Chicago-based artist Shota Miyoshi is up next with “Jive Five.” In this work, Miyoshi seeks out the overlaps and contrasts between jazz and ballet, exploring their different musical emphases. This is a gleeful and intelligent experiment, each musical number a different movement sketch or proposition. The play and innovation that Miyoshi finds across these two languages is so enjoyable, particularly in one section where his female dancers move at breakneck speed while en pointe, sometimes almost using the blocks of their pointes like tap shoes. The music happily ranges from chaotic confluences of jazz instruments to contemporary, electronically manipulated beats. There’s a sophisticated cool in the dancers’ gender-neutral costumes of black suits and turquoise polo necks, completed, of course, with a black hat. “Jive Five” showcases real artistic innovation, and I’d be back to watch Miyoshi’s next work in a heartbeat. 

The final work before the interval is “Bereshit” from Karley Childress, which is the Hebrew word for ‘in the beginning.’ Childress demonstrates a keen eye for dance storytelling in this nimble work, particularly comedy. With an interest in origin stories and how we evolve as a human race, we start with Adam and Eve and that fateful first bite. We journey through different civilisations, interpersonal relationships, and emotional ranges, the dancers alternately dressed in heavy smocks or sultry red togas. Childress paints all these different scenes with both clarity and comic flair (though I admit, my rusty Bible knowledge might have meant I missed a few references). A delight to watch, I look forward to seeing what stories she turns to next.