Group Acorde’s dance-music experiment explores elements of adaptability
Human adaptability, be it biological or behavioral, lies at the heart of Group Acorde’s upcoming performance of contemporary dance and experimental music, which will premiere this week at a venue that has, fittingly enough, experienced a transformation of its own.
Beginning on Thursday, the interdisciplinary quartet — comprised of dancers Roberta Paixão Cortes and Lindsey McGill, bassist Thomas Helton and saxophonist Seth Paynter — will take the stage at Fifth Ward’s historic DeLuxe Theater, a landmark that reopened in 2015 after sitting vacant for decades. The group will present its fourth full-length production, made in collaboration with guest choreographers Jennifer Mabus and Spencer Gavin Hering.
Titled “adaptar: stories of adaptation,” the hourlong program, funded in part by the city of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, will feature two new works followed by a talkback with the artists, aligning with the ensemble’s mission to engage and educate diverse audiences.
“I hope that who we are as a company is translated into this whole evening. We are always looking to push ourselves in terms of what a collaboration is and are always evolving into that, too,” said Paixão Cortes, whose narrative-driven creation, “Belonging (or not) Abroad,” will kick off the program.
Expanding on much of her recent work, the piece will unveil another layer of her experience as a transplant who immigrated to Houston from her native Brazil two decades ago in pursuit of a professional dance career, after having participated in a yearlong au pair cultural exchange program. Featuring an original score that draws inspiration from the rhythmic soundtrack of her past and a set design by Brazilian visual artist André Amaral, “Belonging (or not) Abroad” will explore the daily struggles that Paixão Cortes has encountered along her journey of adapting to a new culture and ultimately rediscovering herself in a city that she now considers her second home.
In the second half of the show, the premiere of “Neuroception,” a collaborative work that welcomes Mabus and Gavin Hering into the quartet’s creative process, will bring a more abstract world to life centered around Polyvagal Theory (PVT). In simple terms, the theory, developed by Dr. Stephen W. Porges in 1994, suggests that the state of the nervous system determines how people navigate daily interactions and respond to their perceptions of safety and danger.
McGill, who graduated from the University of Houston with her bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering last May, brought the concept to the table after listening to an episode of the “Ten Percent Happier” podcast with Dan Harris and his guest, clinician Deb Dana.
“I’m not coming out of the pandemic wanting to tell a personal story, so I really liked the idea of taking this more scientific approach, but when you get down to it, it is actually very personal,” McGill said. “One of the things that the podcast talks about, and it’s cited in the research, is that 80 percent of the information in our nervous system comes from our body to our brain, and I just love that as a dancer. I think so much about how my brain is telling my body what to do. My brain is telling me what my existence is, but really, it’s your environment informing your brain, and I hadn’t really thought about it that way.”
Using instruments like the shruti box, melodica and ocean drum, Paynter crafted atmospheric textures and vibrations that Mabus and Gavin Hering then translated into movement informed by their individual perspective on emotional regulation as it pertains to their own life experiences. They conducted separate rehearsals with the four artists, who later joined their contributions into a cohesive whole, being careful to preserve each choreographer’s signature style.
“As Group Acorde, we have a platform to create art, to share art, to bring voices together and to work in collaboration in a new way,” McGill said. “You don’t have to go on an emotional journey unless that comes up for you. It’s not a story for us to tell; it’s a collective mishmosh of ideas, a very real human experience that we will all experience together.”