In Good Company

“I'm kind of scared to call it an anniversary,” says Mathew Janczewski of his Arena Dances' tenth anniversary concert in October. “I've been very lucky. I don't know how I've done it.” Janczewski founded Arena shortly after graduating from the University of Minnesota, while he was still dancing with Danny Buraczeski’s Jazzdance and Shapiro and Smith Dance. Like many artists in small companies, Janczewski has had to work hard to keep going, but he’s never been discouraged. “It’s always been what gives me life, going to the studio and making things become reality,” he says. The last few years have been particularly good to him—he’s in demand as a resident artist at Minnesota colleges, he’s set up some administration for Arena so he can be the “creative force”—not the fundraiser—and, with support from the McKnight Foundation, he’s paid off the debt from his first Arena performance ten years ago. “I definitely am feeling more grounded and stable,” he says.

If Janczewski is tentative about celebrating his anniversary, it doesn’t show in his choreography, or in his plans for Ten, the company’s anniversary show. He’s working on a new solo for himself set to a score by Twin Cities composer Eric Jensen, which Janczewski hopes will be performed live by ten trumpets. The instruments’ brassy, celebratory sound—reminiscent of the Gene Kelly musicals Janczewski danced to as a child—will contrast with Janczewski’s sleek movement. The solo is the only completely new work, but several pieces are Twin Cities premieres, including Prairie, a sextet inspired by the Midwest—“the struggle of the land and yet also the horizon,” Janczewski says. He’s also bringing back Twitch, a partially autobiographical tale of childhood repression that premiered in 2000, and Open Eyes, a 2002 duet with long-time Arena regular Amy Thomson.

Athletic and liquid, with jazzy, dramatic timing, Janczewski is one of the most watchable dancers in town. What he likes onstage, he says, is “innovation. I do like taking up space, [but] I’m trying to weave a little of the emotional quality with the physical. I like to see something coming from the heart.” Audiences certainly saw this in fall of 2004’s Solo Lounge, which set Janczewski’s virtuosic dancing against his own moving story.

His dancers for the tenth anniversary performance—including Zenon standouts Thomson and Stephen Schroeder, and Galen Treuer of Live Action Set—are no slouches either, and Janczewski credits them with helping him clarify his work.

So what do the next ten years hold for Janczewski? First up is Ugly, a piece the Walker Art Center commissioned for its 2007–08 season. “It’s all I want to be creating,” Janczewski says of the piece, which he describes as a commentary “on a culture obsessed with beauty—even beauty for the mind.” You’ll also see more of Janczewski as a dancer. “I get inspired by dancing others’ work,” he says. “I want to be pushed, and challenged, and push myself.” And he’s eager to explore the larger dance world by expanding his touring and working with choreographers he admires, including Doug Varone and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker.

But first, Janczewski has an anniversary to celebrate. “It’s quite profound—and crazy—that I’ve been doing this this long, and with some measure of success,” he says. “You have this dream and you want to keep making work.”

Oct. 19–22. Southern Theater, 1420 Washington Ave. S., Mpls., 612-340-1725