Asheville men's dance festival celebrates male performers

There are only two rules for participants in the Asheville Contemporary Dance Theatre's Men's Dance Festival, returning Friday-Sunday.

You must dance. And you must be a man, according to dancer and director Giles Collard.

This results in a wild mix of ages and experience, from amateur to professional, as well as styles of dance performed, from belly dancing to break dancing. The festival pieces are probably best described as performance art rather than traditional dance acts.

"It's a great, fun festival," Collard said. "I would say that most of the pieces in the festival are humorous."

That's been the tone of the festival since it began in 2002. Organizers are even having fun with the "men-only" concept during intermission. They serve those stereotypically masculine munchies — wings — with beer.

Collard, who also teaches dance, took a three-year break from producing the festival because of his other commitments through Asheville Contemporary Dance Theatre and is happy to return the event to the stage.

This year, 20 men will be dancing, singing and producing performance art. Local festival participants include Joe Mohar, tap dancer; Jim Julien, performance artist and puppeteer; and Collard and Douglas Haynes performing some of their humorous duets.

They will do "Shoes," which has become "the mascot piece of the festival," Collard said. "It is so athletic; we are literally bouncing off the walls. It is so funny."

The dancers wear shoes on their hands and charge at each other like bulls, Collard noted.

He was inspired to start the festival after traveling all over the world with the ACDT and finding almost every dance troupe consisting mostly of female dancers.

"It would always be like 60 women and one to six guys on stage," he said. "The only place was Cuba, where there were as many men as women."

And it's not that there aren't male dancers out there who want to perform, Collard said. "We have such good dancers in town," he said.

For each festival, Collard does a weekly workshop for usually about six weeks before the performances. "I do an abstract class with a concept that (participants) have to develop. … They create their own phrases, and then every night we create a different piece of choreography," he said. A couple of these pieces will appear in the festival.

The event has also helped inspire men in the audience to pursue dance.

"It's also motivating," Collard said. "I teach a boy's class and men's workshops. I have had quite a few men that saw the festival and got involved in my classes."