This June, Bruce Wood Dance Dallas will close its 15th anniversary season with Echoes presented at Moody Performance Hall from June 6–8. The program features four works that explore themes of memory, resilience, and connection bringing together a mix of revivals and premieres by notable choreographers and company alumni.
At the heart of Echoes is a rare synthesis of legacy and innovation. Bruce Wood’s I’m My Brother’s Keeper leads the program. This bold, all-male work first performed in 2014 will be re-staged here with three remarkable guest artists: singer-songwriter Gary Lynn Floyd, SMU’s Christopher Dolder, and longtime Dance Theatre of Harlem artist Keith Saunders. Together, they lend lived experience to a piece already brimming with emotional complexity. The work is about lineage, interiority, and the tenderness rarely afforded male bodies on stage. That the piece was selected for The Joyce Theater’s American Dance Platform in 2020 speaks to its staying power; that it is revived now, at this moment in the company’s history, is no coincidence.
Equally luminous is Lar Lubovitch’s Dvorák Serenade, a romantic and densely musical quartet that bathes the viewer in flowing, classically rooted choreography. Lubovitch, whose works have long served as a bridge between ballet’s formal traditions and modern dance’s expressivity, delivers what can only be described as joy in motion. It’s a well-chosen anchor for a program that so often swings toward emotional gravity.
Two world premieres round out the evening and point to the company’s forward-facing vision. Ben Stevenson’s Love and War set to Chopin’s Ballade No. 1, is a duet in the grand Romantic tradition: fragile, tempestuous, haunted by absence and yearning. Stevenson renders love as a terrain of both intimacy and battle, where tenderness and loss coexist in every phrase.
But perhaps the most poignant moment comes with Love Songs, a collaborative premiere by three former Bruce Wood Dance artists: Kimi Nikaidoh, Jennifer Mabus, and Nycole Ray. Here, choreography becomes eulogy. It’s a layered homage to Bruce Wood himself, a work that likely holds as much personal meaning for its creators as it does for the dancers interpreting it. Bound by memory and meaning, these three women will come together to honor Wood’s memory and the enduring imprint he made on their own careers. Love Songs is alive, rhythmic with gratitude and possibility.
At 90 minutes, including two intermissions, Echoes is a conversation between past and present. Artistic director Joy Bollinger, who has shepherded Bruce Wood Dance into its second decade, continues to pay tribute to Wood’s vision while expanding the company’s repertoire and artistic voice. This season finale is a testament to that balance: emotionally immediate, technically assured, and profoundly human.