“To Have and To Hold,” if memory serves, we saw some years ago when Dance Cleveland presented Shapiro and Smith here. The movement of the piece is a fast gymnastic flow over, on and off three benches; CCDT’s dancers gave us nary an inkling of how difficult the movement was. And the dancers’ skillful execution allowed the dance to cast its spell, suggesting caring relationships that are torn asunder by the inexorable flow of time.
Kevin Iega Jeff is perhaps less the household word than Shapiro and Smith, but he still has a considerable track record as choreographer, teacher and artistic director. His “Church of Nations” posed the weighty question: should a church give its endorsement to war? If the movement quality of “TH&TH” was ‘inevitable flow,’ “Church” was all staccato. Whatever position the dancers wrenched themselves into was as tortured as its alternative, the perfect metaphor for their moral dilemma.
One of our favorite moments in the dance centered on the ritualistic sequence that each parishioner performed as he came to his place: a genuflection at his chair and, standing, some hand gestures including one uncomfortably like a fascist salute. When Guest Artist Terence Greene came to his place, he began the sequence but hesitated to give the salute. The other parishioners glared at him, he glanced anxiously back, snapped off his salute and took his seat. [This reminded us of the dilemma of German and Austrian churches under Adolph Hitler; use the greeting ‘Heil Hitler’ in church and from the pulpit or risk offending the totalitarian state.]
As we saw it, “Church” offered too few such moments filled with meaning. With too few exceptions it was all agony, all the time. Still, the dance creates an atmosphere appropriate to the weighty question it poses, thanks to the committed and tightly rehearsed performance of CCDT’s dancers.
In marked contrast to “TH&TH” and “Church,” the first two dances on the program represented, we’re sorry to say, disappointments. The first, by CCDT Artistic Director Michael Medcalf, because it seemed to be unfinished; the second, a long work by former company member Paloma McGregor, because it never developed.
Medcalf’s dance, “Hymn/By the Water,” purported to treat of two men who are mutually supportive on parallel but different paths in life, if we may paraphrase Medcalf’s video introduction. What we saw set the stage well enough thanks to taut performances by Antwon Duncan and Daniel Isaah Henderson but we saw no clue of divergent paths and, lacking apparent development or resolution, Hymn felt unfinished at 6 minutes.
The hip hop score by Ryan Lott and DJ Doc as 2% Milk had no apparent beginning, middle and end – unusual for Lott who, we have observed, often gives shape to dances with his scores. Again, we wonder if the dance was left unfinished and so used only part of the score.
McGregor’s dance, “We, at the Crossroads,” also starts out well enough with an interesting core phrase that seems to draw from the choreographer’s current membership in Urban Bush Women. However, for us, “Crossroads” failed to develop either meaning or as a movement study. This is surprising considering that McGregor’s MFA concert at CWRU was well thought of.
The Friday concert we attended was marred by unresolved technical problems associated with the video clips that introduced each of the 4 dances. The videos themselves, interviews with the choreographers, may have been informative and well produced for all we could tell. But we could not see them any better than we can see our neighbor’s TV set through his window across the street. Cleveland Contemporary Dance Theatre has taught us to expect better.
From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas vicnelsaATearthlink.net (:divend:)