DANCE REVIEW: Black Grace at Williams College's '62 Center
Dance
’62 Center for Theatre and Dance
Williams College
Black Grace
Review by Anna Rogovoy
(Williamstown, Mass., March 3, 2010) – Black Grace’s artistic director, Neil Ieremia, displayed his skill as a choreographer in the powerful, physically exhilarating program presented at Williams College’s ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance on Tuesday night. New Zealand's preeminent dance company - an all-male troupe joined in this engagement by three female guest artists - made its U.S. debut at the Berkshires’ own Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in August of 2004 and has since toured successfully throughout the world. Currently celebrating its 15th anniversary, Black Grace will surely go on to celebrate many more milestones based on the high level of performing seen last night.The program opened with Fa’a Ulutao, an excerpt from a full-length work called Surface honoring the Samoan tradition of tattooing. Fa’a Ulatao, which means spearhead, served its purpose as an attention-grabbing opening work – it was an engaging display of masculine physicality, combining traditional Samoan dance motifs with ballet-influenced contemporary movement. This synthesis was seen throughout the evening’s works as stomps alternated with leaps and twirls in a multilayered dance collage.
After Fa’a Ulutao, Neil Ieremia strode onto the stage to introduce the second work. A charming figure in a black double-breasted suit coat and pants, Ieremia explained his own multicultural ethnic identity – born in New Zealand to Samoan parents – and sang a few bars of the music heard in the score of Minoi, which opened with a chorus of male dancers clad in iridescent black skirts singing a traditional nursery rhyme, and unfolded as an exploration of the sounds created by movement. Minoi exemplified the versatility of these artists, who transition seamlessly from surprisingly rapid percussive motions to graceful sweeps of the limbs.
The next work, Deep Far, was created for the Royal New Zealand Ballet and inspired by a period of dangerous drought in New Zealand. With music by Afro Celt Sound System, complex spatial patterns, and dramatic lighting, the dense atmosphere on stage had a multidisciplinary feel despite the fact that the only visual elements were the four dancers. Two women clad in white dresses and two men in small beige shorts performed a series of staccato gestures and ended in one of the most touching images of the evening, draped across each other in a lattice of limbs while a recording of rain sounds replaced urgent drumming.
One of the less effective works of the evening, Pati was an amalgamation of a number of works from the company’s repertory. Pati featured the same viscerally appealing body percussion and athletic movements as Fa’a Ulatao and Minoi, but they felt drawn out and sucked dry by the end. The three women must be commended for their impressive physical strength, but they lacked the charisma of the male dancers.
The first half of the program closed with another excerpt from Surface called Lausae. The dancers entered in front of a video projection of flickering flames. Pushing large egg-shaped objects clearly intended to resemble pebbles, they engaged in a series of flips, jumps, handstands, and runs across the stage. There was a primal energy present, but it was only fully exemplified by the men; here the women were missing a certain continuity of line in their movements, and their energy was never fully projected. However, the overall level of performing was still high, which made a repellent pantomimed segment in which two men were seen to receive traditional Samoan tattoos, complete with feigned flinches of agony, all the more disappointing.
After an intermission, the program resumed with an excerpt from Ieremia’s newest work, Gathering Clouds. The program notes stated that “Gathering Clouds responds to controversial claims made by economist Greg Clydesdale in an academic paper in which he warns that Polynesians display “significant and enduring under-achievement””, at which one must assume that Clydesdale has never seen a performance by Black Grace. The excerpt, Exodus, was a moving series of solo, trio, and group segments reflecting on journeys; in one, six men sing along to traditional music while one of them is lifted, walks a few steps on his fellow performers’ shoulders, and is gently lowered. The image – a man walking on a trail blazed by others of his culture – is a lovely one, and demonstrates Ieremia’s ability to use symbolism less heavy-handedly than in Lausae and to greater effect.
The last work on the program was a second excerpt from Gathering Clouds called Keep Honour Bright, set to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 31. Ieremia maintained his singular choreographic voice while proving, to opponents of Samoan culture and to everyone in the audience, that his traditions are relevant. In modified evening wear – tailored suit coats and long pants for the men, chiffon dresses for the women – the dancers recreated the same hops, spins, claps, and body percussion as before, but this time to the music of Bach. The beautiful musicality of Honour caused this writer to wonder if she had, in fact, seen this particular troupe before under the name of Mark Morris Dance Group; Ieremia’s juxtaposition of athletic movement with classical music was reminiscent of Morris’s work, and no less moving.
This was an exhilarating evening of dance from a choreographer with a unique combination of traditional forms and contemporary styles. It is immediately evident watching these dancers why they were presented at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics: they are Olympians of dance, leaping and running with undiminished fervor throughout. As the lights went down during the end of Keep Honour Bright, each dancer threw him or herself into the air in an exalting leap, landing in a pile on the floor. The excitement and passion was so tangible that one young audience member exclaimed as the curtain fell, “That was the best dance ever!”
Anna Rogovoy is a dance major at Bennington [Vt.] College.
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