At Harlem Stage, e-Moves celebrates contemporary dance artists of Africa and diaspora

Nubian Néné, one of the pop-up performers
for this season's e-moves festival of dance at Harlem Stage
(photo: Alain Wong)

Omari Mizrahi on the move for e-moves
at Harlem Stage
(photo: Robert Bader)

OMG! How to decide what shows to see this season? There's an abundance of worthwhile--indeed, downright exciting--dance productions around the city. I know the struggle well! So, please don't start throwing things when I urge you to get to yet another one: Monique Martin's e-Moves dance festival at Harlem Stage, running only through this weekend.

Martin's focus for this season is on Africa-based or Africa-diasporan artists exploring contemporary dance, as opposed to more-expected folkloric work from the continent. She has chosen Zimbabwe-born Nora Chipaumire, Lacina Coulibaly (Burkina Faso) and Ousmane Wiles/Omari Mizrahi (Senegal). Each evening also highlights dances by women choreographers in pop-up performances curated by Adesola Osakalumi. Viewers will see new, commissioned works as well as pieces re-imagined for the unique (and uniquely beautiful) space at Harlem Stage.

Chipaumire has reset her famous solo, Dark Swan (2007), on Shamar Watt, a man. Years ago, I saw the choreographer dance it; quite recently, I was fortunate to see Watt show it in a tiny corner of Chelsea's Rubin Museum where I sat perhaps not more than a foot away from him. Both artists are electrifying. But the visual intensity of this iteration for Harlem Stage is enhanced by the meeting of the brooding darkness of the space and the stark, handheld light trained on Watt and his white shirt. Dark Swan re-purposes a Russian ballet archetype as a symbol and expression of resistance, paying tribute to the determination of Africa's women.

Coulibaly adapted to the loss of his partner, Ibrahim Zongo--due to visa issues--for this world premiere of his duet, Sen Koro la (The Rite of Initiates). He adapted so beautifully, in fact, that when the audience was later informed that the "solo" we had watched was meant to be a duet, some of us gasped in surprise. I can't say that I saw much of Coulibaly's stated intention to promote "the humanity and culture of Africa, compelling the audience to appreciate its great diversity and immense cultural wealth," and I doubt this particular audience was in need of that sort of prompting. But we were treated to a solo of poetic sensitivity around timing (inhabiting the lush, flowing music but finding its own inquiry, thoughtfulness and response within it) and its own validity as a work of art. I do look forward to seeing Zongo some day, though--and, of course, much more of what Coulibaly has to offer.

A group of performers, billed as Les Ballet Afrik and led by Wiles (who dances as Omari Mizrahi), brought the house down with the celebratory Sila Djiguba (A Path to Hope). Here, music and moves of West Africa, AfroBeat, House and Vogue styles seamlessly and joyfully intersect. The young dancers making their unforgettable debut as a troupe alongside Wiles were Craig D Washington, Eva Moore, Milerka Rodriguez, Shireen Rahimi, Algin Ford, Yuhee Yang, Yuki Sukezane. I also enjoyed the masterful "pop-up" performance by Nubian Néné (of A Lady in the House Dance Company) in her solo, S T A N C E, another tribute to the self-determination and courage of women of the Black diaspora.

e-Moves continues tonight, Friday and Saturday with all performances at 7:30pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Harlem Stage
150 Convent Avenue, Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Africa is contemporary: Tarpaga's night at Harlem Stage

Scene from Declassified Memory Fragment at Harlem Stage Gatehouse
(photos above and below: Marc Millman)

Director/choreographer Olivier Tarpaga (foreground)
performs in Declassified Memory Fragment

Only one night to see Baker & Tarpaga Dance Project at Harlem Stage Gatehouse? How is that acceptable?

If Olivier Tarpaga's Declassified Memory Fragment (2015) had a longer run, he and his all-male cast of notable dancers and musicians would be such an edifying, exhilarating treat for New York's contemporary dance fans--and everyone else. Tarpaga--whose company is based in both Burkino Faso and Philadephia--seems tired of being labeled "contemporary" as if dance made in and exported from Africa in recent years needed a special designation distinct from the folkloric, tribal work with which we, in the States, are much more familiar.

In a post-show Q&A with choreographer and filmmaker Gabri Christa, Tarpaga declared, "It's important to to know: Africa is contemporary." In other words, Get with it, New York! We're here! With Nora Chipaumire, Faustin Linyekula, Dorothée Munyaneza and the Senegalese Mother of It All, Germaine Acogny, gracing our stages and museums in recent weeks, we're getting a right schooling in this subject this season. As Christa noted, so much of this art is "based in African tradition but also free of it."

