Best Local Dance Production

O-T-O Dance 

READERS' PICK: Ever-popular Orts has bounced around a bit in the last year, first losing its longtime space on Stone Avenue, then getting tossed from the Historic Y Theatre before setting up a third (temporary) home near the warehouse district. But that hasn't stopped the company from providing Tucson with some of the most challenging and serious modern dance around. In last year's fall concert, Dance of the Inclusae and the Holy Mother, was a mesmerizing piece of trapeze work (it's a fragment of a full-evening piece the troupe will perform this October). The severe Inclusae work was the highlight of a concert that also included a more joyful trapeze piece, Windways, a fine collaboration with composer R. Carlos Nakai. The winter concert at the Temple of Music and Art was especially memorable for a lovely dance that made ingenious use of a huge piece of flowing white cloth. We also salute Orts for its fine work with local schoolchildren, hundreds of whom regularly are invited to attend dress rehearsals free.