Every Body Can Dance

Hard Luck Dance is a Miami based non profit Dance Company. It is a dance company for every “body”. This dance company believes in encompassing the beauty of imperfection in mind, body, and soul. Although it hasn’t been around very long, only in its second season; it has been able to reach out to a diverse audience. Artistic director, Robyn Luck, decided that there needed to be a change in the world of dance. The stereotype of the tall, thin dancer required some adjustments and Luck helped bring it into reality. The dancers that make up this company do not fit into a rigid scale where you have to measure 5 feet 10 inches and weigh 105 pounds; these dancers are made up all shapes, sizes, and color.

Luck is an emerging choreographer living and working in Miami, Florida. Her work emphasizes the interconnection of body, space and cultural memory. Her goal within the company is to address the intersection between desire and loss as well as the relationship of self and other.

“Unlike many dancers, I wasn’t introduced to dance until I was 18 years old. I didn’t dance in recitals when I was 10 or attend a graduation from a dance academy. I dance because I love to do it.” Luck believes that the type of work that she wants to bring out with her company clearly shows that we are all flawed in one way or the other and that we should never be ashamed of ourselves.

In her last program, Shedding, Luck was among the nine dancers who dealt so well with the theme of despair. Shedding is a cycle of loss-gain-loss: of “baggage”, loves and hopes. Relationships, be it husband-wife, parent-child, lovers, or friends, are not without their pasts. We suffer from the past, and carry with us fears and hopes. The themes Luck expressed in this program became real to many. Music along with movement and expression set forth a sense of euphoria, taking the audience into a reality they intimately recognize. Simple props served multiple roles. Plastic footstools became metaphors for burdens, masks, and body armor or just as easily became a shelter, even a bridge.

“Keeping within the theme of pain, loss, hope and love, we are able to share with our audience a little something we may all have in common,” Luck said.

Luck believes that reaching out to the people and relating to them is a new approach she would like to strive toward when it comes to dance appreciation. Hard Luck Dance is not about fairy-tale or make-believe, it is about us. The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky is beautiful, The Zoo, performed by Hard Luck Dance in June 2007 is real; it is a reflection of being caged.

This season, Luck has decided to encompass the various issues relating to beauty. Living in Miami brings a common theme to all our faces—a quest for perfection in beauty, and the willingness to do anything to achieve it. By taking apart the standards we are held to, Luck foresees this performance to have peculiar result. For the first time, the public will not be seeing beautiful in its conventional form; for some it will be just the opposite, ugly, while others recognize the beauty within.

When speaking with Luck about this theme applied in her upcoming performances she went on to ask, “How far will we let societies demands take us?” Shackled and Chained is the name in progress for her new work. Personal stories will be articulated through abstract movements as well as projected onto the dance itself. Although the location has yet to be revealed, the performance will take place toward the end of February 2008.