Austin Dance Maven Brings a Dramatic Showcase to Houston’s Midtown Theater

Dance, unlike many artistic disciplines, exists only momentarily. While visual artists, composers and authors have the benefit of capturing their craft for future generations, choreographers create with the felt understanding that as a performance is premiering, it is likewise disappearing. While it may sound poetic, this impermanence trains dancers and choreographers to know their practice is urgent and opportunities can never be left on the table.

Choreographer Brett Ishida understands these realities all too well. Ishida grew up in the ballet world, training at prestigious institutes like the School of American Ballet and dancing with the Boston Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in Montreal. Yet it was at that point, one of great technical proficiency, that she left dance to complete a degree in literature and poetry writing.

In 2019, Ishida returned to dance when she realized that words and movement could work collectively to tell larger stories than they might independently offer. Thus Ishida Dance Company was formed. Working in a markedly different way from most contemporary dance makers, Ishida authors the narratives that become scripts for her choreographies. This nuanced approach to viewing the arts as intertwined, which is central to Ishida’s distinctive process, has already marked her as an artist to watch.

Now, Ishida’s new dance showcase “You Could Release Me” is premiering in Houston this Thursday, March 17 with performances running through this Sunday, March 20 at MATCH (Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston).

“You Could Release Me” features a new work choreographed by Ishida that takes inspiration from works including Hong Kong film director Wong Kar Wai’s Happy Together, the world premiere of Changeling by Ishida, a United States premiere from award-winning British-Finnish choreographer Kristian Lever who is returning to Houston, and a piece from Berlin-based choreographer Emilie Leriche. Leriche is presenting in the U.S. for the first time, although she is internationally recognized as an emergent voice in dance.

This is a performance not to miss.

“You Could Release Me” will have performances this Thursday, March 17 through Sunday, March 20 at 8 pm nightly, plus a Sunday matinee at 2 pm. The performances will be staged at MATCH – Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston, 3400 Main Street. For more information and tickets click here.

Dr. Jill Nunes Jensen is a member of the Dance faculty at Loyola Marymount University. Her research has been published in the journals Dance Chronicle and Theatre Survey, and several books. She was a guest speaker for the San Francisco Ballet (2018), Duke University (2019), and the University of Maryland (2020). Nunes Jensen’s co-edited publication, The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet (2021) is the first volume to locate and establish contemporary ballet as a moment in dance history.