Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company teamed up with The Musicians of Ma'alwyck at TheRep. (Photo by Gary Gold)

For more than three decades, the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company has teamed up with other artists to inspire and elevate its vision.
 
The partnerships have had varying levels of success – some downright exhilarating with others weirdly disappointing. But Artistic Director Ellen Sinopoli’s latest collaboration, this time with the Musicians of Ma’alwyck, seemed just right. The artistry of Sinopoli with violinist and musical Artistic Director Ann-Marie Barker Schwartz, seen together at TheRep on Friday night, was like watching two old friends who easily finished each other’s sentences.
 
While the give and take between two artists is surely more tense, the two resulting works from their pairing, “Dust Devils” to Missy Mazzoli’s “Death Valley Junction” for string quartet” and “Telling” to James Lee III’s Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet, showed these two have a strong and visionary rapport.
 
In an introduction, Sinopoli and Schwartz set the scene for both dances and include a story of Marta Becket, a Broadway ballerina who got a flat tire in Death Valley Junction and decided to stay – opening and dancing every night until she was 80 at the Amarosa Opera House. The dance opened with a short documentary of her, that laid out the vast and dry desert. Becket was ultimate dust devil, making way for Sinopoli’s own quartet of spiraling beings.
 
Created on four of her newest dancers – Liv Butowsky, Kaitlyn Combs, Kyra Pitts and Frances Teppner – the work was a portrait of the desert. The dancers rolled out like tumble weeds punctuated by angular and sudden moves – reminiscent of prickly cacti. While the dancers would briefly interact, they were tossed away by the haunting winds offered up the string quartet that in addition to Schwartz featured Andre Laurent O’Neil on violin cello, Heather Chan on violin and Andrew Snow on viola.
 
The sense of vastness and breath elicited was alluring and moving.
 
“Telling” drove farther than atmosphere alone. In four parts, Sinopoli created a society in which dispirit bodies, suspicious of or indifferent to each other, finally found acceptance and a place for all. In it, Sara Senecal, a veteran of the company, served as the work’s central, eye-catching figure – both protective and combative of others while trying to find her place in the fold that was unwelcoming to strangers.
 
Ultimately, the six dancers melded to form a single solid sculpture that reminded of the strength of a united collective. Was it a cautionary tale for today’s time. Perhaps. But it worked.
 
The musicians, set off to the side of the stage, included Brett Wery on clarinet, the instrument that dominated the musical landscape overriding some foreboding strings.
 
Finally, the evening also featured two intriguing and appropriate musical interludes – W. Jay Sydeman’s “Journey Down the American River” and George Walker’s Lyric for String Quartet.
 
This program will be repeated at 3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 25, at SUNY Schenectady. It’s definitely worth a look and a listen.
 
One more thing. Saturday’s show will also be Senecal’s last with the company. The ensemble's most quietly beautiful and exotic dancer is pregnant with her second child. And while she said she will continue to dance off-stage, she will be seriously missed on the public one.

Ruri Mito offers her North American premiere of "Where we were born" at PS/21 Center for Contemporary Performance in Chatham.

Ruri Mito drives in the slow lane. As seen on Saturday at PS/21 Center for Contemporary Performance -- this Japanese dancer and choreographer moves like molasses – at least that was the case with the two works that received their North American premieres -- a solo “Matou” and her group work “Where we were born.”
 
And because of the speed, or lack thereof, Mito’s observers must be curious. Otherwise, one can easily be lulled into a state of indifference or sleep.
 
The thing is, Mito doesn’t seek to entertain, which is something most American audiences prefer.  Rather she aims to take her viewers on a painstaking journey where bodies are sedated, but moving sculptures that emphasize effort – the muscular and tensile strength to raise an arm, to cock a head or curl an ankle.
 
It’s not for everybody but it does remind long-time contemporary dance spectators of other Japanese dancemakers, primarily the team of Eiko and Koma. They made their life’s work to move imperceptively. It would take this couple hours to move from point A to point B.
 
For a lot of people, that is agony. And Mito’s solo felt that way at first. In quiet, in a shoulder stand with just her back and buttock facing the audience, she did nothing what seemed like an eternity. Eventually, she sunk one hip to slide out of the shoulder stand to expose the top of her head, then an arm and then another arm. It was like watching a yoga class, an advanced one, in slow motion for 20 minutes.
 
