{"id":2086,"date":"2011-04-20T13:38:33","date_gmt":"2011-04-20T17:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/?p=2086"},"modified":"2011-04-20T13:38:33","modified_gmt":"2011-04-20T17:38:33","slug":"philadanco-at-the-joyce-theater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/philadanco-at-the-joyce-theater.htm","title":{"rendered":"Philadanco at the Joyce Theater"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philadanco<\/a> at the Joyce Theater
\nWednesday, March 30, 2011<\/p>\n

Philadanco\u2019s dazzling performance kicked off with the sultry Bolero Too<\/em>, choreographed by Christopher Huggins. As it opens, the dancers are seen in silhouette, lined up along the back of the stage, which is lit red.\u00a0 One couple comes forward to dance, and then another.\u00a0 Their movement is sensual, sleek jazz fused with modern.\u00a0 The women are dressed in red, each one with a red flower in her hair, while the men wear high waisted black tights and white shirts.\u00a0 As the familiar music builds, larger groups emerge.<\/p>\n

The dance incorporates a variety of styles, from ballet all the way to break dancing turns on the floor and it moves from one to the next in a seamless fashion.\u00a0 One is never jarred by the transitions.\u00a0 The partnering is breathtaking, with huge high lifts and dramatic throws.\u00a0 The dancers are all elegance and passion, and while they appear to be swaying to the classic music, their bodies never stop.\u00a0 The choreography is intricate and demanding, the steps come fast and furiously, yet the dancers pace themselves so beautifully that none of it ever feels hurried or frantic.\u00a0 Their movement never loses its silkiness.<\/p>\n

Choreographed by Urban Bush Women<\/a> founder Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, By Way Of The Funk<\/em> is all attitude, sheer fun and great entertainment.\u00a0 The dancers are dressed in black and silver, with no shortage of spandex, fringe, sequins and shining bellydancing coins.\u00a0 The piece starts as three soloists take turns grooving to excerpts from hits of the early 1960s.\u00a0 We hear echoes of Chuck Berry, James Brown, and Sly & The Family Stone.\u00a0 Then the piece hits its stride to the music of Parliament Funkadelic.<\/p>\n

Yes, the movement is funky.\u00a0 It has great syncopation with stunning details such as
\nsurprising grand jetes shimmering like fireworks where you\u2019d least expect to see them.\u00a0 The dancers are having fun and their enthusiasm is infectious.\u00a0 One man, left alone on the stage, is so lost in the music that he might never stop dancing, until another man comes out to lay his hand on him and disrupt him.\u00a0 He pays him the ultimate compliment.\u00a0 \u201cCool!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cCool?\u201d the dancer checks.\u00a0 \u201cCool!\u201d the man affirms.\u00a0 \u201cCool!\u201d the dancer agrees.<\/p>\n

Later on, during the Dance Chat, Artistic\/Executive Director Joan Myers Brown admitted that she wasn\u2019t convinced of the merits of this dance when she first saw it.\u00a0 Originally Zollar had proposed to create a ballet based on the life and work of Marian Anderson .\u00a0 But as Zollar was riding a train one day, she heard some funk music, and By Way Of The Funk was born.\u00a0 Philadanco had already secured a grant to do the Marian Anderson piece, but they were able to persuade the Powers That Be to fund By Way Of The Funk<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This piece showcases the depth of these dancers.\u00a0 During the Dance Chat, Choreographer Huggins stressed that the dancers have to know their bodies, their spine, their center, their placement, but they\u2019ve also got to be able to get down in their knees and curve their backs.\u00a0 The dancers had to know how to \u201cget down\u201d, which is what they did from beginning to end of By Way Of The Funk<\/p>\n

In Ray Mercer\u2019s Guess Who\u2019s Coming To Dinner<\/em>, the fearlessness and the commitment of the dancers went into overdrive.\u00a0 At the center of the stage, there is a table that is four feet high.\u00a0 Throughout the dance, the various guests bring their ideas, opinions and beliefs to the table.\u00a0 I have seen this theme in dances before, but Mercer\u2019s interpretation brought matters to a new level.\u00a0\u00a0 Each guest at this dinner has a very strong presence and is speaking in a passionate artistic voice.<\/p>\n

