Award-Winning MHS Grad Back for "A night of choreographic fun:" November 1 and 2 at PACE

by Judy Silberstein

Chris Elam and Jocelyn Tobias. Photo by Mark Murray .

( October 14, 2002) MHS ’94 graduate, Rockefeller Brothers Fund award recipient and NYC choreographer Chris Elam will be returning to Mamaroneck on November 1st and 2nd for a performance with the Misnomer Dance Theater.

Elam is coming with his own company and will be dancing his own critically acclaimed works. He has been choreographing continuously for the past twelve years, starting with his freshman year with PACE, the performing arts program, and continuing through his years in high school at MHS, college at Brown University, graduate school at New York University, and beyond. It was in his last year at Brown, that he formed the Misnomer Dance Theater, which began as a five-person company. For the November performance, he is producing, marketing, choreographing and dancing in five of seven pieces. “I’m wearing lots of hats and loving it,” Elam reported and added that around 100 other people are involved in the costume design, fund raising and all the other functions that go into presenting a work of this complexity.  

Elam credits the PACE program for introducing him to choreography. “PACE was more about developing you own movement, invention, improvisation and compositional skills,” he remembered. It was not until graduate school that he began studying traditional dance – ballet, modern, jazz and so on. He explained, “The early years were about exploring, inventing and seeing body movement through fresh eyes. Later on I got the skills to work with, but I already had my own strong foundation.” Along the way he has also been influenced by his time in Bali where he was unexpectedly thrust into the role of feature performer for temple dancing, and a semester in Istanbul where he taught at the State Conservatory for the Arts and created five new works for his Turkish students. “I was really impressed with the way Balinese performers transformed themselves into the creatures they represent and that has influenced my work,” said Elam.

At this point, Elam is doing quite a bit of dancing in and around New York, and in places as far away as the Brazilian Amazon. It has been a very strong year for the Misnomer Dance Theater, with sold-out performances at the Chashama in Times Square and healthy reviews in the Village Voice. Nevertheless, financial support in the dance world is generally slim, so Chris retains a part-time job in computer programming. The November performance, though, is a particular thrill for him as he sees it as “A way to reconnect with my alma mater and to bring new art work from the city into our community. It’s great fun for adults, children, families – for all age groups. ”

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