The piece was meant to explore how the body constantly renews itself, but it offered more of a feeling that the body struggles to transcend and coordinate its seemingly disparate pieces to work as one, high-functioning, intelligent organ.  
 
The group work that followed, for eight dancers, was much the same. But in this case, with music by Chie Nakajima, “Where we were born” felt like a nucleus striving to support and uplift its DNA in a landscape that was untested. The music sounded like a humming, distant wind, threatening to topple the structure. At times their unity was challenged and interlocking arms and hands were pulled apart. In this way, Mito created some suspense and tension, enough to keep eyes and minds awake. But for the most part, this body stayed integrated as a single undulating creature.
 
In the end, the dancers landed where they started, essentially in a heap. It wasn’t an optimistic ending, as if Mito was saying that exploring outside the circle was dangerous.
 
Regardless, it is clear that Mito does have something to say. One just needs a ton of patience to see it.

The Grand Kyiv Ballet performed a stripped down version of the holiday classic "The Nutcracker" on Thursday night at The Egg.

​The Grand Kyiv Ballet doesn’t trot all the technical trappings of “The Nutcracker,” but this fine ensemble still succeeds in creating a version of the Tchaikovsky classic that shimmers.
 
The ensemble, which performed two nights at The Egg in Albany, draws in its audience with beautiful sets and costumes and dancing that is as light and sweet as spun sugar.
 
It’s extraordinary, really, when one thinks that they endeavor to make some magic for American audiences when their hearts and minds are likely with their family and friends in the war-torn homeland. Yet that was what they did – carrying on with ballet’s holiday tradition minus some divertissements and effects that “The Nutcracker” afficionados have come to expect. For example, there was no real children, no growing Christmas tree and no snowflakes in the forest that are scattered as the dancers – the real snowflakes -- swirl among them.
 
And while I pined for that as well as a missing-in-action Motherginger (the ballet’s comic relief) as well as the airy shepherdesses, I found myself swept into the beautiful dancing of this small ballet ensemble – particularly the main characters – Petri Conte as Marie and Mykola Khoma as her chivalrous nutcracker.
 
Conte, as the young girl excited for Christmas who ultimately discovers the enchantment of love, was gorgeous. She was generous and open, playing the innocent child with wide-eyed, eager virtue.
 
Khoma, a slender and tall dancer, was ideal in the role of the brave nutcracker who fights off a small army of mice to protect Marie. His landings on bended knee at her feet from his heights of passion exuded a romantic fidelity that could be mistaken for nothing but true.
 
While these two carry much of the ballet, the Act II divertissement dancers were also excellent – particularly the Arabian couple that astonished with their contortions and the male Chinese dancer whose speed in both his turns and jumps was astonishing. (There was not program so the dancers, for this portion, were sadly unidentified and unacknowledged.)
 
It was also pleasant to see that the costumes for the Slavic duet were Ukrainian folk. This couple too was magnificent in their proud shoutout to their county’s rich heritage.
 
Of course, the grand pas de deux was delightful, though a bit understated. Conte and Khoma could have attacked their finale with more flare. They also need to smooth out some of the bumps when flying into high lifts and dives.  Unsteady flourishes aside, they radiated joy and that what we all need right now – Ukrainains especially.

Grand Kyiv Ballet performed its disappointing "The Snow Queen" on Friday at the Palace Theater in Albany. 

Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” is perfect ballet fodder. The good vs. evil tale centers on a boy, Kay, who becomes entrapped in the spell of the cool and evil Snow Queen, but is released from a life of cold cruelty by the love of his friend, Gerta.
 
The narrative is an ideal for an artform that embraces gruesome witches, ogres and the like who capture the sweet, beautiful and innocent. Yet Grand Kyiv Ballet’s version, as seen on Friday night at the Palace Theater in Albany, was less than charming on a number of fronts.
 
The backdrops were lovely setting the scene for Kay and Gerta’s idyllic pastoral village and the Queen’s frosty kingdom. The costumes were equally persuasive with a snow-sprinkled, glittering gown for the Queen, menacing black and red for her retinue of scheming trolls and a sweet floral dress with a blue fur hem for Gerta.
 
