From Spotlight Section, THE FRESNO BEE, Mar. 6, 2005

EmSpace takes up Rogue space

(Updated Sunday, March 6, 2005, 6:18 AM)

Her show is titled "Sorry, I Thought I Knew You" -- but make no mistake. Erin Mei-Ling Stuart does know Fresno. She left town 11 years ago for a life of dance in San Francisco.

Now she's brought EmSpace Dance, the modern dance company she founded five years ago, to Fresno's 2005 Rogue Performance Festival.

Her program includes five of Stuart's "brainy, edgy and slyly comic" dances, including "A Certain Age," a tightly choreographed dance about friendships of convenience set to the music of J.S. Bach.

She's joined by Los Angeles playwright-actor and Fresno native Cody Henderson, who will perform the premiere of the new short play "Man Miraculously Survives Skydive Without Parachute."

Stuart and Henderson met many years ago while attending Fresno's Roosevelt School of the Arts, but this is the first time they have shared a stage. You have just one more chance to catch the EmSpace show -- at 4 p.m. today on the Rogue dance main stage at Dianna's Studio, 826 N. Fulton St.

Most of the acts in this year's Rogue festival continue not just today but also Thursday-Saturday. So you have another whole weekend to experience Fresno's festival of independent performance and art. Most shows cost $3-6, with performers receiving the proceeds. Info: roguefestival.com.

-- Donald Munro