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
131 W 55th St (between 6th and 7th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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651 Arts to present Sarita Allen and Dianne McIntyre [UPDATE]

651 Arts

in association with

Clark Center NYC

presents

Live and Outspoken: Sarita Allen and Dianne McIntyre

Thursday, February 13, 7pm

POSTPONED DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER

New date: Friday, February 28, 7pm

The James and Martha Duffy Performance Space 


Mark Morris Dance Center

3 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn

(map/directions)

International dancer/choreographer, Sarita Allen, sits down with legendary choreographer/dancer, Dianne McIntyre, in a candid conversation about their experiences throughout their careers. This program will also feature excerpts from Dianne McIntyre’s repertoire.

For more information and to make a reservation, click here.

Celebrate with Dianne McIntyre

Dianne McIntyre (photo by Larry Coleman)

When American Dance Guild presents its Performance Festival 2012--a tribute to distinguished dance artists Elaine Summers and Dianne McIntyre--it will offer McIntyre the chance to call together a "family" reunion in celebration of the 40th anniversary of her company, Sound in Motion. McIntyre writes,

In addition to presenting Life's Force (1979), on September 6 and September 8, with twenty dancers who have worked with her from 1972-2012, she writes, she will "gather with even more people, probably in Harlem to mingle, network, catch up, have meetings between people of different generations and document stories and memories. This gathering and documentation is important to me, because there is not much available about my history and the amazing artists--dancers and other artist collaborators--I have had the chance to work with and the influence of that work on the dance scene.

"Some of the dance artists I know right now who will be involved in this celebration are (in order of the years I met them in Sounds in Motion and later) Dorian Williams-Byrd (1972), Lonnetta Gaines (1973), Mickey Davidson (1975), Cheryl Banks-Smith (1978), Alde Lewis (1976), Francine Piggott-Butler (1976), Robin Wilson (1979), Jawole Willa Jo Zollar (1980), Aziza (1983), Laceine Wedderburn (1983), Kathleen Sumler (1984), Marlies Yearby (1985), Malik Lewis (1985), Charles Wallace (1986), Shireen Dickson (1996), Telly Fowler (1999), Catherine Meredith (2006), Maria Lucas (2006), Sarah Yarrington (2011), Kalila Smith (2011), Yusha-Marie Sorzano (2012)."

For complete ADG festival information, click here.

American Dance Guild Performance Festival 2012
September 6-9

Thursday, September 6 at 8pm (followed by reception)
Friday, September 7 at 8pm
Saturday, September 8 at 8pm
Sunday, September 9 at 7pm

Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater
The Joan Weill Center for Dance
405 West 55th Street (at 9th Avenue), Manhattan
(directions)

American Dance Guild seeks choreographers

Call for Choreography

ADG 2012 Performance Festival

September 6-9

@ The Ailey Theater

Honoring Elaine Summers and Dianne McIntyre

After great enthusiasm and sold out performances at our Festival in 2011, the American Dance Guild (ADG) continues its mission of serving artists and audiences. For our 2012 Performance Festival, we invite applications from contemporary dance artists of diverse backgrounds, ages and aesthetics throughout the United States and internationally.

Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater is a terrific performance space (26'x35') with an audience capacity of 275. Four different programs will be presented during the festival on Thursday through Sunday, September 6-9.

DEADLINE EXTENDED: APRIL 20

Click here for information and an application.

Those five fly ladies return

Remember FLY: Five First Ladies of Dance, with solos made and performed by Dianne McIntyre, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Germaine Acogny, Carmen de Lavallade and Bebe Miller?