But the pleasure in the ballet, as choreographed by Alexander Abdukarimov ends there. The main problem was the choreography was dull and the dancing uneven. The music, as composed by Tuomas Kantelinen, propelled the story forward. But Addukarimov’s choreography just couldn’t latch on and ride the adventure.
 
The movement was limited and repetitive and ultimately boring. For example, the Snow Queen mainly stabbed the air and moved her arms like an airport runway marshal. She was often carried about by her minions as if the choreographer couldn’t think of any other way to present her superiority over the mortals below.
 
For Kay and Gerta, who were unidentified in the program, they suffered through many awkward lifts that at times were dangerous as Gerta slipped through his hands, catching her just before the fall.
 
Oddly, the dancers were very good – individually. They were all strong as soloists. But as an ensemble, they could not dance as one. The heat of a group of dancers all doing the same thing precisely was impossible for this group. All one could see was a mishmash of arms and legs going every which way but together.
 
Making matters worse was the lighting. The Snow Queen was often dancing in the dark. At first, I was certain this must be a technical glitch. But her dim lighting was routine. Her corps de ballet was offered more lighting than she. I have never seen a soloist, especially one with a sparkling costume, left to grab the audience’s attention in the dark.
 
Honestly, it’s difficult to criticize the Grand Kyiv Ballet because I know each of those dancers are suffering emotionally as their country continues to be torn apart by war. I wanted to be enthralled.
 
But they have a second change. The Grand Kyiv Ballet will dance Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” at The Egg on Thursday and Friday, Dec. 19 and 20. In more ways than one, I’m praying for their redemption.

World Ballet Company from Los Angeles performed a gorgeous "Swan Lake" on Wednesday night at Proctors in Schenectady.

World Ballet Company might not be one of America's elite ensembles that balletomanes revere, but maybe it should be.
 
This excellent company, based in Los Angeles and directed by Sasha Gorskaya and Gulya Hartwick, is doing what Anna Pavlova and the Ballets Russes once did. It is leaping across the nation, showing audience in big cities and small that ballet has the power to speak a universal language that cuts across political divides and arrows directly into the heart.

And like these earlier artists who jeted through the vast and varied American landscape, World Ballet, hopefully, can help stop the desperate hemorrhaging of the ballet audience. Thus, I would like to thank World Ballet Company for taking the road trip, to breezily preach the ballet gospel, and in some way, revive its slowing breath.
 
Among the company’s stops was Proctors Theatre in Schenectady on Wednesday night in which this mid-size company performed ballet’s most beloved classic – Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake.”  And while the company, that has many Slavic names attached indulged in some very Russian traditions, World Ballet enchanted with a gorgeous rendering. Set and costumes by Sergey Novikov were lush and vibrant. And better still, the dancing was top shelf. I was impressed.
 
The Russian inclination in the program showed up in the many bows the dancers take every time they have a solo or duet, which can become tedious and break the romantic haze of “Swan Lake.” The other was the ending. The Soviets censored the original tragic ending for the lovers – Prince Siegfried and Odette -- in which they drown themselves in the lake. Soviets officials demanded an upbeat ending, in which evil in the form of Rothbart is vanquished and the lovers prevail.
 
That is the ending that World Ballet stages. And that’s fine with me because there is enough to cry about these days. No one needs to see the bereft lovers commit suicide.
 
That aside, the two leads in the production: Darya Medovskaya as Odette and Arsenty Lazarev as Siegfried were marvelous. Medovskaya, a fine technician, delicately balanced the vulnerable Odette and fiery Odile with a bit of aloofness to both. Lazarev played the earnest lover, clutching his chest and in hysterics when he discovered Rothbart and Odile’s deception.
 
I can only lament that Lazarev did not have much of an opportunity to dance, the real tragedy of “Swan Lake,” until the second Act. And then he’s sprung like an arrow from a taut archer’s bow.
 
Also of note was Konstantine Geronik as the court jester. His antics – and tireless bouncing straight into the air, often in splits – kept the eyes open during the rather long and sometimes ho-hum opening scenes at the palace.
 
Despite the slow start, which is always a problem for this ballet, thus the reason George Balanchine scrapped the opening scene all together, World Ballet Company’s “Swan Lake” shimmered with beauty. All one can say is let's hope it glides on and inspires some love.

