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(Dance Review) Leading black dance companies at Jacob's Pillow
7/8/05
JACOB's PILLOW DANCE
Becket, Mass.
Ronald K. Brown/Evidence and Nneena Freelon
Ted Shawn Theatre
July 6-10, 2005
Rennie Harris Puremovement
Doris Duke Studio
July 7-10, 2005
This week Jacob's Pillow boasts two of America's leading black dance troupe: the more formal, modern-dance company, Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, and the streetwise but no less sophisticated Rennie Harris Puremovement.
The Pillow also boasts one of the leading ladies of jazz vocals, Nneena Freelon, performing with Brown's company in a tribute to Billie Holiday. Freelon is very much in the vein of Holiday -- although she doesn't actually sound like her -- but in her approach to her instrument (and her voice is most definitely approached as an instrument), she is in the tradition of Holiday by way of Betty Carter, and thus aptly suited for a collaboration with a dance company.
And an apt collaboration it is, in a half-hour program entitled "Blueprint of a Lady: The Once and Future Life of Billie Holiday," which is as much concert or multimedia performance art as it is a dance performance. No matter, as it's the best jazz one is likely to hear in the Berkshires all summer, including the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, which rarely is as adventurous in presenting an artist of Freelon's creativity. Incorporating film and video projection, spoken word, instrumental and vocal music, as well as dance, the program brings to life Holiday's art in vivid technicolor. Freelon throws herself into the role of Lady Day, not merely singing her songs but fully inhabiting the role, moving around with the corps of dancers and singing, much like Betty Carter did, in a manner that incorporates gesture as much as vocals.
The Brown/Evidence program includes one of his signature pieces, "Grace" (1999), which offers dancegoers a good taste of Brown's style, which deftly combines modern dance with core African movements -- hip shakes, bowed knees, etc. -- in the pursuit of an ethnically dusted, spiritual dance.
In the wake of last year's ambitious misfire, "Facing Mekka," Harris redeems himself by going back to basics, playing to his troupe's strengths as spinners, poppers, lockers, and beatboxers. The program alternated streetscape style exhibitions -- the kinds you typically saw on urban streetcorner in the early to mid 1980s, performed by virtuosos here -- with more choreographed numbers that drew their inspiration from those moves and from hip-hop culture, yet that transcended them. Most notable of these was "March of the Antmen," a trippy, fog-shrouded piece that found the street gang alone in a jungle during wartime.
The show, which was perhaps the most entertaining ever at the Pillow, eliciting whoops, hollering and cheers throughout in total and delirious violation of the Pillow's decorum, also included a few not-so-entertaining notes, most notably a brutal solo by Harris himself, "Endangered Species," a seemingly autobiographical piece about the violence and abuse that afflicts a whole generation of inner-city youth.
Harris's program also included an hysterically funny and talented rapper and an amazing human beatbox. Look for Rennie Harris Puremovement to return to the Ted Shawn Theatre next year, having been duly put back in its place this year and utterly acquitting itself with this amazing display of contemporary American folk dance, otherwise known as hip-hop.
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