Well, if you didn't happen to catch these stellar performers last year at LIU's Kumble Theater (where I reviewed the show for Dance Magazine), you have another chance this December at NJPAC's Victoria Theater:

Saturday, December 11, 7:30pm
Sunday, December 12, 3pm

Each dancer appears in a rarely-performed, signature solo work: 
Bebe Miller’s classic Rain, in which the choreographer powerfully portrays “a woman weighted down by a host of cares, yet refusing to be totally crushed by them” (New York Times); Urban Bush Women innovator Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s recent Bring ‘Em Home, which explores the New Orleans tradition of Second Line dancing while commenting on the failed efforts to assist those displaced by Hurricane Katrina; Dianne McIntyre’s If You Don’t Know, set to a piano score composed by Olu Dara, which fuses improvisational movement and jazz to explore a series of African American lives; contemporary African dance master Germaine Acogny’s Untitled, a riveting new solo that incorporates video and original music to imagine an Africa with a powerful female President; and Carmen de Lavallade in a recreation of her role in The Creation, Geoffrey Holder’s classic dance that tells the Biblical story of creation as interpreted in a poem by James Weldon Johnson.

FLY: Five First Ladies of Dance is a project of 651 ARTS.

Information and ticketing

Directions to NJPAC

Review of FLY: Five First Ladies of Dance

Review
FLY: Five First Ladies of Dance
Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts

by Eva Yaa Asantewaa
(Re-posted from DanceMagazine.com)

“FLY: Five First Ladies of Dance” featured short solos performed by daughters of Africa and her diaspora—Bebe Miller, Dianne McIntyre, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Carmen de Lavallade, and Senegal’s Germaine Acogny—taking to the stage long past what mainstream American society considers to be the optimum age for a dancer and, to be frank, the optimum age for any woman. In celebrating its 20th anniversary, 651 ARTS chose to honor the tenacity and continuing achievements of these artists.

They hail from different aesthetic milieus. Miller’s career, for instance, burgeoned amid New York’s “downtown” avant garde, while de Lavallade trained with Lester Horton and has graced Broadway, opera, and film. Yet each has questioned the status quo of her art and her time, forging a legacy of creative engagement to inspire generations to come.

In Rain (1989), a modest rectangle of lawn grass becomes Miller’s set and silent partner. Dressed in red velvet, the dancer stretches her arms out wide, as if enjoying their reach. Backpedaling towards this plot of land, she contemplates it, tenderly runs her hand over it, sprawls before it in a tomboyish way, and dances an enigmatic pattern that nevertheless seems to radiate the pride of new ownership. Her solo made me think of wildly overlapping ideas such as the cultural and historical relationship of African and African American people to land; the relationship of dancers to space; and the manicured, altered nature of being roughly cut from one’s native context and planted in an unfamiliar place.

Acogny’s untitled work-in-progress, choreographed with Pierre Doussaint, appears to meditate on journeying. It opens with promise: a declaration that “We need women presidents de la Republique in Africa!” But Acogny’s meanderings are upstaged by Fred Koenig’s surreal and lovely video, and the piece will benefit from compression and focus.

McIyntre (premiering If You Don’t Know Me) and de Lavallade (in Geoffrey Holder’s The Creation from 1972) both served up lessons in elegant, authoritative comportment and command of space, all with minimal fuss. The McIntyre piece is an homage to artists she respects and wishes we knew better. De Lavallade’s storytelling in words and motions offers a saucy illustration of the Biblical take on how our world came to be and could make a believer out of Darwin.

By comparison, Zollar’s Bring ‘Em Home, inspired by the displaced citizens of New Orleans, felt humble. Zollar, lying on the floor, seems able to do little more than wave the white handkerchief clutched in her fingertips. It evokes, at first, surrender, then memories of people signaling for help from the roofs of their flooded homes. But the piece moves towards exuberant celebration and, returning for her bow, Zollar gave us a firm assignment: Go online, sign the petition, bring New Orleans’s diaspora home.

FLY: FIve First Ladies of Dance

Here's my recent Dance Magazine review of "FLY: FIve First Ladies of Dance," which featured Bebe Miller, Germaine Acogny, Dianne McIntyre, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Carmen de Lavallade, presented by 651 Arts at Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts.