Dark Circles dance company draws inspiration for new works from Korea for Detour festival
Dark Circles dance company draws inspiration for new works from Korea for Detour festival
The PyeongChang Olympic Games have wound down, but some North Texans haven’t quite turned away from South Korea — not yet.
Choreographer Joshua L. Peugh started his Fort Worth-based dance company, Dark Circles Contemporary Dance, while living and working in South Korea nearly a decade ago. And for his latest work, he returns to those Asian roots.
Dark Circles is one of three local arts groups creating original work for Detour, the new performing arts festival at Addison’s WaterTower Theatre, which runs March 1–4. (Detour essentially replaces the company’s now-defunct Out of the Loop Fringe Festival.) Dark Circles’ program will feature three dances, including a workshop performance of Peugh’s tribute to autumn in Korea, entitled Yellow.
“In the fall, gingko trees turn a bright canary yellow and drop all their leaves,” Peugh says. “The sidewalks are completely covered with them. That is one of the images that inspired the work.”
He was also led by the fact that for the past two seasons, his troupe of male dancers have all been out gay men. “That has made creating works that are personal to me a bit easier,” says Peugh. “My ultimate desire in creating and presenting my work is to reframe questions instead of providing answers. [That includes] exaiming socially constructed ideas about gender and sexuality. These men help me address these timeless and timely issues in a more authentic, truthful way.”
And you can be one of the first to experience that at Detour.
— Arnold Wayne Jones
Detour Festival, Addison Theatre Centre, 15650 Addison Road. March 1–4. The festival also features out performer Brigham Moseley’s solo show. For a complete schedule, visit WaterTowerTheatre.org.
