Photo Credit: Roel Seeber The Sky is Not the Limit BANDALOOP dance company reimagines dance and changes perspectives By Matt Larson The art of dance has been redefined. As has the art of climbing. In a beautiful collaboration of the two, you have the aweinspiring spectacle that is BANDALOOP. And they’re based right here in Oakland! Imagine looking up at a skyscraper, or a high-rise parking garage, or a cliff in Yosemite, to see it adorned with graceful dancers, harnessed in mid-air, that elegantly choreograph breathtaking performances sometimes hundreds of feet above ground. A pioneer in vertical dance performances, BANDALOOP has been inspiring audiences ‘round the world since 1991. “I’m a dancer who became a rock climber and that’s kind of how this all happened,” said Amelia Rudolph, Founder and Artistic Director of BANDALOOP. It was while climbing the Sierras when the moment of inspiration struck: what would dance look like in a mountain environment like that? What began as an artistic experiment is now an internationally touring dance company going 25 years strong. “BANDALOOP brings dance out of it’s traditional trappings of the theater and into a much more public space—like the Oakland City Hall—where anyone and everyone can get turned on to the art of dance,” Rudolph explains. “We make it expectable without dumbing it down. Intrigue with the height and the danger draw people to it, but ultimately they stay for the art.” Rudolph has taken BANDALOOP to the farthest reaches of the earth and back, from Verona, Italy to Seoul, South Korea to Reykjavik, Ic eland and much, much more, including such historic landmarks as the Golconda Fort in Hyderabad, India and the Puebla Cathedral in Puebla, Mexico. Not to mention all the places across the United States they’ve gone. But they do keep it local as well. You may have just caught their Dec. 1st performance at the Great Wall of Oakland. One of the greatest things about BANDALOOP transforming an aspect of your city into a performance
Contra Costa Marketplace - Feb 2017
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