A Show Of Hands (And Feet)

Choreographer Jane Franklin is known for staging dance works in unusual spaces around Northern Virginia. Her improvised stages can be found along Holmes Run greenway and the Old Town waterfront. Now she and her dancers are coming to Del Ray, with a Friday performance scheduled for A Show of Hands art gallery.

In a roughly 20 by 20 foot area inside the store, and, weather permitting, outside on the new patio, the dancers will offer excerpts of four works that the company will perform in full later this season.

"We'll be moving around as much as possible within a small space," Franklin said. "We also hope to get the attention of a few people walking by."

For gallery owners (and neighborhood impresarios) Pat Miller and Maria Wasowski, hosting the Arlington-based dance company is a chance to bring new customers into the store and help support fellow Northern Virginia artists. But they won't have quite their full stock of wares on display.

 "Normally, there's art on all of these walls," Wasowski said, gesturing toward unfamiliar blank space on the south side of the gallery. She and Miller will wheel other shelves sideways and tuck away fragile items. What's left is a space just big enough for two dancers to writhe around.

Franklin views the small confines as a challenge.

"I always enjoy performing in different sites rather than on proscenium stages," she said.

The lineup of excerpts is subject to change, but Franklin hopes to have some mice from Massachusetts scampering around on the new terrace that faces Del Ray Avenue. The Jane Franklin Dance season opens Oct. 21 with the world premiere of "The Mouse of Amherst." Based on a children's book by the same title, this kid-focused show is about—you guessed it—a mouse who takes up residence with poet Emily Dickinson.

 Also outside, the company hopes to perform a section from "Of Bones and Bridges," a work-in-progress inspired by the Four Mile Run greenway. Back inside the gallery, the dancers will reprise a work that debuted in June at D.C.'s Source Festival. The excerpt from "Pete & Repeat" features two dancers and a table. But it's G-rated, really. As Franklin explained, the piece explores job interviews as theater-of-the-recession. Finally, the performance will include a duet from "Dances in Place," a collaboration between Franklin, composer Steven Rogers and landscape painter Freya Grand

"A lot of my pieces are really tied into the visual arts," Franklin said.

As much as she wanted to make the gallery show work, Franklin admitted she was initially skeptical, but eventually, her desire to perform in Del Ray, and the hospitality of local business sponsoring the performance, convinced her it was worth a shot. 

"Del Ray is one of those areas that is really neighbor-oriented, and kind of on it's own. It feels like a small town," Franklin said. "We're hoping that the area will be warm and accepting and interested in what we doing."

Jane Franklin Dance season preview. A Show of Hands, 2301 Mt. Vernon Avenue. Friday, Sept. 24, 5:30 - 8:30 p.m. $15, adults, $10 children under 10. (703) 933-1111.