The hour-long Declassified Memory Fragment, presented in partnership between Harlem Stage and 651 Arts, has a real-world political context--intrigue and upheaval in Burkino Faso, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe--that Tarpaga began to relate during the Q&A. It's a knotty history, and I suspect I was not the only one finding it tricky to focus on and follow. But suffice to say, for now, the dance takes off from the idea that power grabs and secrecy destabilize both democracies and human relationships. Tarpaga's stagecraft does the better job of illustrating the latter--personal rifts and reconnections--through dazzling vocalization and prop work and, in particular, unusually intimate, symbolic duets. What two competitors sharing and tangling a single slim suit jacket can do and signify is amazing.

Mystery and laughable absurdity dance cheek to cheek in this work. A third dancing partner--beauty--is in the warm, twangy, bluesy music and the poetry of the work's visual graces. It's worth noting, too, that in its design and its masterful execution by dancers Ousséni Dabaré, Aziz Dermé, Jérôme Kaboré and Adonis Nébié, Declassified Memory Fragment broadens any notion of what it means to be masculine, to be African and masculine, and to dance as an African man. And it does so in a matter-of-fact way that we can't help but see, absorb and, if we will, admire.

Music: Olivier Tarpaga in collaboration with musicians Flatié Dembelé, Boubacar Djiga and Daouda Guindo

Declassified Memory Fragment has closed. For information on future events at Harlem Stage Gatehouse, click here.

Harlem Stage Gatehouse
150 Convent Avenue, Manhattan
(map/directions)

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It's time to E-Moves again at Harlem Stage

Kyle Marshall
(photo: David Gonsier)

Spring's here and, with it, a fresh new season of E-Moves at Harlem Stage, featuring commissioned works by "emerging, evolving and established" choreographers of color, as writes E-Moves series curator Charmaine Warren.

Running from Fridays and Saturdays only, March 31 to April 8, the programming spans a range of interests--iconoclastic approaches to ballet to an innovative blend of Indian and contemporary dance. Choreographers include Francesca Harper ((y)ourstory : Chapter one, a work in progress), Parijat Desai (JustLikeThat), Kyle Marshall (Colored) and Leyland Simmons (Traffic).

E-Moves 18 also promises nightly “Pop-Up” performances by renowned artists such as tap dancer Dormeshia Sumbry Edwards and dancers from the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company.

“Pop Up” artists:

Friday, March 31: Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards: Tap solo created & performed by Dormeshia Sumbry Edwards

Saturday, April 1: Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE: SHE IS HERE (2016), Choreography: Ronald K. Brown, performed by Annique Roberts.

Friday, April 7: Dance Theatre of Harlem: Movement 3, Love from VESSELS (2014), choreographed by Darrell Grand Moultrie, performed by Alison Stroming and Francis Lawrence.

Saturday, April 8: Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company: VALLEY COTTAGE (1980/1981 revised in 2011)(excerpt), Choreographers: Bill T. Jones &  Arnie Zane, performed by Antonio Brown and I-Ling Liu.

E-Moves 18 schedule

Friday, March 31, 7:30pm

Saturday, April 1, 7:30pm

Friday, April 7, 7:30pm

Saturday, April 8, 7:30pm

Each program is approximately 90 minutes. For tickets & more information, click here or call (212) 281-9240 ext. 19 or 20.

Harlem Stage Gatehouse
150 Convent Avenue (at West 135th Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)


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With Baldwin our witness at Harlem Stage

Meshell Ndegeocello (above)
Justin Hicks (below)
in Can I Get A Witness? The Gospel of James Baldwin
(photos: Marc Millman)

There's church.

And then, there's church.

When a Black person says it, it's usually the latter and comes with a world of cultural meaning.

And that's where Meshell Ndegeocello is taking you this week--that is, if you paid the price of the ticket. And, if you did, good on you, because you can tell your grandkids you were there when Ndegeocello and her collaborators, inspired by James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time (1963), both tapped and radically remade the ritual of church to address this godawful, pivotal time in our American history.

A Harlem Stage Water Works commission, Can I Get A Witness? The Gospel of James Baldwin encircles vocalist/bassist Ndegeocello and her musicians--Jake Sherman on organ, Jebin Bruni on keyboards and Abraham Rounds on drums--with rings of church pews and chairs for us "congregants." The intimate theater space is further ringed and centered by Abigail DeVille's installations. Before the show starts, the audience can walk around and check them out. I had time to look closely at only two of these assemblages which, despite a few recessed, come-and-go lights, remained cloaked in dark, forbidding mystery. Their mirror shards, especially those covering mannequins' faces, seem designed, like nail-studded n'kisi power figures, to neutralize and deflect evil.

