February 3- 9, 2005

dance

Sonic Boom

Music, movement and African culture make for eclectic DanceBoom! programming.

by Janet Anderson and Deni Kasrel

Kulu Mele, Lisanga Ya Bana Kin, Philadanco, Jan. 25 (Kulu Mele and Lisanga Ya Bana Kin will perform with Odunde Fri., Feb. 4, 8 p.m., and Sat., Feb. 5, 2 p.m.)

This year's DanceBoom! series highlights the impact of the African diaspora on our local dance scene. In certain cases, such as with Paule Turner/court or Koresh Dance Company, where the derivation is of contemporary and/or postmodern ilk, the linkage can appear tenuous; the movement may have some level of Africanist influence but does not otherwise proclaim itself as African-based. There was, however, no mistaking the connection with Kulu Mele African American Dance Ensemble or Lisanga Ya Bana Kin: Both perform authentic African movement.

Lisanga's "Gizembe," a ceremonial dance from the Democratic Republic of Congo, featured performers in outfits made of beads, feathers and straw. The costumes created an instant sense of tradition and ritual. This was echoed by gestures that began with dancers swaying their hips to the gentle rhythms of the tall drums being played behind them. When the drummers picked up the pace with a drill-team beat and a whistle, the dancers pumped their arms and pounded their feet in joyful regimented response. Then a male dancer wearing fur pelts appeared and the women playfully flirted with him. In all, it was a fun celebration accenting the power that driving drums can exert on a receptive body.

Kulu Mele also featured polyrhythmic drummers, with dancers dressed in traditional garb (here the clothes were Afro-Cuban and West African). Their soulful works "Babalu-Aye" and "Baho" offered more overt choreography than Lisanga's, which while preordained, evoked a freewheeling mood. Kulu Mele's pieces were built on formations that also contained literal content. In "Babalu-Aye," the cast drinks from a bowl and then becomes sick. Following calls to a higher power, they're healed, and that happy consequence results in an exultant dance of high-stepping legs and gaily waving arms. "Baho," another ensemble work, dealt with a female rite of passage. But it was "Amazon War Dance," a solo by male dancer Djian Tie, that truly lit up the stage: His animated antics and bold moves, some evincing links to today's hip-hop, transmitted an instant current of charged energy.

In contrast to these groups, Philadanco presented an excerpt from Alonzo King's neoclassical ballet Steal Away. This impassioned piece featured two men (William V. Credell and Tommie W. Evans) and a woman (Odara Jabali-Nash) who alternately moved forward and pulled back, sometimes dropping to the ground in fear, exhaustion or anguish. Jabali-Nash's stellar performance conveyed a sense of personal journey and deliverance, while her male cohorts were sympathetic, dependable supports.

--D.K.

Tania Isaac, Paule Turner, Charles O. Anderson, Jan. 29

African Threads, DanceBoom!'s theme this year, was most apparent in Tania Isaac's home is where I am, in which the dancer-choreographer wove together images from her native Caribbean with those of her current, chillier Stateside home. On an icy night, the juxtaposition of barefoot women dancing in the sun, contrasted with video of a dancer pulling on layers of warm clothing and emerging into a bleak winter scene, visually reinforced her voiceover: "I love and hate the place where I have landed. I love and hate the place where I no longer live." Watching someone perform body-rolling Caribbean moves while wearing snow gear said it all.

Paule Turner, who never does anything halfway, pulled the thread of racial rage with his entire troupe dancing nude, except for the occasional diaphanous tunic. He used blurry, shocking videos — terrorists, sex, old pinups, you name it — as a backdrop for in-your-face movements meant to express righteous anger about issues of race, women, gays, arts, Muslim terrorists and even the orange-suited prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. Rodney Whittenberg's fierce pounding music accompanied the theatrical assault. Ultimately the ferocious visual images softened the impact of the nudity (although a few audience members left) until actually you hardly noticed it at all, and the final impression was of superb (and daring) showmanship. (No one under 18 — or so the program states --was admitted without parent or guardian. How about that?)

This left Charles O. Anderson holding the thread of divided self-identity, exploring W.E.B. DuBois' poetic, if unhappy, idea that a black man can only "see himself through the revelation of the other world." Anderson himself wandered through his large troupe (all races, all sizes, both sexes) swinging his long arms almost like a swimmer staying afloat in his mix of hip-hop, vogueing, even samba. The music included work by Babatunde Olatunji and Kronos Quartet amplified with loud onstage percussion. Phalanxes of white-clad dancers crossed the stage, as red-clad movers periodically created human bonfires of terrific movement amidst their coolness. The dancers gazed enigmatically upward, not looking at each other or the observer, Anderson. The Muhlenberg prof had an audience of young students who clearly understood and loved every move.

--J.A.

Merién Soto Dance & Performance, dancers from the Pennsylvania Ballet and Koresh Dance Company, Jan. 29

The triple bill of Merin Soto Dance & Performance, dancers from the Pennsylvania Ballet and Koresh Dance Company offered contrasts in style and substance.

Soto presented two improvised duets for a dancer and a musician. "Untitled" featured Silvana Cardell and pianist Elio Villafranca. Cardell, crouching on and snaking her arms and legs around a chair, later arose to punch the air as if struggling with an unseen force. Other times she withdrew and released her body to suggest contending with pent-up energy. Either way, the piece felt underdeveloped and too internal for its own good. Cardell related to herself and little else. More successful was "What's Heart Got To Do With It?" with dancer Noemi Segarra, Yunior Terry Cabrera on bass and the sound of water dripping into a bucket that had the aural effect of a metronome. Wearing a lovely red dress, Segarra bent her languid body into sensuous poses that played off the tonality of Cabrera's musical musings.

Next came a pas de deux from George Balanchine's Agon. Done to a dissonant score by Igor Stravinsky, this is a study in how two bodies, one white (Arantxa Ochoa) and one black (Meredith Rainey), look when put into varied abstract angular poses. Astutely performed by this pair from Pennsylvania Ballet, the assorted intertwining and overlaying made for an engrossing experiment in tonal shape-shifting.

Those two acts added up to about a half-hour, leaving Koresh's 50-minute "Negative Spaces" to bear the weight of the program. The ensemble ably took up the charge: This work-in-progress ventured into the realm of the homeless, using humor, pathos and cynicism with guts and gusto. The piece begins with a man portraying a drunken panhandler who reaches out to the audience for a dollar and then opens the world inside his head for all to see and bear witness. It's a strange place where people present false smiles, shield their eyes, move like robots and yell "hey!" for no apparent reason. Several segments had the company dancing lock-step in intricate patterns, some of which presented solidarity while others launched into organized chaos. An evocative score that included electronic klezmer and gypsy music enhanced the work's many moods. Koresh's corps is to be commended for stretching its dramatic chops here; they showed a capacity to move beyond dancing to portray characters.

--D.K.

More events on the DanceBoom! calendar: Germaine Ingram, Kariamu & Company and Eleone, Thu., Feb. 3, 8 p.m. (followed by Q and A with performers); Sat., Feb. 5, 8 p.m., and Sun., Feb. 6, 2 p.m.; Wilma Theater, 265 S. Broad St., 215-546-7824. Robert Farris Thompson will lecture on "The Rise of the Tango," Sat., Feb. 5, 10:30 a.m. at the Wilma.