Dancing Wheels @ State Theatre 5/1/10

We went to see Dancing Wheels’ all Duke Ellington program with Cleveland Jazz Orchestra and Singing Angels and learned that sometimes wishes do come true.

Every year at about this time we’ve looked back on another Dancing Wheels concert and written about the “untapped potential” of the wheelchair dancers or we’ve wished for “more musicality” from the wheelchair dancers or more “integration” between the sit-downs and the stand-ups. But this year we saw more wheelchair dancers getting a chance in the spotlight and more musicality and rhythm from the wheelchair dancers of Dancing Wheels. Somebody heard our wish and said “Open Sesame.”

Naturally, it’s not just a matter of head counts, but when the curtain went up on the first number, HALF THE FUN choreographed by Robert Wesner, we counted 5 sit-downs and 7 stand-ups. Wesner found plenty for the sit-downs to do in the first section for 12 dancers as well as in the 2nd section for 4 sit-downs. We got a special kick out of the 3rd section which featured a swing dance pas de deux between a stand up and a sit down; it was everything swing dance (and integration) should be – a little rough, maybe, but fun.

We found it fitting that TAKE THE ‘A’ TRAIN, the first collaboration between Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, was also the first Ellington piece choreographed for Dancing Wheels. Commissioned in 1997 by the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad to honor their first accessible rail car, this swinging dance, choreographed by Sabatino Verlezza, happily takes its place among all the wonderful musical numbers set in and around train stations. Bring on the dancing Red Caps.

As quickly as ‘A’ TRAIN became the signature piece of the Ellington orchestra, its origins were encrusted with creation myths. Similarly, Dancing Wheels’ ‘A’ TRAIN is said to have been first performed on a passenger platform at a train station, easy to believe when we look at its smoothly flowing traffic patterns within a compact floor plan.

Choreographer Donald McKayle is far from alone in his enthusiasm for Ellington’s FAR EAST SUITE, the music he chose for his premiere, FAR EAST OF THE BLUES. Though seldom-performed in its entirety, this Ellington composition is much admired, and when CJO started blasting out its modernist chords in tandem with the gorgeous colors of the costumes by Janet Bolick and lighting by Jeremy K Benjamin, we were instant converts.

Our complaint was that McKayle’s piece ended too soon, using only 4 of the 9 cuts in most recorded versions of FAR EAST SUITE and clocking in at only 14 minutes. That brevity and what we saw as the choreographer’s over reliance on a kind of ‘one, two, cha-cha-cha’ movement of the arms and trunk suggests that this piece is, in our opinion, unfinished - another case of untapped potential.

The Singing Angels contributed a performance of IT DON’T MEAN A THING (IF IT AIN’T GOT THAT SWING), appropriately swinging but surprisingly tight in both movement and sound for such a large group.

No discussion of wish fulfillment at the Dancing Wheels concert would be complete without acknowledging the huge contribution of CJO, which played live throughout the concert. We’re not music critics, but we’re bold enough to paraphrase Ellington and say, “It sounded good, ergo it was good.” An unusually smooth interface between dancers and musicians reflected well on the leadership of CJO Associate Artistic Director Paul Ferguson.

Looking back over this concert and this spring concert season, we notice yet another wish come true. What was previously considered practically impossible – live music for a local dance company’s concert – has, this past year, become almost routine. This spring alone, Verb Ballets, Ground Works Dance Theater, and Dancing Wheels have all had high quality live music in their concerts. Have local dancers and musicians discovered collaborative formulae that can continue? We hope so.

Dancing Wheels, Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, and Singing Angles performed at the State Theatre on Saturday, May 1, 2010. http://www.DancingWheels.org

From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas. Elsa and Vic are both longtime Clevelanders. Elsa is a landscape designer. She studied ballet as an avocation for 2 decades. Vic has been a dancer and dance teacher for most of his working life, performing in a number of dance companies in NYC and Cleveland. They write about dance as a way to learn more and keep in touch with the dance community. E-mail them at vicnelsaATearthlink.net.