92Y presents a tribute to Arthur Mitchell

Arthur Mitchell
dancing in George Balanchine's Agon
(photo: Martha Swope)

Arthur Mitchell with Darren Walker: 

A Stellar Life in Dance

presented by

92Y Harkness Dance Center

Fridays@Noon

Arthur Mitchell--who, in 1955, brought Black excellence to Balanchine's New York City Ballet as a principal dancer and, in 1969, founded historic Dance Theatre of Harlem--is, at age 84, a stone-cold hoot. Sure, it took a couple of folks to help the man to his chair at 92Y's Buttenweiser Hall today but, as soon as he took that seat, he took control. Just ripped control right out of the hands of Donna Walker-Kuhne, veteran arts marketer, billed as moderator of his conversation with Ford Foundation president Darren Walker. Make no mistake, Walker-Kuhne can handle herself. But, at least for the moment, there was no handling Mr. Arthur Mitchell.

There was so much he wanted to tell us, you see. And he wasted no opportunity to admonish the young students lining the floor in front of the first row of audience seating at this sold-out event.

"Pull your feet back!" he ordered a few.

"Don't upstage me, dear!" he warned a scurrying Catherine Tharin, Fridays@Noon's curator.

"Darren is one of my role models," he told us. "I need someone to educate me in the business part of dance."

Well, thank goodness there's a reason to keep Darren Walker around!

When Walker-Kuhne finally took the reins, posing a question about diversity in the dance field, Mitchell held to what seems to always be his primary focus--discipline.

"Very few people know what [diversity] means," he said.

To Mitchell, it brings thoughts of the multitude of dance techniques and performance skills today's dancer must possess--everything from ballet and tap to a strong, projecting voice.  Speaking of projection, everyone--from audience members with mumbly questions to the moderator of the concluding panel--got a tongue lashing for not speaking up!

Next up, Darren Walker offered that "diversity is about excellence" and that excellence has the potential to lift everthing from dance troupes to major corporations and foundations like Ford.

"It does not correlate with a loss of quality," he argued. Rectifying the chronic inequality in our society and establishing social justice should be the ultimate goal of philanthropy. However, today's philanthropists, many of them flush with Silicon Valley success, have not yet turned attention to the arts.

"But the arts are what make it possible for us to be empathetic," Walker said. "Without empathy, we won't have justice."

Both men lamented the decline of arts education in our nation's schools, and Walker offered the example of how pressuring New York mayor Bill de Blasio led to his establishment of universal pre-K. Why can't we have a similar push for more arts activities in all our schools?

"You've just implemented the most complicated thing you can do--add on a new population of students," Walker said. "But we lack the political will for an arts policy that puts arts education in every classroom. We have to hold our political leaders accountable to get to that goal."

The program stretched Fridays@Noon's usual ninety minutes to a full two hours. It included an enjoyable slate of performances: Paunika Jones (Mitchell's Balm in Gilead), Rasta Thomas (Flight of the Bumble Bee by Vladamir Angelov after Milton Myers), Jones and Jamal Story (Doina by Royston Maldoom), and Maria Kowroski and Amar Ramasar (the duet from Agon by George Balanchine, made famous by the extraordinary Mitchell and Diana Adams and controversial for that interracial casting). A panel, facilitated by archivist Gillian Lipton, featured remarks by Anna Kisselgoff (former chief dance critic of The New York Times) and remembrances from Lydia Abarca Mitchell (DTH's first prima ballerina), Sheila Rohan (soloist) and Tania León (conductor and composer).

For information on upcoming 92Y Harkness Dance Center and Fridays@Noon events, click here.

92Y
1395 Lexington Avenue (between 91st and 92nd Streets), Manhattan
Subways: #6 to 86th or 96th Streets

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Fabian Barnes, 56

Fabian Barnes, founder/director of Dance Institute of Washington, dies at 56
by Sarah L. Kaufman, The Washington Post, April 12, 2016

Dance Theatre of Harlem's season at New York City Center

Nayara Lopes, Chyrstyn Fentroy and Stephanie Rae Williams
of Dance Theatre of Harlem in Dianne McIntyre's Change
(photo: Jeff Cravotta)

Classical ballet isn't really my beat (or my jam), and I'll admit it's been quite a while since I've seen Dance Theatre of Harlem which now appears to be doing its best work as...contemporary dancers!

Last night's show at New York City Center bolstered that conclusion. Elena Kunikova's stodgy, if pleasant, classicism in Divertimento does nothing to help these dancers go out there and "sparkle like diamonds"--Virginia Johnson's final instruction to her company. Although intended as a kind of sampling of and homage to story ballet roles and traditions, it seems stuck in its imagery, and some dancers aren't even prepared to ride the music (Glinka) or, with the exception of Brazil-born Ingrid Silva, to look as if they genuinely enjoy what they are dancing.

