Art produced in places not created for art is common in today’s world. Art has an illustrious history of cropping up wherever it happens to bloom — anywhere, in fact, which provides a platform, including parks and street corners. Over recent decades in San Diego, citizens have seen theater and dance in storefronts, at trolley stops, at the beach, in hotel banquet rooms and converted spaces of all kinds, including the decks of ships in San Diego harbors. Art manages to survive even in places with bad acoustics, bad pianos and execrable sight lines. There is need for art that flows both ways. Art must be seen; people must see and be affected by it. Because The Old Globe converted San Diego Museum of Art’s (SDMA) Copley Auditorium into theater space for its use during the razing and reconstruction of its smallest theater, programs and artists normally booked into Copley are as homeless as gypsy theater companies. Jazz in the city was set back decades by the shuttering of SDMA’s monthly Jazz in the Park series, booked by the extraordinary Holly Hofmann. In fulfillment of an odd cosmically aligned allemande left, Jean Isaacs San Diego Dance Theater — longtime producer of a yearly series titled “Cabaret Dances” at SDMA — has moved this season’s “Cabaret Dances” to one of San Diego’s newest commercial supper clubs, Anthology, where it continues Sundays at 5 p.m. throughout January. The supper club would seem an ideal venue for dance, with its super-slick art deco ambience, an excellent sound system, an in-tune piano, a platform made for musical groups and a dance floor — usually covered with tables — just waiting for Isaacs’ appealing troupe, over many seasons of “Cabaret Dances” much appreciated for their humor, elasticity and emotive movement. Alas, the dance floor is long and narrow and with the eye spread so far, nuance of personality is lost despite excellent videography that allows sight of what cannot be seen. Smaller pieces were performed on the stage at the end of the room, which also held hard-working vocalist Rachel Drexler (more applied “style” than substance or musicality) and the talented arranger/pianist and singer, Steve Baker. Two world premiere sections were presented, “The Eyes of Love” and “Canned Goods,” so named because it is accompanied by pre-recorded music. Dramatically most affecting among these were set on Diamanda Galas’ “Time,” danced and choreographed by John Diaz, and Damien Rice’s “Sleep, Don’t Weep,” choreographed by Isaacs and performed by a dynamite duo, lanky and luscious Liv Isaacs-Nollet and her diminutive and voluptuous foil, Veronica Martin-Lamm. The concluding section comprised Isaacs’ 2005 “Sippie” set on the music of Sippie Wallace. Perhaps because this work was seen before the piece seemed a better showcase of the humor and personality one has come to love and expect from San Diego Dance Theatre. Internationally renowned, Isaacs taught technique, choreography and improvisation at University of California, San Diego for 25 years. Her San Diego Dance Theater is in residence at Dance Place San Diego at the NTC Promenade. No doubt audiences will follow “Cabaret Dances” anywhere she takes it. Readers are urged to do so as well. Wherever art happens, it deserves our support. “Cabaret Dances” is seen at 5 p.m. (doors open at 3:30 p.m. for cocktails and dining before or during show) Sundays Jan. 11, 18 and 25 at Little Italy’s Anthology, 1337 India St. (between A and Ash), San Diego. For tickets ($15-$35) and information, visit www.sandiegodancetheater.org or call (619) 225-1803.
