Spring Celebration @ Dallas Black Dance Theatre
Photos by Amitava Sarkar
—Ramona Harper
Spring is a time of new energy and new life. Dallas Black Dance Theatre’s Spring Celebration, presented at the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre on May 19-20, was—and is— an exciting tribute to the power of movement as an expression of creativity, joy, and renewed passion for life. The program closed out the company’s 2022-2023 season, celebrating its 46th anniversary as Dallas’ longest-running professional contemporary dance company.
Artistic Director Melissa M. Young describes Spring Celebration as “layers of moving parts.” With three very different performances (including two world premieres), Celebration is an energetic, fast-paced presentation of unique program choices.
“Furtherance”—choreographed by Kirven Douthit-Boyd—and the world premieres of “Smile.” by McKinley Willis and “TABERNACLE” by Chanel DaSilva together incorporate an eclectic mix of traditional ballet with contemporary, modern, ethnic and hip hop styles of choreography. Genre-bending music beautifully frames every piece and is performed by the superb DBDT company of thirteen strong and beautifully talented dancers.
Culturally relevant, Spring Celebration boldly feels the pulse of pain that accompanies living in today’s challenging times, but finds new ways to celebrate its joys with strength, authority, freedom, and power. (And fun.) The program, in fact, left me almost breathless with new hope for the future.
Quoting program notes, Kirven Douthit-Boyd’s “Furtherance” is described as a “ballet based on overcoming a personal struggle that ends with a celebration of triumph.” The performance opens with a group of dancers bent-over, arm-over-arm and shoulder-to-shoulder, with backs to the audience as if carrying a cross of burdens too heavy to bear alone. A hazy dark fog fills the atmosphere. Strange sounds of Eastern-sounding drums (Taiko Drums Music of Japan and Tibetan bowls and sound effects by Asian Gongs and Bells) add an air of mystery and solemnity. The piece ends, though, with the jubilant sounds of the African beat to “Banjara” by Sarvar Sabri.
Dance movements in “Furtherance” are mostly balletic with strong-limbed arabesques held long and high for extended periods. Pique turns spinning across the stage are delightfully dizzying, as duets give way to the spotlight of a reappearing male soloist’s refrain of leaps for joy, moving from succumbing to overcoming. Dancers vigorously and lyrically move their bodies from seeming acceptance of heaviness to buoyant lightness in this “journey from anguish to bliss.” “Furtherance” is a beautiful piece, passionately felt, believable in its essence, and triumphant in its excellence.
Atmospherics change completely from the solemnity of “Furtherance” to McKinley Willis’ world premiere of “Smile.”—a piece about the life of clowns. Yes, that’s right, “Smile.” is about being a clown, finding your own expression of what that means, and discovering the joy that lies within. “Smile.” plays it to the hilt with fun, hilarity and more than a whiff of whimsy.
“Smile.” is purely entertaining and seemingly improvisational with a focus on dramatic characterization more than pure dancing. The performance opens as a static tableau of dancers pose to a ‘40s vaudeville sound. They quickly shift tempos while opening a trunk of colorful costumes (shimmering sequins, tutus, etc.) and dress themselves, ready to play their individual parts in the clown world, complete with bulbous red noses.
Choreography flows in a series of giddy vignettes, with parade-like marching movements, jerky marionette and Coppelia-like doll moves; French can-can and Rockette-style high kicks, mime, and some unabashed twerking. A sassy male character parades across the stage at opportune movements to get the biggest gales of laughter. He appears like a bodacious Black Drosselmeyer from The Nutcracker, much to the audience’s delight. McKinley Willis joined DBDT dancers in 2015 and “Smile.” is her world premiere as choreographer for the company.
In “Smile.” tempos and tempers change and conflict arises and resolves in a boy-meets-girl dramatization about falling in and out of love. Dance movements incorporate repeated outstretched arms as if trying to hold on to the joy of living the clown’s life or reaching for the stars beyond the earthly domain.
Music moves the story narrative with Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns” and Nat King Cole’s “Smile” sung by a jazzy female vocalist. Poetic verse fills the background of movement that speaks of freedom not found from “living in the shadows.” And hip hop music lends a more contemporary tone to the finale’s sound and movement.
Though the work feels a tad too long, and a contemporary interlude with neon-lit skull caps and white unitards doesn’t quite fit with the clown thematic, “Smile.” is probably unlike anything you’ve seen before—and at heart, is about experiencing joy wherever you can find it. Cameos by DBDT founder Ann Williams, entering stage left sporting a round red-nose and drinking a large cocktail, and artistic director Young—dancing a slow-burn jazzy jazz at stage right—added a delightfully unexpected audience treat.
The world premiere of Chanel DaSilva’s “TABERNACLE” is the final performance of Spring Celebration. It opens with four Black Nativity-like African deities center stage, stilt-heisted and regally tall in lavish robes of gold and royal blue (costuming by Eugenia Stallings). The entire company sports fantastical super-hero costumes of power and strength in the same colors by Stallings.
“TABERNACLE” is DaSilva’s first commissioned work for Dallas Black Dance Theatre. She is co-founder of MOVE NYC along with Nigel Campbell, a multi-pillared arts and social justice organization with the mission of creating greater equity and diversity in the dance field and beyond.
The narrative in “TABERNACLE” honors the fallen, and the loss of Black life for those who continue to die violently and unjustly. It was created in conscious tribute in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. “TABERNACLE” muses about what happens after these senseless deaths, and transports us to the heaven the fallen might now be experiencing. In the creator’s mind, heaven is Wakanda.
Through movement that transports, transforms, and inspires, “TABERNACLE” imagines heaven for these fallen brethren in a Wakanda afterlife. It is an afterlife filled with heroic figures who project strength, power, and authority. There is no fear of “making it home” in this heaven, a reference to the musical artistry of Tobe Nwigwe that backgrounds and informs the choreography of the piece.
Nwigwe’s hip hop vocalized lyrics and music are projected throughout the entirety of “TABERNACLE” as an essential part of the production. Movement flows in duets and then with full ensemble melding together in supportive lifts and grounded gliding across the stage with flying moves, angelic and free-spirited. Sassy, wild, free-style urban hip hop street funk makes a strong statement of emotional freedom—stepping, stomping, celebratory of the power of Black love. Protest theater is a long-established art, but in “TABERNACLE” we experience the power of protest dance.
Spring Celebration is a feel-good production, inspirational in its emotional tonality, confrontational in an optimistic vein, contemporary and entertaining, but serious in purpose. The program uses dance as a transformational tool to go beyond painful circumstances and find the joy that lies within. It succeeds in creating new life through the energy of dance—right in time for Spring!
The Company: Carmen Cage, Hana DeLong, Sierra Noelle Jones, Elijah W. Lancaster, Derick McKoy, Jr., Bianca Melidor, Daniel Palladino, Jessica Popoff, Terrell Rogers, Jr., Sean J. Smith, De’Anthony Vaughan, Isabel Wallace-Green, McKinley Willis
WHEN: May 19-20, 2023
WHERE: Wyly Theatre, 2400 Flora St. Dallas, TX 75201
WEB: dbdt.com