Donovan Reed and Jamaal Bowman performed in Kyle Abraham's "MotorRover" at the Spa Little Theatre in Saratoga Springs. 

Beauty and humanity – those are the things A.I.M by Kyle Abraham brought to the Spa Little Theatre on Saturday night.
 
The contemporary dance company took audiences on a ride that awed, showing us that these dancers are not only artists who paint a resonating picture, but also connect the visions to the heart. They remind, too, that dance is most powerful when it links both fine-tuned technique with compassion.
 
Case in point, Abraham’s 2023 “MotorRover,” which is danced in silence. Right off, I’m skeptical because dancing without music can feel cold. Yet in this duet, Jamaal Bowman and Donovan Reed are so absorbing that one becomes lost solely in the movement. Reed is a gorgeous dancer – so strongly centered he can draw out the extension and then ronde de jambs a raised leg without a quiver.
 
Bowman moves around him, at first a curious bystander and then one who mirrors his movement. He occasionally moves off to reflect and then counteract Reed who appears to exist in a cool self-absorbed world. And as in many of Abraham’s works, the two twirl, the circular movement become a tornado that sucks us all in. Yet Abraham also inserts gestures to signal, “hey, we are just two guys up here,” which is both humorous and touching.
 
While fascinated by “MotorRover,” I was moved to tears in “If We Were a Love Song” to music by Nina Simone. Here, love songs – many of them with crushing lyrics – speak of the universal desire and need for love and respect. The piece opens with seven reaching out as one to “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair.” Moving upstage in a shaft of light, the group appears to claw in an attempt to capture a remote love.
 
Each of the successive five dances drew on the difficulty of relationships in a world often unfriendly to the poor, people of color and those in the gay community. Gianna Theodore is heartbreaking in “Little Girl Blue” as she falls to the floor, then rises up to only fall again. Reed returns with Mykiah Goree in “Don’t Explain” about a difficult partnership and William Okajima is phenomenal as “Wild in the Wind,” eating up the entire stage in search of something that won’t fly away. Finally, Joy Mondesire reflects on a world that doesn’t respect women of color. A timely topic indeed.
 
The evening also included “5 Minute Dance (You Drivin’?), to the percussive sound of JLin. This piece for four opens the show with a jolt. Finally, the choreographer Paul Singh’s solo “Just Your Two Wrists,” to music by David Lang’s “just (after song of songs),” is brilliant. Amari Frazier dances this complex piece with staggering refinement.
 
Through it all, Dan Scully’s lighting creates just the right atmosphere in all four works. Scully is masterful.
 
A.I.M by Kyle Abraham will repeat this program at 2 p.m. today in the Spa Little Theatre, Saratoga Springs. Go.

Sanja Grozdanic, seen here, co-created "Permanent Trespass" which was performed on Friday at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer.

Watching “Permanent Trespass” is like standing on shifting sand. The viewer is forced to ask onto what he can cling, to whom does he look to in this shadowy, shattered world and to whom should he listen to in this dialogue of poetry in which feelings of dread and sadness linger.
 
The work, subtitled “Beirut of the Balkans & The American Century” and performed at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer, is a mystery, one that pours from the inquisitive hearts and minds of artists Sanja Grozdanic and Baseem Saad. The two come together to try capture the sense of wars in Lebanon and the former Yugoslavia and how geopolitical forces step in to impose their solutions. And how those reinventions, from the powerful U.S. and the European Union, resonate.
 
Needless to say, the topic is, sadly, forever timely.
 
The stage is set in what appears an aftermath of a recent destruction – papers and books are strew about a table, nearly wilted flowers bend their blossoms and a spotlight – like one on a power generator -- illuminate just a corner of the stage. In the chaos, two women sit on a covered couch, talking about an estate sale Grozdanic will manage. Yet the talk quickly evolves into something more – poetry that hints at its meaning, that circles in nonlinear patterns but is not landing at an open end.

The two cast themselves as eulogizers and professional mourners. Their lyrical dialogue moves about the stage as they talk at themselves in a mirror – reflecting back their words and their faces – thus amplifying it all. At one point, Saad speaks at a podium, both a eulogizer and authority. And they also speak of the arc of justice that they theorize might turn against itself, away from fairness and equality.
 
