posted April 29, 2001 19:01            

Success for a young company:

quote:

---

By Wilma Salisbury, Cleveland Plain Dealer

When Michael Medcalf founded Cleveland Contemporary Dance Theatre in 1998, he told his friends to watch for the company's name in lights on Euclid Avenue. His lofty goal was a Playhouse Square debut within five years.

---

posted February 26, 2002 12:13            

quote:

---

A vibrant young troupe makes a big impression

Wilma Salisbury, Cleveland Plain Dealer

Among the many small dance companies emerging in Northeast Ohio, none is more passionate, more promising, more popular or more relevant than Cleveland Contemporary Dance Theatre.

---

posted May 27, 2002 03:15            

Every choreography is a personal journey for the creator. Yet not every work tells the creator's personal journey. Michael Medcalf's works, performed Friday at Dance Place by his Cleveland Contemporary Dance Theatre, are narratives about his family and explore being black and gay. They failed when they were literal and soared when they weren't.

The seven-member, four-year-old company has some of the spirit of the black cultural expression of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Medcalf takes this and works it to his company's advantage, giving his technically diverse members a homogenous look by wisely concentrating on the upper body and keeping footwork simple.