As a young dance student, fan and developing writer, I straddled the dividing line between firmly-defined, traditional modern dance (Graham, Ailey, etc.) and experimental postmodern dance. I remember how confusing and even upsetting it used to be for some audiences and critics to see Black dance artists color outside the box and explore uncharted territory.
DC-based dancer-choreographer Gesel Mason forthrightly addresses that moment in time and its lingering issues with her video-and-dance presentation, No Boundaries: Dancing the Visions of Contemporary Black Choreographers, presented through tonight at Joyce SoHo.
Mason's program features works by provocative choreographers from different generations--Donald McKayle, Reggie Wilson, Bebe Miller, David Rousseve and young Samantha Speis--and includes her own solo, No Less Black (2000). Interspersing video clips of these artists and others talking with Mason about their work provides both helpful context and charm. Wilson cheekily reveals what he likes about being a choreographer--"organizing and telling people what to do." Later, when asked pointblank for a definition of Black dance, Wilson drops his head and laughs. Miller--like Andrea E. Woods, who appears in the video but does not have a work in the show-- expresses a lack of interest in people's assumptions about how she, as a Black woman, should make dance. Jawole Willa Jo Zollar considers the work of Miller and of the early Bill T. Jones (with his partner, the late Arnie Zane) and detects the influence of Black culture where other observers might be prone to see only avantgarde edginess. McKayle notes that no one is ever asked to define what, if anything, white dance is.
The evening's highlight is Mason's harrowing and heartbreaking performance in Rousseve's Jumping the Broom (2005). This solo overlaps the stories of a lynching victim clad in her wedding gown and a proud, hopeful lesbian couple turned away at the last moment from City Hall.
Mason's project, running for just two evenings, deserves to be seen again and before sold-out audiences. First of all, it's rare in New York to see work by several keenly innovative Black choreographers showcased on a single program. Let's have more of this. Second, Mason's bright skill, enthusiasm and sense of fun serve her aims well. (How to Watch a Modern Dance Concert or What in the Hell Are They Doing on Stage is the name of one piece she has performed in Washington, DC for last year's version of No Boundaries.) She's clearly an artist on a mission but one who does not wear out her welcome.
Congolese dancer-choreographer Faustin Linyekula of Les Studios Kabako--who debuted Festival of Lies at BRICK Arts/Media/Bklyn this week--also concludes his run tonight. This is another show that deserves a return engagement. Using the format of a late-night ndombolo party--with a cabaret set-up featuring food and drink for purchase and hot, irresistible music by the band Asiko--Linyekula and his performers mix cool, impeccable design, cool but increasingly engaged performance, storytelling, projected text from political speeches, installation-style props and somewhat-edgy audience participation for an evening of mostly oblique and sometimes direct critique of lying politicians. Yes, the text--projected off to the side on the wall above the band where it's quite easy to ignore--comes from the mouths of Linyekula's countrymen but, given who's been ruling Washington lately, Americans can certainly relate.
The show runs way over two hours, including cast and audience dancing together at the end. Some of it feels excessive, less than necessary. But the music--swift as river rapids and as unrelenting--rocks steady, and the movement of the Damballah-pliant dancers--Linyekula, Papy Ebotani and Djodjo Kazadi--amid continuously-rearranged flourescent light bulbs is almost always fascinating. And Linyekula brings a message that Gesel Mason would surely endorse--that a people must ignore how they are defined by others and take back the power to define themselves. Let's dance!
(c) Eva Yaa Asantewaa, 2007