What the press say about

Louis Kavouras and Joe:

Louis Kavouras interviewed in Dancer Magazine July 2004

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Dancer Magazine July 2004 article

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Joe…This Infinite Universe Selected for Edinburgh Hit List of Top 5 dance performances at the Edinburgh Festival

--The List, Festival Edition, Edinburgh, Scotland

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Louis Kavouras and Michael Lugering deliver an absorbing finely worked piece. Kavouras is a master of his craft, and athlete and an artist. His movement on the stage is graceful, clear and his form and technique well honed. The piece works well both narratively and physically, sometimes works with interwoven dialogue and movement can be clumsy or one form distracts the other. This is not the case here, both are entirely complimentary.

--Gary Platt, Edinburgh Guide.com

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The beginning of it all; love, language and everything in between. This is a dance-based show that explores the unending space between “Joe” and “This Infinite Universe,” as small as the ellipses that separate them in the show’s title and as grand as the Milky way. Talking heads and academic jargon at one end and mesmerizing interpretive movement at the other.

--Three Weeks, Edinburgh, Scotland

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This hour-long voyage from the Big Bang to infinity is beautiful, funny and intelligent. The piece has humour and compassion – and two grown men whirling absurdly round the room on office chairs. The show is broken into ten subject headings, or “Books” of the gospel according to Joe, Louis Kavouras’ eponymous dramatic persona. And he’s not shirking the big issues: time; the secret of life; nature; faith… all are questioned and dissected with the wide-eyed wonder of a kid dismantling his favourite toy.

Kavouras gradually strips down to his pants, showing off every muscle and sweaty sinew. His free-flowing movements are emotionally expressive complemented by Michael Lugering’s boffin stream of consciousness script, unraveling homespun pick ’n’ mix philosophy and snatching sound bites from the professionals. With video projections and a great soundtrack, it’s three dimensional, snappy, thought –provoking performance. The show ends as it began, with Kavouras scattering paper stars in front of a spacescape. But now Lugering, our white-coated cosmic tour –guide is stalking between the seats, dispensing chapter and verse on Joe’s ‘universal’ definitions, ripping cards out of a rolodex and scattering them into the audience, who leave elated, if not noticeably more enlightened.

--Vicky Davidson, The List, Edinburgh, Scotland

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Dancer Louis Kavouras returns to the Fringe with a third slice of life according to Joe. He’s sharing the stage with actor Michael Lugering and as much of his neighbourhood/the world/the cosmos as can be projected on to the wall. Kavouras’ has remarkable style: a seriously toned body, seriously honed technique, and an on-stage presence that can switch gears from funny to sad without stalling. Fine dancing.

--Mary Brenner, The Herald, Glasgow, Scotland

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“Rarely do you get the chance to sit so close to an exceptional dancer. Louis Kavouras is a beautiful, expressive performer, capturing with real insight the pain and dislocation at the end of a love affair. Whether leaping around the stage in wild abandon, or stripping from his salmon pink suit and walking naked into the Nevada snow, he is utterly compelling. This close, we see every contour, every drop of perspiration on his fit, tattooed body. It is the perfect fringe show in that its intimacy is its strength. Tender, erotic, and full of nuance.”

--John Binnie, The List, Edinburgh, Scotland

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Joe…This Infinite Universe was without any question one of the most important works performed at the Monaco Dance Forum. The fact that it is included as part of the presentation of the Nijinsky Awards is evidence of that.

--Susana B. Williams, Dance-Forms Productions, American Choreographer’s Showcase

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“Louis Kavouras is a quintessential Hawkins Dancer. No other dancer is a more beautiful soloist expressing challenging Hawkins poetic technique and daring vulnerability. Louis dances Hawkins with such poetic and virtuosic power which I never saw in anyone else except in Erick Hawkins’ own dancing. There is a mystery about Louis’ movement, a special depth of dynamics in which he moves with such hugeness, he seems to literally eat up space. His dancing attracts special attention because of its unusual mastery of a rich and passionate fluidity.”