They also touch on how wars become forgotten, how money is dastardly entwined and how religion hovers over it all. And ultimately, how war is beyond senseless – it's an absurdity that words can't define.
 
“Permanent Trespass" is punctuated by films of historical footage of wars throughout the 20th and 21st century as well as video of the two walking abandoned streets and war crime museums. The images are fascinating, but it is not enough. The two leave the audience wanting and searching for meaning in what they call a moment of clarity that is later stalled by a stasis of confusion and loss.
 
This work, that stands about 45 minutes, could easily be developed further. It's also one of those pieces that can be viewed over and over as new slivers of nuance certainly would be revealed.
 
Regardless, “Permanent Trespass” ultimately gives its viewer a sense that the world is slipping into an abyss, one in which we will all be fleeing, forcing us all into a permanent trespass.

Eisenhower Dance Detroit performed Stephanie Pizzo's "State of Mind" with students from Union College on Friday night at The Egg.

Before Friday, I have never heard of Eisenhower Dance Detroit. Nor have I ever heard of its Artistic Director Stephanie Pizzo or its choreographers like Micaela Taylor or Marc Brew. But after seeing them at The Egg, I won’t soon forget them.
 
After a four-day residency at Union College, this sleek ensemble of nine performed a hypnotic program of five works that showed off their strength, artistry and daring and demonstrated the coasts are not isolated on the American contemporary dance map. Detroit rocks too.
 
That was obvious in the very first piece, “Legacy Island,” choregraphed Norbert De La Cruz III. When the curtain rises, the dancers appear like underwater sea creatures, undulating with the currents. The music, a compilation with Sun Electric’s “R-Gent” as well as music from Dario Marianelli, Thomas Azier and Peter Gregson, starts off serene, drawing us into a peaceful nirvana. And then comes a crash that clears the stage and a new world emerges, where love and struggle entwine; and how community, togetherness and unity is the ultimate support in the scuffle.
 
The work, like everything Eisenhower Dance performed, drew the audience in with its seamless fluidity. Where the dancers went, so too did our eyes and interest. And then they repeated it with four other works – that though different — show a company striving in breathless realms to break through the noise of the contemporary dance world.
 
Probably, this was best represented by Christian Denice’s “See Me.” In it, dancer Alex Hlavaty, illuminated by a spotlight, dresses in a black suit before getting sucked into a world where everyone looks alike as they pursue their dreams. The piece draws from the universal experience of literally outfitting oneself to move outside the doors – but cautions that conforming is hardly satisfying. In the end, he stripped down – his core and his happiness finally revealed.
 
The audience, many from Union College, were the cheerleaders for the performance that also including a finale with six dance students from the college. Their featured piece,” State of Mind,” was by Pizzo. While not the strongest work in the repertory, Pizzo incorporated the dancers with a harmonious flow. Like the works before it, fearlessness is the key sensation. Running, climbing on top of each other, pumping their fists or falling flat to the ground, the dancers’ high energy keeps everyone engaged.
 
That’s their superpower – drawing and keeping all attention to them. Of course, it helps that the dancers are stupendous – as strong and versatile as anyone performing with Paul Taylor or David Parsons.
 
Eisenhower Dance Detroit is a company is certainly one to watch and remember.

One of the jobs of a choreographer is to make his or her dancers look good because no one wants to watch a dancer who can’t do what they are asked to do. It’s awkward for the dancer who struggles. As for the audience, it's unbearable.
 
Sadly, that was the case with the New Chamber Ballet. The New York City-based ensemble presented Miro Magloire’s “Quadrille,” a work that was to honor the paintings of Guillaume Lethiere. The event at The Clark Art Institute on Sunday afternoon was to celebrate the closing of an exhibition that explored the life and works of this little-known artist of late 18th and early 19th century. As seen at The Clark, Letheire’s paintings and drawings were outstanding depictions of Roman power and Greek mythology fueled by exquisite  portraiture.
 
Intoxicated by the exhibition, one expected something that could reflect the beauty and brutality that Lethiere handily displayed. But what one experienced with the New Chamber Ballet was a shaky, timid group of six women who looked like students who were brand new to the stage. But they were professionals who looked uncertain and flat-out fearful of the choreography they were asked to execute which comprised of impossible lifts that they were unable to uphold.
 
