E-Mail This Article to a Friend Opening with a Bang Summer Stages at Concord Academy BY IRIS FANGER

Something about the summer air seems to trigger a communal urge among the members of the dance community to pack up their dance bags and head for the studios. This week and next, summer-program faculty will be greeting students at the Boston Ballet School, the Boston Conservatory, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, the Jeannette Neill Dance Studio, Walnut Hill School, and Concord Academy.

At the last of these, Summer Stages, under the direction of Amy Spencer and Richard Colton, former Twyla Tharp dancers who run the year-around dance program at Concord Academy, will launch its fifth season. And it’s the only one of the Boston-area programs that also runs a "Meet the Artist" performance series featuring its faculty and their companies. Launching the 2004 season is David Parker & the Bang Group, an irreverent troupe of New York–based dancers with a jaundiced slant on both their profession and the foibles of contemporary culture. As often booked for European theaters as those in the US, Parker and his group have had a regular residency at Concord Academy since the summer program’s inception.

This year, Parker & the Bang Group, augmented by nine local dancers including Kate Digby, Nicole Pierce, and Bonnie Spillane, will present a single performance next Thursday of Cracked, Parker’s take on The Nutcracker. He describes the work as "a funky, post-modern Nutcracker," with the first half of the 70-minute piece set to arrangements of the familiar Tchaikovsky themes by performers as disparate as Duke Ellington, Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians, a handbell choir, and Glenn Miller. "It progresses from the American vernacular into the more grandiose music, the familiar orchestral suite."

The work was commissioned by the Genoa Opera House for its small theater because the director had seen Parker and Jeffrey Kazin, one of the Bang Group, perform their "thumb-sucking" duet to Tchaikovsky’s pas de deux for the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier. About 20 minutes of the work, which Parker constructed in part on Summer Stages students in 2003, was performed at Dance Theatre Workshop last December, then premiered in Genoa. Both theaters have invited Parker’s company back for repeat runs.

One highlight of Cracked, which is definitely "not about Christmas," is Parker’s solo, which also is set to music for the Sugar Plum Fairy. "You can’t see me. I wear toe shoes. The theater is black, and I shine a flashlight that I’m holding on my feet. So my feet perform in a little spotlight of my own. It also has a little toe-tap, definitely a lost art." The opening number is sung by Parker and Jeff Kazin to lyrics by Fred Waring for the Russian Trepak. " We tap-dance while we sing," Parker says. "There’s no narrative per se, but there’s a ‘deus ex machina,’ a present we open that transforms us. We take out tiaras, a veil, and other props from a box that contribute to the mood of the dance. There are no characters, but eventually, in a funny way, characters do emerge."

Despite the interlude in toe shoes, Parker says he’ll "be a boy, dressed as a boy," rather than taking the cross-gender roles of his earlier works. "That sort of stuff isn’t going on in this one. I haven’t been doing that for the past couple of years, but I didn’t make any particular decision one way or the other."

The Summer Stages performance series continues with Donna Uchizono Company in Low on July 15, Tere O’Connor Dance in Lawn on July 22, and "Three Women Solo" with Sara Rudner, Martine Van Hamel, and Carmen de Lavallade and special guest Gus Solomons Jr. on July 29. A showcase of new work developed by the Choreographers Project will be presented on July 31.

Summer Stages at Concord Academy’s "Meet the Artist" performance series, which incorporates an open rehearsal in the studio, a performance by workshop faculty and guest artists in the newly renovated Performing Arts Center, a post-performance discussion, and an informal reception, is presented July 8, 22, 29, and 31 at 8 p.m. Concord Academy is at 166 Main Street in Concord, and tickets are $20, $10 for students; call (978) 402-2339, or visit www.summerstagesdance.org