Eichinger gets to be Superman in a work by Dani Kuepper, the company’s artistic director. Liz Zastrow and Stacy Pottinger will join Eichinger in Metropolis.

“It’s physical and fun,” Kuepper said. “I used images from comic books and from the Superman movies. It’s over the top and big and physcial. It’s also a love story, with Superman and Lois Lane.” Kuepper also choreographed the transitions between the many trailer-length works on the program. No blackouts here, just crossfades.

Holly Keskey spent a great deal of time looking at movie dance sequences from Flash Dance, Risky Business, Breakfast Club and Napoleon Dynamite, among others. She’s making a homage to moves she likes and in part assembling quotations from the films into something new. In addition to this ensemble piece, she will dance a solo based on the Alice in Wonderland tales, with sources including the original book and animated versions by Disney and Tim Burton.

Quentin Tarantino’s films, especially Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill and Jackie Brown, inspired Sarah Gonsiorowski.

“He has an interesting male perspective on strong women,” Gonsiorowski said. “Even with all the violence, he thinks all women and girls should see his movies, because the women in them are role models. They don’t ask for permission.”

Gonsiorowski’s piece is for three women. By way of accompaniment, she has cut and pasted dialog from all three films to craft a new story. As in Tarnatino films, apparently unrelated plots intersect.

“I want to honor Tarantino’s structure,” she said.

Last year, Kelly Anderson and guest artist Steven Moses had their steamy Italian romance. They’re back and romancing once more, this time in the tense and tragic atmosphere of Casablanca.

“I’m looking at classic love stories,” Anderson said, “at the intensity of relationships. Casablanca is my favorite because it has a tragic ending.” The film’s iconic song, As Time Goes By, looms large in her version.

Kim Johnson-Rockafellow’s dance is a sort of documentary about the life of her mother, who succumbed to cancers recently.

“I observed how the body changes during traumatic time,” Johnson-Rockafellow said. “There aren’t a lot of dance steps. It’s a cathartic experience.”

“Kim adds a deeper, more internal element to what is otherwise a fun, kitschy show,” Kuepper said. “I’m glad to have that.”

In addition to those mentioned above, DPC members Liz Tesch and Christal Wagner and guests Emily Spadafor and Stacy Pottinger will perform in The Sequel! The Sequel!

The show runs at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Jan. 20-21;  2:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 22;  8:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 26; 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday,  Jan. 27-28; and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 29, at the Danceworks Studio, 1661 N. Water St. Tickets are $20 and $25, $15 for students and seniors. Visit the Danceworks website or call 414  277-8480.