Dance For Life once again celebrated the vitality, solidarity, and humanity of the Chicago dance community with stunning performances from five different Chicago companies, ten contributing companies, and fourteen independent artists. This unique event stands as a shining monument to the power of art to unite a city behind a humanitarian cause by showcasing the rich creative life and bounty of talent that thrive here.
Executive Director Anthony Guerrero delivered some impressive numbers in his address to the cheering Auditorium Theatre audience of 2,400 on Saturday night. An astonishing 700 dance artists and companies have donated their performances to Dance For Life since its inception, raising nearly six million dollars over the past 25 years for HIV/AIDS research and providing support for local dancers affected by HIV/AIDS. Dance for Life has recently expanded as Chicago Dancers United, supporting dance community professionals dealing with other critical health issues as well.
Opening the program, Giordano Dance Chicago transformed nostalgia for mid-century classic jazz into something fresh, explosive, and totally “now” with “Sing Sing Sing,” an effervescent toast to the legacy of its founding artistic director, Gus Giordano. Expanded for full-company from Mr. G’s original choreography for three dancers, the ten Giordano dancers tore up the stage to Louis Prima’s iconic big-band jazz. Dressed in black tails and white gloves, their energy and joy sent an infectious rush of enthusiasm across the footlights and into the house. Classic jazz catch-steps, syncopated footwork, high kicks and snapping fingers raised the roof as the company dazzled with unison triple turns, impeccable ensemble polish, and knock ‘em dead dancing from the heart. GDC, the only company to have performed in Dance for Life every year since its beginning, made for a fun and fitting opener to an evening that spanned a wide range of styles and genres.
Visceral Dance Chicago transported the audience into a totally different dance environment. with Peter Ferry and David Lang’s percussion score, performed live by Ferry from an elevated upstage platform. Beginning in smokey darkness, the sound of bells illuminated the brittle geometry of Nick Pupillo’s “Vital,” masterfully danced by this accomplished troupe, dressed in simple white briefs and tops. Nathan Tomlinson’s lighting effectively etched Pupillo’s distinctive movement in stark relief against a black stage, and Jay Gower Taylor’s giant metallic tree sculpture mirrored the dancers’ sharp movement lines. A linear duet, elegant and leggy with balletic underpinnings, launched decisively modern springs and sculptural groupings. Breathtaking lifts brought whoops from the audience, as the dance built to its inspired ending, catching us off-guard in a daring group plunge.
Hubbard Street’s reprise of last winter’s “Solo Echo” (2012) by Crystal Pite captivated all over again with the stop-action freeze-frames of runners arrested at the peak of urgency, fingers spread as if to say, “Wait!” Unleashed running segues into mixed gender and same gender duets that traverse a landscape of relationships. Combative partnering, the struggle of wills, anguished extremes in limbs and wrenching torso twists periodically give way to flow in Pite’s impulse-driven tapestry. Contrasting effectively with the serenity and pathos of Brahms’ Sonata for Cello and Piano in E Minor, the clash of forms conspires to create an emotional truth that is at once almost melodrama and a self-punishing commentary on itself. The silence of snowflakes falling from an ever-lowering sky and the soaring lyricism of music that subtly infiltrates the movement canvas color the whole with the unavoidable frailty of time and human existence. The overall effect is an intimate exposure of life’s struggle in all its rawness of feeling, both tender and violent. The remarkable versatility of the seven Hubbard Street dancers is especially well-suited to Pite’s dramatically edgy and technically challenging choreography.
Capping off Act I was Harrison McEldowney and Jeremy Plummer’s “Purple Medley,” (premiere) to music by Prince. Performed by a composite of dancers from five different Chicago companies, along with five independent dancers, the piece combined Plummer’s aerial dance with McEldowney’s earthy moves in a funky, street smart tribute to glitz, complete with an upstage tinsel curtain framing the action.
Giordano Dance Chicago opened Act II with Keisha Lalama’s lyrical “Alegria,” a full-company repertory staple that gives individual GDC dancers plenty of juicy variations to showcase their unique performing strengths and technical virtuosity. Lalma’s use of syncopated jumps, counterpoint in movement and music, and spatial design that kept constantly reconfiguring group patterns complimented and contrasted in engaging visual design. Spot-on unison ensemble work is all the more striking when it blossoms into peppy solos and brief duets and trios. Especially fun were Joshua Blake Carter’s sexy jazz turn and Devin Buchanan’s solo pyrotechnics.
Chicago Dance Crash took flight in a hybrid of gymnastic athleticism, break dancing, hip-hop, and jazz moves in Jessica Dear’s “Heard That.” Set to electronic music by Extrawelt and Murcof, static white noise meshed with a new-age beat in a jet-propelled, non-stop rush of energy.
The Joffrey Ballet’s performance of Gerald Arpino’s “Round of Angels” (1983), set to music by Gustav Mahler, reached sublime heights of lyrical beauty in a lusciously poetic and moving contrast. Fabrice Camels and Jeraldine Mendoza, in an exquisite duet, began the piece like sea anemones rising from water, legs fanning in repetitive arcs, intertwining bodies rolling over one another. Floating in ethereal weightlessness, Mendoza’s pristine form evolved in stunning arabesques and extensions in the adoring and tender armature of Calmels’ commanding frame. Dressed in white unitards against a black cyclorama, five celestial consorts join Calmels in thoroughly angelic diversions before spiriting their queen off stage, propelling her in dips and swells through the night sky like a radiant comet.
Randy Duncan’s “Depth of Light,” (premiere) brought the gala night to a rousing conclusion with an ensemble of dancers culled from six different companies, along with nine independent dance artists. Margaret Nelson’s light projection and Andy Mitran’s original score evoked a universal tribal feel, inspired by indigenous rhythms, percussion, and vocals from Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Breath and breathing infused the piece with a sense of life’s essence. Beginning with a Grahamesque sequence, the entire ensemble of seventeen lay on their backs in a line across the upstage corridor, methodically contracting to sitting, then releasing back to the floor. An organic build brought the dancers to their feet and into space with head, shoulder and torso isolations evocative of African dance. Duncan’s lyrical vocabulary has the unmistakable imprint of solid roots in the Graham technique, but seamlessly integrated in service of the choreographer’s unique voice in a broader movement palette. The dancers’ bounding leaps, sprightly skitters and jumps, sweeping spiral turns and arcs, and marvelous group élan united the entire Dance For Life audience in their spirit, knitting an authentic tribal joy for dance and for life.