Chyrstyn Fentroy's dancing in When Love (2012), a contemporary duet by Helen Pickett, acts as a buffer against the work's syrupy romanticism about the "very old, old story of love." Here's a real diamond for Johnson. Supple. Playful. Ardent. The engine of this piece, Fentroy's alive from the inside, uncorking energy that even makes suitor Jorge Andres Villarini seem a little sharper than usual. Back in 2015, Dance Magazine advised us to keep an eye on Fentroy, and I can well understand why.

Change, Dianne McIntyre's tribute to oft-unheralded women of color ("warriors for change"), benefits from tapping a similar vigor shared by DTH's current corps of women. Another contemporary piece--reflective of McIntyre's long, lauded career in modern dance--it serves dancers like Stephanie Rae Williams, Lindsey Croop and Nayara Lopes well to the extent that technique, rather than existing for display alone, shades into expression, conviction and meaning.

Change evokes Black spirituality, struggle and achievement. Late in the work, the trio appears in multi-shaded leotards made of scraps from tights worn from former DTH dancers, and I am mindful of the current season's emphasis on women choreographers and the legacy of Black women in ballet. But I had a moment when, towards the end, movements refocused my thinking from dance to sports--sprinters, broad-shouldered swimmers, Serena Williams. Why Serena Williams--though I adore her--when ballet has its own Black sheroes? Did my mind go there--and possibly McIntyre's, too--because that's the way we see things here in Americaland? Someday, perhaps, more of our youngsters will also look to dance, readily and directly, for exemplars of courage.

Not to be completely outdone by the ladies, the men of DTH finally find and unleash their energy--and then some--for Nacho Duato's flashy Coming Together (1991; DTH premiere, 2015).  But can I take a minute to single out Anthony Javier Savoy? Whether whipping through Coming Together with his mates or showing his elegant partnering skills in Divertimento, Savoy models the proper combination of reliable, focused technique and equally focused presence. Like Fentroy, he's another special diamond to treasure.

The DTH season concludes today with performances at 2pm (Program B) and 8pm (Program A). For specific programming and cast information and tickets, click here.

New York City Center
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Confirming Adams: Attacca and The Francesca Harper Project

Attacca Quartet
l-r: Luke Fleming, Amy Schroeder, Keiko Tokunaga and Andrew Yee
(photo: Lisa-Marie Mazzucco)

Limor Tomer, Metropolitan Museum of Art's Curator of Performance, was admittedly starstruck to be onstage with composer John Adams last evening at the museum's auditorium. For his part, Adams playfully disputed her description of his work--"I don't really think of Bach when I think of myself...I'm more inspired by country fiddling and R. Crumb comics"--while praising Attacca Quartet, there to present John Adams "Confirmed" Dances, selections from his chamber works for strings. 

Mentioning past collaborations with Shen Wei and Trisha Brown, Tomer noted the museum's intent to work more often with dance artists. And, indeed, in this concert, Attacca's music would be paired with The Francesca Harper Project and guests from Dance Theater of Harlem and Howard University.

Marred only by a technical glitch that briefly interrupted the performance of John's Book of Alleged Dances (1994), the concert proved why the young musicians--Luke Fleming (viola), Amy Schroeder (violin), Keiko Tokunaga (violin) and Andrew Yee (cello)--have won multiple awards. Their needle-fine sensitivity, clear, distinct polyrhythmic layers and blistering speed--this last, especially in the driven, early moments of String Quartet, a piece from 2008--more than live up to Adams's word for Attacca: "jaw-dropping."

In John's Book of Alleged Dances, the dances Adams had in mind were, yes, just in mind--"alleged," he has said, because "the steps for them had yet to be invented." Enter Francesca Harper with her background spanning Forsythe, Broadway and DTH to "confirm" them. She opened with a restless solo Bradley Shelver made for her, set to Adams's "Judah to Ocean." Her charismatic presence--a tall, pliant woman in a tomato red dress--flared through across the stage, taking command. But her approach to Alleged Dances for the dazzling, superheroic Eriko Iisaku and her dancers went much further and was more intriguing. Show-off images that, mindful of Adams, never take themselves too seriously; lush, gleaming beauty prone to being off-kilter, even bizarre; an elastic, athletic, aggressive rush that, coming from a troupe of mostly women, can look...well, jaw-dropping. I much prefered this disruptive Harper to the more conventional sculptor of String Quartet, danced by the guests from DTH and Howard. She posed hard challenges to her own dancers in Alleged, and they confirmed that they are up to the task.

******

Seven Words

Hear Attacca Quartet perform a string quartet arrangement of Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross with video by Ofri Cnaani at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium on Thursday, April 2, 7pm.

For information and tickets, click here.

Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue (street entrance at East 83rd Street), Manhattan
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