PAIGE FRASER
ARTIST | MODEL | INSTRUCTOR
REVIEWS
Debra Davy for Splash Magazine
"I’ve been spellbound by the sight of Paige Fraser dancing on numerous occasions; she’s a song in muscled human form, the personification of lightness, all fluid motion and sinewed grace. I had the opportunity to interview this artist about her evolution as a dancer, a teacher of dance, an encourager of youth, a choreographer, and the piece she has set on Danceworks."
Kathryn Boland for Dance Informa:
"23:27 closed the night, bringing Patterson back to dance with Paige Fraser. The two also choreographed the piece, along with assistant choreographer Michelle Reid. They sat back to back, going side to side and back to front. They came to rise and separate. Patterson danced a solo with the stylized ease she’d demonstrated in the show before. Fraser danced one after that, full of wonderful dualities – grounding and lift, ease and strength, accent and continuity."
Debra Davy for Splash Magazine:
Force of Nature, danced by Paige Fraser/Choreography by EVELYN RICE.Paige is fearless, modern, an urban Valkyrie, a hip-hop goddess, a guerilla amused by her acolytes. Her insouciant attitude is matched by her deft fluidity.
Lynn Shapiro for See Chicago Dance:
"The second half of the program opened to the woozy lost world of New York choreographer Kevin O’Day’s world premiere, “A Fine Line.” The dissonant sounds of overlapping voices create an open chasm of space, where dancers, trapped in a version of Dante’s Inferno, mime silent screams. Two dancers emerge out of mass group writhing, with leaps and turns, falls to the floor, and melting resignation. The grim drone of the Kronos Quartet’s music made for overstated commentary on an already-angst-ridden scene, mitigated by Paige Fraser’s personal brand of turmoil, first in a spectacular solo, then in a trio with two men."
Julinda D. Lewis for the YES Dance Festival:
“Riccardo Battaglia and Paige Fraser (Visceral Dance – Chicago) took the evening to a whole new level when they performed an excerpt from a larger, group work, “Synapse.” With their lacy red leotards, red lights, and the unusual prop of a florescent light suspended from the ceiling, they performed a super flexible, athletically impelled dance that suggested they might have super “spidey” powers.”
Lauren Warnecke for Chicago Tribune:
Fraser, best known as a dancer for the powerhouse contemporary company Visceral Dance Chicago, offers her choreographic debut in a trio called “(Re)location.” With dancers Elysia C. Banks and Michelle Reid, Fraser serves up a mixture of spot-on technique hearkening her roots with the Alonzo King LINES and Ailey training programs. The subtler gestures that appear throughout the piece — a gentle washing of the hands; quick, side-to-side bobs of the head bouncing their ears between their hands; and a tame, but convincing sharing of weight — elude to other roots: the journey made by Fraser’s ancestors from the African continent to Jamaica, the United Kingdom and, ultimately, the United States. While none of the dance feels particularly fraught or forced, there’s a clear sense of reluctance. The dancers sometimes share the effort to make an individual shape together, and in others, move simultaneously as a group, as though they are strangers joined only by this common experience, forced to trust and rely on each other.
Completing the program from past repertory are Pupillo’s sensual “She Three” (2015), deliciously danced by Caitlin Cucchiara, Paige Fraser, and Noelle Kayser
Miller Tomlinson says her hope “Is to innovate without self-consciousness and to be new and new again”. Fraser was a veritable avante goddess of electricity, very hot, very rhythmic, in this percussive-driven and humorous joyful dance.
Debra Davy for LA Splash:
"Shining with supplication and spiritual intensity, alight with anger and passion, the 10 members of the troupe in their remarkable lithe athleticism, lifting effortlessly, created a saga of salvation and innocence restored. Kendall Scott was wonderfully agile and a testament to her fine training. Noelle Kayser gave a many-layered performance as the Guardian. Paige Fraser's leaps and turns dropped jaws. Brandon Coleman was a man transformed from self-loathing to self-determination, through the magic of splendid music, great literature and fine choreography."
Hedy Weiss for Chicago Suntimes:
Pupillo’s strong but lyrical work – full of the sort of bravura solo flashes and intricate partnering that are his trademarks – was thrillingly danced all around, with Fraser bursting through the sound in thrilling leaps.