AURORA | Crimson Under Armour tops and black bike shorts hug sculpted muscles as rigid arms, legs and neatly pointed toes wind and weave around a plywood stage on East Colfax Avenue. A furious string arrangement is piped over the loud speakers, providing the dozen short-breathed performers with an audio-road map as their limbs contort into calculated positions and maneuvers.
Neatly perched on a stool in front of them, a petite, gold-haired drill sergeant rattles off instructions.
“A one, two, three, four and five, six, seven, eight,” she dictates, simultaneously providing a metronomic hand-clap. “We’re not at that level that takes my eye directly to you. You have to really commit – here we go.”
Panting as they attempt to catch their breath, the dancers regain their composure while moseying back to their positions to start another sequence. They nod in affirmation with their instructor’s assessment, something that’s become as second nature for them as it has been for the sentry at the front of the room to pepper the performers with constructive criticisms. That directorial instinct tends to develop when you’ve been at it for as long as she has.
“This is definitely one of those pieces where you have to keep the intent strong throughout,” the overseer swathed in an all-black jumpsuit says. “As is true with every piece we do, right?”
The veteran stickler on the stool is Kim Robards, owner and executive choreographer of Kim Robard’s Dance Studio on East Colfax in the Aurora Cultural Arts District. A modern dance darling of metro-Denver for nearly the past three decades, Robards is coaching her namesake company’s current ensemble of dancers in preparation for her 28th season premier, an evening of dance, drinks and desserts or “3D” on Nov. 1.
She scribbles notes in a hefty notebook as the young ensemble rehearses the two-part, John Adams-scored “Amaranthine,” one of the three pieces that will be showcased at the November opening and at a second performance Nov. 7.
Kim Robards 28th Season Premier
3D: Dance, Drinks, Desserts 7:30 p.m. Sat. Nov. 1 & Fri. Nov. 7
KRD, 9990 E. Colfax Ave.
Tickets start at $20
Information at tickets@kimrobardsdance.org or 303-825-4847.
“The first movement is a metaphor for the beginning of time or how you might feel when weighted by grief or the inability to move forward, similar to Neanderthals,” Robards says. “But the second movement moves away from that. It really escalates, which was a challenge choreographically to keep that energy going, but hopefully we achieved that.”
The historical transitions of the piece speak to the theme of “new perspectives,” the moniker Robards has chosen to describe this upcoming season.
“Modern dance has this infinite means of expression, and we’ve felt more infinite possibilities here than we have felt in a long, long time,” she says.
That refreshed enthusiasm is due in large part to the seismic transitions the company has made in the last 18 months, and where it is headed in the very near future. Previously Denver-based, Robards moved her company to her current space in Aurora in the summer of 2013, a move she says has breathed new life into her company and her dance.
“You know there’s nothing that can take the place of feeling rooted, and when a company loses their home, they often can’t quickly transition,” she says. “But the city of Aurora really made that possible for us. The sort of freshness and recharge that moving here and being part of the arts district has given the company puts a new perspective on everything.”
Changes will continue for Robards and her team in the coming years and months as she prepares for another move to yet another space, this time with the help of the City of Aurora. The city purchased a new 160-seat space directly across the street from Robards’ current location, and is in the process of helping her finance the build out, toward which it is contributing $300,000. Robards is in the midst of a capital campaign of her own, hoping to raise $250,000 by the spring in order to finance the purchase of new sound and light boards, scrim, curtains and the myriad other items needed to fabricate a new theater.
“It’s not really about the space, it’s about the people performing in the space,” Robards says. “I think one thing I’ve learned over the years is that wherever you are, you keep the quality high and the process rich, so the product is then something which you hope will transform your audience. But when you have a nice, formal 160-seat theater and five studios, that becomes much easier and more enjoyable for everybody.”
Expected to be retrofitted with its original vanilla-shell roof, the hope for the new space is that it becomes a beacon that attracts lovers of the arts to the ACAD.
“I think it’s an interesting juxtaposition, with our season being ‘new perspectives’ and transitioning to that new space, because we feel that the space will shed new perspectives on Aurora, too,” LaRana Skalicky, associate executive director of KRD, says. “There’s such a large push for people to understand that it’s safe to come here and there are professional and exciting things to do when you’re here and it’s not that far to get here. Trying to shed all of those old perceptions of how people sometimes misinterpret this area.”
“We’re excited to have them move to their new location across the street and we’re looking forward to them being one of our most prominent entities,” said Tracy Weil, managing director of the Aurora Cultural Arts District, says. “I think with their new signage they’re going to be a beacon for people driving down there and alert them that they’re driving into an art district.”