I went along to the Joel Show on Saturday night full of high expectations, with a bit of uncertainty thrown in. Joel Myers, as blogged above, is an incredibly powerful dancer (Spectrum, DASS Dance etc) with some choreographic talent that could go far. His Joel Show is a self-produced evening of his own dance and his own choreography with an eclectic mix of professional and student dancers of the ballet-contemporary type. This show, held at Tacoma City Ballet's ballroom, was the fourth of the annual shows.

The only trouble is, with a self-produced show there's not a whole lot of standard control, and what starts out as a cozy Tacoma-ish friends-and-family vibe can easily become an excuse for artistically dubious self-indulgence.

Myers, as the beginning, end and middle of the show, danced as terrifically as ever. "The War at Home," set to a violent Prokofiev piano sonata played with clarity and force by Monty Carter, showed Myers' phenomenal physical control. Alternating between extremes of slow tension and rapid muscle movement, Myers created a frantic ballet vocabulary, 10 fouettes becoming desperate staggers, or grand jetes becoming punches.

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