As audience members found seats, Sherman worked the organ slow and mellow in the manner of church. The celebrants/performers began milling around, each cheerfully stopping, here and there, to greet a congregant. Their ritual garments featured reflective glitter, adornments of fake jewels, rich alignments of strips that mimicked fur and feathers. Church began to feel indigenous and Afro-Atlantic and festive and anything but colonized into blandness.

Directed by Charlotte Brathwaite, this warm, inviting, hot and inciting service featured not only funk and jazz and call-and-response and impromptu dance and a charming communion but also several "sermons."  Yes, several. I'd imagine no church Ndegeocello could ever dream up--or could stand--would have only a single mouthpiece for the divine.

Vocalist Justin Hicks, with a voice as sweet as it was passionate, held forth, and so did Staceyann Chin, incendiary spoken-word poet and lesbian activist. And so did Paul J. Thompson, musician turned high school principal who told us how his own difficulties with the America's school system led him to teach in a more nourishing way, armed with Baldwin's essays. And so did vocalist Toshi Reagon, who invoke the righteous power of the Civil Rights movement, exhorting her listeners to raise their voices for justice.

Above and below: Staceyann Chin
(photos: Marc Millman)

It was, as Chin told us, "a call to order--or a call to disorder, whatever you deem necessary."

We needed several sermons, yes, because there remains so much to grapple with--from the threat to healthy water sources to the accelerated rise of white nationalism to the dulling despair that can make good people pull away from one another and the useful work they could do.

Baldwin's uncompromising voice and his visage--in still portrait and in ghostly, out-of-sync film imagery--presides over the setting. The back page of the program features a photo of him sitting on a chair and gazing down at something in his hands. I cannot make out what it is, but I'm imagining it might be a pocket watch. It's that kind of gaze and that kind of holding. His slender body is folded in upon itself, the bent head half in shadow, the legs and feet close together, the arms foreshortened and locking a protected--and, to our prying eyes, unseeable--space in front of his solar plexus.

Silent, this man who had so much to say with his writing and speaking voice. The face might be interpreted as sad, but I see thoughtfulness. Full of thought. Taking time for it.

He sits alone in the photograph. Writers do their work alone, even if the necessity for their work springs from engagement with a troubled society and with the world beyond it, as did Baldwin's work. Like other writers, he needed his time for quiet, for thought, for processing, for conjuring. Without any of that, we would not have the writing we turn to now and again for clarity, for reminder, for courage, for direction. The writing we need always and now as never before.

He was also a man who used the technology of his day to do a good deal of his critically important work in the world. We know the man not only from his writing but from his numerous appearances on television. Yes. Moving out from quiet, moving into public space, he took every opportunity to go in front of as many people as possible and speak good sense to a country refusing to grow up and look at itself.

I have no doubt that Baldwin, in a similar way, would work the hell out of the new technology of our day. He'd make it work for him, and we'd be better off for it.

That's right. Baldwin would figure out how to turn all this mess into church.

Can I Get A Witness? The Gospel of James Baldwin--running through Sunday with performances at 7:30pm and, on Saturday and Sunday, matinees at 2pm.

Sold out, but there is a waiting list. Go, go, go!

For more information, click here.

Harlem Stage Gatehouse
150 Convent Avenue, Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Harlem's "E-Moves" spotlights emerging dancemakers

Tap artist Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards
with trumpeter Igmar Thomas
in Jason Samuels Smith's Going The Miles...
(photo: Marc Millman)

The coziness up at Harlem Stage Gatehouse for last night's E-Moves opener was enhanced by Simone Eccleston's generous, frequent expressions of welcome and thanks. As Interim Director of Programming--replacing the now @large Brad Learmonth--Eccleston has much to uphold and to celebrate: a unique, beautiful home for the arts in Harlem, a strong international community of creators and performers, a history of events that have made and continue to make memories.

Of the four commissioned dances, Jason Samuels Smith's Going The Miles... deserves to enter venerable Harlem Stage history. You'll never go wrong featuring tap champs like Samuels Smith, Derick K. Grant and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards. But the combination of that triple-threat sonic powerhouse with the intimacy of the Gatehouse was mindblowing. The closeness offered the chance to watch, but never quite fathom, how six feet can split musical moments into flickering microseconds, lending the overall fabric of music a refined, shimmering texture. Grant loves, is especially adept at, small, unexpected delicacies. Collaborators Igmar Thomas--a masterful trumpeter--and bassist Alex Hernandez take a journey through a trio of Miles Davis works, from 1955-1963 contributing to one of the most satisfying musical performances of this or any season.

