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Jazz Dance World Festival

By Zachary Whittenburg:

Jazz Dance World Congress opened the performance series of its sixteenth occurrence with a new documentary by Pedro Brenner that pays tribute to the program's founder, Gus Giordano. Reverence for the choreographer understandably permeates the festival's atmosphere -- the company he founded hosts the series and is the only one to appear on all four bills -- but the singular and oft-imitated style he coined has already given way to a plurality of forms that belies the title of the occasion. Last night, seven companies from around the world raised the question of where exactly "jazz dance" is and how long it might identifiably be around. Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago are unparalleled as gala openers: Of weaponized sincerity and generous energy, the 20-member group of drummers and dancers presented a staged version of tomak aGuinean dance of freedom, that drew the house into a collective state of readiness to experience movement (comprised largely of young hopefuls, the audience's anticipation of this concert was palpable). They're no more a jazz dance company than Toyota is, but Muntu's fluid unison of spirit in Drum Talk/Tomak/em>was nonetheless the perfect amuse l'oeil. Of the remainder of the program, one may look at Harrison McEldowney's Blues for Ann, performed by DanceWorks Chicago, and Cesar Salinas interpreting Giordano's 1978 solo Wingsas shouldering most of the responsibility of the Congress' attendees' expectations. Bluesis exemplary of McEldowney's thorough comprehension of dance history's traditions and tropes, the flirty interactions of its sextet's subgroupings and gutsy solos clever and casual dressing of well-honed constructions. In one section, Rebecca Niziol dances on and around a trio of deadpan boys, using them like pommel horses and props and ultimately bored with the lot. Awhile later, Marc Macaranas is the soloist of its inverse, using his arms like snakes to attempt charming the ladies in "Got My Mojo Working." Salinas, with his Jell-O clavicles, gives Wings (to Joan Baez' simple, affecting take on "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot") more heft than is in its steps alone. A solo-as-sermon taking many a cue from Alvin Ailey, it deals from a stacked deck and repeats one too many phrases to not-enough effect. Two duets by visiting companies were responsible for the show's best work.Theater of Public Secrets 2008by Philadephia's Koresh Dance Company is an intriguing excerpt of choreography in three parts by Ronen Koresh. To a score of eerie whistles and jackhammers on ceramic by Karl Mullen and Nick Kendall, Theaterrecalls the au courant, naturalistic vocabularies of Ohad Naharin and Toru Shimazaki in its own voice. A solo by Jae Hoon Lim subtitled "Remembering" finds him glued to a bench except for bursts of weightless ballonand broken renverswhile Melissa Rector appears and disappears. She dances under his gaze for "She," and the two unite in a touching, simple duet called "Love" wherein he carries her in broken-doll shapes, one of each of their hands held up as though taking an oath. With an open ending that boldfaces the many oblique references to Romeo and Juliet, Koresh's adult work was a delightful discovery. Mexico's Cuerpo Eteo Danza Contemporea thankfully broughtLlora . . . para que se te Lave el Almato a second act otherwise devoid of substance. Brisa Escobedo was one of the piece's two dancers as well as its choreographer and costume designer (tiny underwear and a simple floral crown, but still). To Mika's ballad "Over My Shoulders," it's a remarkably unique duet that takes its entire duration to separate Escobedo from her partner (Rolando Ramirez), who begin as a single, multi-limbed shape and disappear into black with Ramirez standing and Escobedo fetal behind him forgotten, discarded or worse. At the risk of sounding inhospitable, the festival's other guests, Mashashi Action Machine (from Japan) and POZ Dance Theatre (of Korea) were vapid and uninspired. The former were at least endearingly bizarre: At one point, six dancers form a tree while one flits about birdlike in a diaphanous blue-and-orange cape with two hunters looking on, but there are sixteen counts of nothing for every display of circus acrobatics and no discernible aesthetic throughline. The latter, which begins with a barely-lit tableauaccompanied by an interminable shriek, quickly devolves into the sexlessly-rippling torsos, crudely-popped extensions and melodramatically-unfolding port de bras-- to paint-by-numbers Piazzolla, no less -- that unfortunately are the popular notion of what "jazz dance" is.

Reviewed by Zac Whittenburg on 07/23/2009 at 5:50 PM