There is an underlying tension in the air.\u00a0 There are beats in the music that could be taken for a ticking clock, and eventually the beats of a metronome become prominent.\u00a0 The table (which is only 6 feet wide) is used to great affect.\u00a0 One dancer slides under the table and as she moves within this confined space, we can feel her frustration and the containment of her energy.\u00a0 When she finally bursts out and leaps up on the table, she seems to take flight, to be laying herself bare, to be unencumbered by what others may think of her.\u00a0 Mercer used the different levels to good effect, with dancers sometimes moving in unison, one on the table top and one on the stage.\u00a0 The bravura of this performance comes in the daring leaps that the women take from the table top.\u00a0 They leap up, as if on a high dive, and hurtle themselves with their legs open in a split, into the arms of the men.\u00a0 The degree of trust between the partners has got to be extraordinary.\u00a0 One false move, one moment of lost concentration and things could quickly turn dangerous.<\/p>\n

The final piece of the evening was Enemy Behind The Gates<\/em>, also choreographed by Huggins, about the \u201cenemy\u201d who dwells amongst the group, looking just like everyone else, appearing to be part of the community, but who isn\u2019t what he or she seems.\u00a0 Ms. Brown referred to this dance as Philadanco\u2019s Revelations<\/em>, their signature piece.<\/p>\n

(Ironically, the piece received its world premiere on September 10, 2001, and it seems quite prescient given the way that American life was about to tip the following day.)<\/p>\n

There is a militaristic mood to this piece, from the uniform style costumes to the unison movement of the dancers.\u00a0 Though the movement is fluid, it conjures an atmosphere that\u00a0 is tense and rife with paranoia.\u00a0 Again it becomes evident that the choreographer is paying very close attention to every tiny detail in the music.\u00a0 Not a single note is lost, but the dance never seems too busy.\u00a0 This piece was also marked by dizzying turning sequences that come in rapid succession and change direction just as quickly.\u00a0 Just as I felt this raising gooseflesh on my arms, some of the turns landed in unpredictable off center poses that were just as breathtaking.\u00a0 And as in Bolero Too, there are dramatic and very high lifts.<\/p>\n

The Dancer Chat was the icing on the cake of this amazing evening.\u00a0 Joan Myers Brown appeared with choreographers Christopher Huggins and Ray Mercer, who talked about their processes and took questions from the audience.\u00a0 Ms. Brown talked about the genesis of Philadanco, whose original focus had been to provide high quality dance training to African Americans, who (in the 1960s) were excluded from dance companies and educational programs.\u00a0 I got the feeling that providing education and training was still the highest priority for Ms. Brown.\u00a0 I loved it when she talked about her thought process in choosing choreographers and dances.\u00a0 She insists that her choreographers teach and spend time with the company, getting to know them really well.\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t approve of just \u201cteaching a routine\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 Even after a piece has been set and performed again and again (the company tours forty weeks per year) the choreographer will still return to fine tune the dance.<\/p>\n

This was an amazing and extremely uplifting night at the theater, in the presence of a remarkable group of artists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philadanco at the Joyce Theater Wednesday, March 30, 2011 Philadanco\u2019s dazzling performance kicked off with the sultry Bolero Too, choreographed by Christopher Huggins. As it opens, the dancers are seen in silhouette, lined up along the back of the stage, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,20],"tags":[216,217,212,214,215,211,210,28,209,213],"class_list":["post-2086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dance","category-karen","tag-bolero-too","tag-by-way-of-the-funk","tag-christopher-huggins","tag-enemy-behind-the-gates","tag-guess-whos-coming-to-dinner","tag-jawole-willa-jo-zollar","tag-joan-myers-brown","tag-joyce-theater","tag-philadanco","tag-ray-mercer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2086"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2093,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086\/revisions\/2093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}