Inside the Outlet

Mission Statement

The Outlet Dance Project provides a performance opportunity for emerging women choreographers from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York.  The Outlet is committed to supporting a variety of traditional and nontraditional dance forms and venues.  Through performances and educational outreach programs we are inspiring the Central New Jersey community and enriching the lives of young people and adults through dance.

 
Jamuna Dasi
artistic director

Jamuna Dasi is a performer, choreographer, and teacher from Berkeley, CA. She began her dance training at East Bay Dance Center, Oakland Ballet, and Berkeley High School in Berkeley California. She has received a Certificate in Performance from The School of The Hartford Ballet and a BFA in Dance from Florida State University. Jamuna has performed with Pennsylvania Dance Theatre, Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Theatre, Acrodance Theatre, Opera Festival of New Jersey, New Jersey Opera Theatre, The Opera Company of Philadelphia, was a founding member and co-choreographer of Kalamandir Dance Company and performed with the Natya Leela Academy in “Devoted.”   

Additionally she has performed professionally in works by Robert Boross, Ze’Eva Cohen, Jose Limon, Joanna Mendleshaw, Claire Porter, Ronn Pratt, Martial Romain, Mathew Neenan and Kathy Young. Her choreography credits include ballets for Don Giovanni, L’enfant et les Sortileges, The Marriage of Figaro, Cheruban with NJ Opera Theatre and Kalamandir Dance Company. She has performed in CATS and Man of La Mancha in local New Jersey Community Theater. She has also taught in public schools and private studios and fitness studios in California, Florida, Central Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. She has recently trained with Bala Devi Chandrashekar in Bharata Nrityam and with Subashini Ganeshan of Natya Leela Academy in Bharatanatyam and is currently studying Bharanatyam in the Vazhuvoor style with Sivigami Vanka at the Kalabharathi School of Dance in Portland, Oregon. 

Jamuna is the creator and director of The Outlet Dance Project that provides performance opportunities for emerging women choreographers from New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York. Jamuna is the creator and director of The Outlet Dance Project that provides performance opportunities for emerging women choreographers from New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York.

a review of the 2005 performance from the Trenton Times

The Outlet is a showcase with passion and promise

Saturday, October 15, 2005

By ANNE LEVIN

Staff Writer

The Trenton Times

Opportunities for fledgling choreographers to show their work don't come up often, especially in locations other than large cities and cultural centers. But a new showcase called The Outlet, which debuted at Rider University's Yvonne Theater in Lawrence on Oct. 1, gave a group of emerging female choreographers from the region a chance to show some of their works.

Solos and ensemble works dominated this concert, which also included a curious bit of filmmaking. Most of the dancing was of high quality. And more than a few of the 10 pieces shown were impressive in their professionalism.

The concert began on a high note with Kelly Sortino's "Family Portrait," a quartet about family dynamics. To music by Nelly Furtado, Sortino has constructed a tight little drama that begins with a series of camera poses, struck to the sound of a loud shutter. 

After solemnly crossing themselves at the dinner table and beginning to eat, Mom, Dad and the kids start to argue. A brawl develops before the family returns, tempers intact, to the table. Princeton University students Silas Riener, Margaret Furher, Trisha Snyder and Zach McKinney, all accomplished dancers, put forth this slice of life with conviction.

A stilted kick was a recurring motif in "Control . . .," Susan Bienczycka's solo to music of Yann Tiersen. Bienczycka, who also danced the piece, knows how to vary steps and repeat certain themes without growing monotonous.

In another solo titled "Strong, Lost . . .," created and danced by Jean Lee to music of Ani DiFranco, the most effective moments were when Lee responded directly to the pulsating beat of the music. She began and ended the piece sitting, frustrated, in front of a computer screen.

The best solo was that of Mary Barton's "Minuet," to Beethoven's Opus 2 No. 1 "Menuetto." As one member of the audience was heard to say, this brief piece of magnificent dancing alone was worth the $20 price of admission.

Barton, a longstanding member of New Jersey's American Repertory Ballet, teaches at the Princeton Ballet School. At a stage of her career where many ballet dancers consider calling it quits, Barton has instead turned to dancing that is more about artistic maturity than demanding technique. Barton was exuberant and eloquent in this piece of intelligently constructed choreography, conveying as much with her facial expressions as with her gestures and leaps.

Jamuna Dasi is the central force behind The Outlet and her solo "Don't Cry," sung by Etta James, showed her to be a choreographer of considerable merit. Her full-bodied, lush style suited the music as she sank into deep knee-bends and stretched her supple back.

Another impressive solo, "Facade," was danced and choreographed by Kristin McClintock-LeBeau to music of Yann Tiersen. The solo explored different levels and timings as well as the roles of coquette, soldier and mother.

Dasi and her colleagues are planning additional "Outlet" choreography showcases in the future. Judging from the Oct. 1 performance, the program's future is worth pursuing.

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The Outlet Dance Project is a nonprofit organization, 501(c)(3),
and is a member of Dance New Jersey's fiscal sponsorship program.
http://www.dancenj.org