Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago: "LiveLife.DANCE!"
GJDC premieres three new works and performs selections from the company’s acclaimed repertoire in its fall engagement kicking off GJDC’s 2010-2011 LiveLifeDANCE! season with performances on Friday, Oct. 22 and Saturday, Oct. 23 at 8 p.m.
The new works for GJDC’s fall engagement at the Harris Theater will include a new full company piece choreographed by Karen Mareck Grundy, artistic director of Missouri Contemporary Ballet and former artistic director of Cedar Lake II,to original music composed and performed
by Chicago area-based singer/songwriter Kevin Mileski; The world premiere of “Yes…and” by Autumn Eckman, the newly appointed GJDC artistic associate and director of Giordano II, performed by the full GJDC Company dancers and all members of Giordano II and a new light-hearted jazz dance duet choreographed by Eckman. The program will also include selections from GJDC’s critically acclaimed repertoire “I Want You,” a major work created in 2009 for GJDC by hip-hop master Rennie Harris; “Prey” (2003), choreographed by former Hubbard Street Dance Chicago member and “Movin’ Out” alum Ron DeJesus; and a re-staging by Brock Clawson of his “Give and Take” (2009).
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Giordano unveils three new works
By Sid Smith
Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago's engagement through Saturday at the Harris Theater is both enjoyable and promising in expanding the troupe's stylistic horizons and continuing to add to its choreographic line-up.
Karen Mareck Grundy, whose "Journey In" is one of three premieres on the bill, is artistic head of the Missouri Contemporary Ballet, and she offers yet more evidence of the broad range of approaches Nan Giordano has managed to attract for the troupe. "Journey In" is both velveteen in look and sharp in abstract drama--grounded, to be sure, but lilting, smooth, flowing modern dance that whispers at times of the "ballet" in the name of Grundy's own organization. At the outset, it should be noted that a key winning ingredient of "Journey In" is the spotlight it puts on Chicago composer Kevin Mileski, who joins musician Herman Winkler to play the score live at one side of the stage.
Almost New Age-melodic in creaminess and appeal, at first, Mileski is a sly music maker. The various parts of the score move from harmonic prettiness, ear treats that whiff of sentiment and sweetness, to a rousing rock guitar finale that boasts gentle echoes of country twang.
But what Grundy does with the score is equally impressive. The first section is ingeniously lit by Kam Hobbs and helps define the drama. Two intersecting planes of light create a kind of luminary set, and on it Grundy introduces the dancers, slowly, with a mini-drama all about love, but punctuated with brief scenes of female bonding. Though men hover and attract, the women take time out to unite, entwining their arms and offering hints of nurture and support. The attire is suburban cocktail party; the mood is more resonating and even slightly ominous--at times the dancers stand in place and gaze as if in rapture.
Eventually, the more circumscribed look gives way to openness and a raucous finale, but through it all Grundy orchestrates an attractive and uplifting piece, riddled with tiny bits of postmodern zeal. One of my favorites is a short-lived sequence wherein several dancers hop on one foot--a little like ballet's hops en pointe, only here the feet are bare.
Meanwhile, with two impressive and completely different pieces, Autumn Eckman proves how wise the Giordano folks were to recently name her artistic associate and director of Giordano II. "Yes, And..." is a fun-filled, funky crowd spectacle, combining both the main and junior Giordano troupes and a jungle-like fantasia pertly and prickly set to the percussive finery of Barbatuques. Eckman plays a lot here with image, the costumes revealing and swimsuit-like, the arrangements ever-changing constructions of geometric form--the traditional choral circle in one phase, an odd, stooping, arched-back look as a few of the dancers lope across the stage in another. It's a great program piece, though it will at times be reduced in number, which might change its effect--the mass of bodies seems part of its zeitgeist. And the ending is a little weak, one dancer tossed on high above the clustered rest in an image that Friday seemed tentative and a tad underwhelming.
But there is nothing weak about the beguiling, seductive duet called "A Little Moonlight," a miniature gem showing off Eckman's talent and, on Friday, the delightful partnership of Maeghan McHale and Jarrett Kelly. On its surface, this is a charming, fast-moving, rambunctious and joyful duet, to be relished--dance as pure entertainment. But it also shows off Eckman's very developed sense of movement logic, that invaluable choreographic tool some dance makers just seem to be born with. Eckman devises her own generic vocabulary of pop dance here, jitterbug-like, but never really jitterbug, Astaire-and-Rogers evocative and yet something all Eckman's own. But part of what makes it work is her sense of what should come next, what should follow, what moves along smoothly--that's the difference between a romantic duet that just seems to lump from one move to the next and one that intoxicates you, as "Moonlight" does so easily. Tiny motifs are one clue, as when McHale several times points her leg in an angle and then follows instantly with a full, skyward extension. It's the deceptively relaxed, actually tricky and intricate interactions that delight, while Kelly's natural suavity doesn't hurt, either.