--Lucia Dlugoszewski, Artistic Director/Composer, Erick Hawkins Dance Company

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“Louis Kavouras lives in Las Vegas, but his dancing and choreography are a far cry from the tits ‘n’ ass commercialism of so much entertainment in America’s gambling mecca. Joe, eight humorous, poignant solos created during the past fifteen years, is a window into a character at a turning point. Expect to see dancing full of liquid energy.”

--Donald Hutera, The List, Edinburgh, Scotland

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“Kavouras’ Joe In Winter is a multimedia piece. This solo work, danced by the choreographer, embodies and encompassing and reoccurring theme of human relationships in modern society. Dance is an ephemeral art form. Even as this piece sees its moment on stage pass, it leaves an imprint on the idealistic artists of the next generation. The art may be painstaking composed and viewed briefly before it becomes a part of history, but its presence will live on in the wonder it has created.”

--Carin Fox, Las Vegas City Life, Las Vegas, Nevada

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“Louis Kavouras in salmon pink suit or boxer shorts, with his tattoos and piercings, dances intimately and with great beauty in the sensual, Joe in Winter.”

--John Binnie, The List, Edinburgh, Scotland

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“Louis Kavouras is a perceptive inventor of dance miniatures portraying the underdog. Created with suggestion and shading, his characters are believable and sympathetic.”

--Hal De Becker, critic, Las Vegas New Times

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“Louis Kavouras tells of the long winter of Joe and his eventual spring. A dance of great beauty and intensity.”

--Martin Powell, Scots Gay, Edinburgh, Scotland

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“Inventive in the best sense of the word. With out self-consciousness or an effort to be bold just for the sake of being bold.”

--Jamake Highwater, Author, Dance Rituals of Experience

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“Louis Kavouras not only explores the strengths, the speed and the heights a man may want to reach as he dances, but also the inner calm underneath the turbulence of dancing that so preoccupied Erick Hawkins.”

--Francis Mason, World of Dance Review, WQXR Radio New York

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“His masterful choreography explores everything from the beauty of dance for its own sake, to the complex relationships of the human condition. In all his work there is an integrity that transcends the work itself, an authenticity that is lacking in so many of today’s choreographers. As a performer, Louis is entirely engaging. The audience feels invited to share in the experience of the human body as well as the human spirit. Truly a joy to behold.”

--LeAnne Smith Stedman, Artistic Director Opening Door Dance Theatre, San Marcos Texas

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“In the space of an hour many different, easily recognizable “Joes” arrive on stage. Kavouras has a fine range of dance styles, quality technique, nicely observed characterizations, and a sense of humour, all of which combine in a performance that is easy to watch and nicely pitched in emotional light and shade. Definitely a better-than-average take on your ordinary Joe.”

--Mary Brennan, The Herald, Glasgow, Scotland

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“Louis Kavouras a dancer with the Erick Hawkins Company saves American face with a nicely judged string of Everyman solos called Joe.”

--Donald Hutera, Dance Magazine

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“Kavouras performs Hawkins with a fine blend of soft muscularity and sudden decision.”

--Deborah Jowitt, Village Voice

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“There are several interesting solos, chief among them an eerily loloping, charging dance that exploits Louis Kavouras’s distinctive blend of sharp focus and lumbering looseness.”

--Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times

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“Louis Kavouras is a big rangy man with long limbs and a soft, yet intense, presence. An attractive performer, he gives us variety in mood, music and character.”

--Donald Hutera, The Scotsman, Edinburgh, Scotland

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Louis Kavouras, his dance, and choreography are very interesting: a talented, elegant, creator and dancer, smooth and winding , tall in stature, pleasant, physical, light and expressive, like an ascending angel.

--J. Roberto Castaneda, Prensa Libre, Guatemala.

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A stunning close approximation of the fluid Erick Hawkins dances.

--Ann Marie Welsh, San Diego Union-Tribune, San Diego, California