Although already world-renowned in tap dance, Samuels Smith joined the E-Moves lineup as an "emerging choreographer," mentored by Broadway's Ted Levy.  Okay. But what of his lesser-known colleagues on the Harlem Stage bill?

Davalois Fearon in Water, Thirst & Storm
with video art by André M. Zachery
(photo: Marc Millman)

Davalois Fearon--actually a frequent critics' favorite for her dancing with choreographer Stephen Petronio--is not new to the spotlight. But as she ventures out more as her own dancemaker, we can see a personal, introspective focus that tempers crowd-pleasing, quirky agility. In her and her dancers' movement for Water, Thirst & Storm--as well as a bewitching video by collaborator André M. Zachery--she puts a quiet, ritualistic beauty in the service of expressing nature's power and preciousness. The work shown here has been excerpted from her developing project, Consider Water, "inspired by domestic and global water issues, like water scarcity, water quality impairment and water-related natural disasters." Without seeing Water, Thirst & Storm within this bigger context, it's hard to know how those issues might be integrated into a work of performance, but the piece is a good introduction to Fearon's evolving aesthetic.

Laurie M. Taylor's entertaining Deeper, Higher reflects a fusion of influences from modern dance to Broadway to hip hop, from African to the Afro-affirmative work of Urban Bush Women. An abstract ensemble for five women, including Taylor, it has the uplift of a signature piece, an appetizer. You definitely want to know what Taylor and her shining dancers might do next.

To appreciate Desiree Godsell's WONDERLAND a GO-GO, you're best advised to let go and let the psychedelics take your mind. Otherwise you might not know where you are or why--particularly if you happen to be way younger than me. While not exactly my flavor, despite the era it evokes, WONDERLAND a GO-GO has theatrical audacity. Salsa dancer Elvis Collado performs with stellar presence, and Godsell, herself, overflows with daffy charm best seen in her "Little Surfer Girl" number. Again, for those of you young ones, that's the Beach Boys.

E-Moves continues through Sunday, April 9 with performances at 7:30pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Harlem Stage Gatehouse
150 Convent Avenue, Manhattan
(map/directions)

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A fantasy of James Baldwin and Beauford Delaney

Harlem Stage 

presents a staged reading of

TO THE LIGHT 

(A FANTASY INSPIRED BY TWO AMERICAN GENIUSES: 

BALDWIN AND DELANEY)

a new play by Bil Wright

directed by Reginald Douglas

Wednesday-Thursday, October 7-8 at 7:30pm

Tickets: Free with RSVP

To the Light (A Fantasy Inspired by two American Geniuses: Baldwin and Delaney) is a play by Bil Wright that celebrates the loving, dramatic, complex relationship between writer James Baldwin (1924-1987) and painter Beauford Delaney (1901-1979). It chronicles their friendship from their first meeting through each of their deaths. Both of these men were highly significant in the history of American arts and culture. They both lived and created during times of enormous political change in the United States, especially in regards to the country’s race relations. Both were also enamored with Paris, as were other black artists, feeling it was a mecca in which art prevailed and African Americans considered beautiful both physically and artistically. This was a huge bond between the men, with both men dying in Paris, Delaney the victim of severe mental illness.

Tickets and reservations to Harlem Stage go on sale starting August 24 and can be purchased online or at 212-281-9240 ext. 19/20.

Harlem Stage Gatehouse
150 Convent Avenue, Manhattan
(map/directions)

The anatomy of change: Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and LIz Lerman at Harlem Stage

Impressions of: Blood, Muscle, Bone: the anatomy of wealth and poverty

by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, The Dance Enthusiast, October 14, 2013

Harlem Stage's "Makandal" opera will tour Haiti and South Africa

Harlem Stage Prepares to Export Its Own Opera
by Felicia R. Lee, The New York Times, July 28, 2013

Citywide arts tribute to the late Sekou Sundiata

A Citywide Retrospective for the Poet and Playwright Sekou Sundiata
by Felicia R. Lee, The New York Times, February 18, 2013

In the key of Wonder: Robert Glasper at Harlem Stage Gatehouse

Robert Glasper

From a nightclub table at the edge of Harlem Stage Gatehouse stage, I had a revealing angle on Robert Glasper. The pianist, bent to his work, simply presented to my gaze one ear, the side of his neck, the whimsical watch cap stretched out behind his head. Facing a far corner of the stage, remaining in that humble, vulnerable position, Glasper flowed through a rippling, ringing solo he later called "I Wonder." With its layers of meditative and bluesy "voices," less driven than the sturdier, determined work of his ensemble--The Robert Glasper Experiment--and his guest performers, the solo expressed a wandering kind of wondering that eventually wends its way to clarity and serenity.

