SeeChicagoDance.com

Step Afrika

By Sid Smith:

In some respects, 20 years is really more than two decades in terms of Chicago dance survival: This was a city so supposedly hostile to troupes that reaching that milestone seemed elusive for almost everybody.

But River North Chicago Dance Company is now 20, and so is the Chicago Human Rhythm Project, the tireless endeavor that played a key role in the percussive dance renaissance of the 1990s. Founder Lane Alexander and his group may have performed at modest or off-the-track places over the years, but Alexander never thought small. His ambitions loom as large as his sunny optimism--he got Savion Glover to visit at the height of that tapper's stardom, just as an example.

The organization launched its 20th-anniversary season Thursday at the Harris Theater, an installment of its Global Rhythms enterprise and occasion for another round of Juba Awards, this time going to Alexander himself and Jam Productions co-founder Arny Granat--well-deserved kudos, to be sure. Meanwhile, the entertainment anchor of the various programs, playing through Saturday, is Step Afrika!, the Washington, D.C.-based company devoted to the art of stepping.

Founder C. Brian Williams runs a topnotch troupe wonderfully adept at this fraternity-sorority African-American tradition, an ensemble of fast, smooth stylists and musicians who take a fun-filled past time and turn it into art. The speed of their hands and feet, in maneuvers which involve both foot-stomping and variations on clapping, comes as no surprise. But the visual design and stage presentation are especially noteworthy. The troupe members ease effortlessly from one choral set-up to another, often mimicking ballet or modern dance in their lines, clusters and mini-kaleidoscopic patterns. In one especially beguiling bit, the group lines up from front to back and pound away with white wooden sticks, creating a sculptural image as well as a feast of percussion.

For my money, two stretches of the program weren't worthy. The comic dramatization of fraternity-sorority life seemed so-so, partly because it's difficult to hear the dialogue--the microphones set at the base of the stage are better at amplifying feet sounds than vocal ones, I guess. But the bit also seemed a tad conventional and silly, coming as it did amidst the delivery of an art so otherwise well-honed, sophisticated and original.

The segment involving audience participation didn't work as well as on some other percussive programs, either, a bit awkward and pro forma, somehow, maybe because we've seen so many other groups do something similar. Truth is, the performers in Step Afrika! command the stage so powerfully, they don't really need this bit.

The engagement features other guests, varying each night. Thursday included a delightful opening from the amazing youngsters with the South Shore Drill Team, who rank among the most exciting parade participants in Chicago you'll ever see. Thursday they proved they're equally impressive onstage, tossing their props and flags high into the air and catching them with phenomenal grace and precision, and offering a sweet salute to their home town that began with a smart soft shoe and other stylistics to Frank Sinatra and included a tip of the hat to Barack Obama.

The CHRP routinely brings in folks you've never heard of and then wonder why. Thursday was no exception. Jason Janas, a young man from Washington, D.C., who, despite wide ears and a slightly nerdy mien, is a firecracker in tap shoes, his lickety-split feet and intricate form matched by his unusually articulate and long-form phrasing--a joy to watch and hear.

It might be time to move the awards and speeches to the benefit portions of the gala, outside of the performance stretch. Thursday seemed long and sometimes slow because of them. True, they're an integral part of the respect for the art and reinvigoration of its educational value CHRP so rightly cherishes. But a lot has been achieved, and while there are miles to go, I'm sure the organization would remind me, the broader audience now being attracted may expect more straightforward entertainment, free of benefit-like ceremony. Oh, well, just a thought, and by no means a suggestion that the vast accomplishments by the CHRP in the past two decades should be minimized, ignored or go uncelebrated.

 

Reviewed by Sid Smith on 11/20/2009 at 11:24 AM