A performance by Savage Jazz Dance Company would often start with dancers waiting in the wings but prevented from entering the stage on cue — a potentially nightmarish scenario for any performer, but one with a deliberate creative purpose.
Company founder and artistic director Reginald Ray-Savage was intentionally disrupting the timing to see how his dancers would react.
That’s what his Bay Area jazz dance company was all about — rigorous technique supporting inventive choreography, leaving room for the unexpected. “He definitely didn’t like things that were over-rehearsed,” said his partner, associate director Alison Hurley. “He’d hold someone back because he knew that he’d get something fresh and interesting once they got on the stage, and that is how he trained us.”…