Commissioned by Harlem Stage's WaterWorks series, Robert Glasper: Songs in the Key of Life features the Grammy-nominated pianist's take on the legacy of Stevie Wonder--another artist with a profoundly expansive, eclectic musical toolbox--and it's a thoughtful show for folks who love Wonder but don't necessarily need to hear upbeat hits signed, sealed, delivered. Glasper's choices--and his guest collaborators--are quirky, soulful and sometimes soul-stirring.

Fervent r&b vocalist Eric Roberson serves as caller to the unified ensemble's ready, chugging response in the surprising opener, "Misstra Know It All," before Glasper and the band almost imperceptibly ease it into a  lilting jazz fantasia. Stokley (of the St. Paul, MN band Mint Condition) is all over "You've Got It Bad, Girl"--a song I appreciate far more for its silky instrumentation than its obnoxious lyrics--and "Rocket Love," strongly evoking not only the wonderful Wonder but Al Jarreau at the height of his powers. Lalah Hathaway's mocha voice deftly lifts "Overjoyed" beyond treacly pleading, and she makes you sit up and take notice--all you "Jesus Children of America"--that your bullshit ain't gonna cut it. But nevermind all that. Cool Mama Hathaway, with a big assist from Glasper and the band, ends up rocking us into a holy state of all-rightness. No matter where we're coming from, no matter what's going down now, it's going to be all right.

Check out Glasper's journey through Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit"--you can do that here--and you'll feel a similar sense of moving through darkness, with increasing strength and determination, to something all-embracing and reassuring. That's where Glasper--the unifier, the healer, the dedicated Knight of Cups--likes his music to take us.

The Robert Glasper Experiment includes Casey Benjamin (saxophone/keys/vocoder), Mark Colenburg (drums), Derrick Hodge (bass) with guest performers Ahmir ?uestlove Thompson (drums, Thursday only), Gregoire Maret (harmonica), Mike Moreno (guitar) and Yuki Hirano (synthesizer).

Robert Glasper: Songs in the Key of Life concludes this evening with two more 75-minute performances (7:30 and 10pm). With seating limited, nightclub-style, both shows have long sold out, but check for last-minute cancellations. For information on these shows and tonight's pre-performance discussion with Glasper (6:30pm) and after-party at Ginny's Supper Club, click here.

Follow Harlem Stage's programming here.

Harlem Stage Gatehouse
150 Convent Avenue (at 135th Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Party down with Harlem Stage

The Fats Waller Dance Party
with Jason Moran and Meshell Ndegeocello

Back by popular demand for their second year with a 5-piece band and live dance installation by Maija Garcia/Organic Magnetics

Saturday, July 28, 5pm 

Bring your blankets to sit on while you rest from dancing! There will be family activities, cuisine from local vendors and raffles including a chance to win a pair of tickets from American Airlines.

Opening acts:
Amma Whatt, KimberlyNichole & Urban Word NYC
DJs:
I Love Vinyl—Amir, Ge-ology, OP!, Scribe & Jon Oliver

VIDEO of Jason and Meshell performing This Joint is Jumpin'

Location:
Annunciation Park (Amsterdam and W. 135th Street)
Main Entrance at Wesst 134th and Amsterdam

Gates open and I Love Vinyl DJ sets start at 4PM
Concert at 5PM

NO folding chairs, outside food and beverages, coolers, glass bottles, pets, umbrellas, bikes or alcohol allowed in the park.

Food and drink will be available for purchase.

Meet Marjuan Canady. She's almost every woman.

Marjuan Canady

Girls! Girls? Girls.

Read that a few times in different ways.

Or maybe read it ten times to account for the ten Black women that actress/playwright/producer Marjuan Canady deftly transforms herself into in her one-woman play, Girls! Girls? Girls. Presented tomorrow night by Sepia Works at Harlem Stage, Canady's satirical show "critiques the power of the media, celebrity culture and challenges society’s negative notions of black female identity."

Directed by Noelle Ghoussaini

On two programs showcasing new works by Harlem Stage's commissioned artists who include:

June 27 Amma Whatt, Roberto Villanueva and Maurice Chestnut
June 28 Maija Garcia, Canady and Eric Lockley

For further information and ticketing for these Fund for New Work shows, visit Harlem Stage's Web site here.

For more information on Marjuan Canady, click here.

Harlem Stage: The Gatehouse
150 Convent Avenue (West 135th Street), Manhattan
(directions)