Thus, instead of relaxing afternoon witnessing beauty unfold, the audience is grinding their teeth, hoping no one gets dropped on their head. Needless to say, it was tough to watch.
 
Aside from their inability to embrace Magloire’s choreography, the stage was also an issue. It was so small that letting loose was also an unviable option. 
 
Aside from the unwieldy lifting, the dancers mostly knelt and waved their arms. At one point, near the end, they bursted forth in a tiny circle within a small circle. This was the only time that they looked self-assured.
 
It did appear that Magliore was aiming to portray the serenity and dangers hidden in the vast oceans. These waving dancers – dressed in iridescent leotards with what appeared to be fishnet jumpsuit overtop – undulated like sea creatures crashed about by wave that swirled around immovable rocks. But without the bodily instruments, Migliore’s vision drowned.
 
The company was accompanied on stage by cellist Thea Mesirow who played the Tania Leon’s “Four Pieces for Cello” and composer Alyssa Regent’s “Fortis Meam,” which was commissioned by The Clark for this occasion. The music did spark some interest as the composer called for the cellist to slap, tap and scrap her cello. But it seemed a horrible shame that The Clark, the epitome of refined taste and class, invested in something so halting and weak.
 
None of it was nearly enough to keep interest in mediocrity. The audience was left adrift, grateful for its end.

Dana Michel performed her three-hour solo "MIKE" on Friday night at EMPAC in Troy.

There are a couple of rules in dance that are indisputable -- every dance is too long and solos are even longer. Basically, time, along with space and some decent movement and conceptual ideas, is everything in dance.
 
Thus it was with some trepidation, mainly fear of boredom, that I ventured out to the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer on Friday evening. There, Canadian dancer and choreographer Dana Michel was offering the New York premiere of “MIKE,” a three-hour long solo – a feat that is basically unheard of in the dance world.
 
But time is the thing in “MIKE.” And while solos are typically framed by a stage, Michel kept our attention and curiosity peaked by trailing her solo into every nook of EMPAC’s theater – the corners, elevators, bathrooms, staircases, outdoor patios and hallways. The audience, provided with chairs and blankets, tried to follow her trajectory. Even with designated guides placed on three floors, it seems at times impossible with audiences’ members, including me, asking “where is she now?”
 
While the everyone tries to keep up, Michel is revealing her intent – to explore what eats up most of our daily hours – working. And her character is one that labors manually – moving mechanically while two small cases streamed music and sounds, from Beethoven’s “Fleur de Lis” at the start to eerie grunts, pants and groans at the end.
 
Dressed in white floppy socks and a brown suit, with pockets on her vest to carry all of her tools, she appears like a UPS worker – one who is unenthusiastic but gets the job done. She begins her hours long, laborious journey by kicking around her case and two phones while brushing her teeth. She’s getting ready for the day that will include sticking her head under water in the bathroom sink, visiting the water cooler and wrapping and taping a wad of paper and an office chair in brown shipping paper. All this is accented by an occasional, and reserved two-step.
 
Michel’s partner is the work that she appears to take no pleasure in. At times her work/dance seems so strenuous that audience members have to hold themselves back from helping. But the third wall holds up even though the audience is often an arm’s length away.
 
As Michel is in the public spaces of the theater, bystanders often play a part. A jogger runs between the dancer and audience and children skip along behind her making it seem like real life, not theater.
 
“MIKE” also requires Michel to improvise as these real people – like those in the audience – take up chairs she uses as props or they stand in the way of her path forward. She does that seamlessly.
 
Michel’s biggest problem is the ending. I like that she ultimately shipped herself off in a box, symbolizing she is trapped inside the work life. But no one could tell it was over. She finally had to pop her head out of the box, ask the time, just like a real worker might, and tell the audience that was all she was going to do. Maybe it was purposeful, but I don’t think so.
 
One detail that I’m sure most missed – she addresses her wadded ball of paper and office chair to Scotia McLeod – a wealth management firm — a clear sign her labor benefits someone other than herself -- a depressing, but real postscript of our times.

"MIKE" will be repeated at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 5, at EMPAC in Troy.