Making Lemonade

I’ll keep this one short and sweet because (as you may have noticed) I’m late. Again. In fact this entire day has been one long, dry spell of lateness.

But I want to clear the table before tonight’s IMDT show in Project. So here’s the long and the short of it…I really, really wanted to like this one - ‘this’ being One-Shot: Rhapsody in Black and White Dance Sessions. Surely, I thought, if any production could embody the festival’s underlying theme of cultural and spiritual identity, it was this one.

Not quite. Or at least, not quite as well as I might have hoped.

Inspired by the work of Charles ‘Teenie’ Harris (nicknamed One-Shot, hence the title) and focused on ‘the seamless fusion of traditional African dance with contemporary choreography and spoken word’, One-Shot is a fine production. The performers embodied strength, equanimity and elegance as they wheeled and lunged, the syncopation and swing of their fluid yet earthy motions drawing your gaze and attention. And suffusing the entire work, as I experienced it, was what I can only describe as a remarkable…warmth. The dancers, in executing the rhythmic swirl of Brown’s choreography, seemed magnanimous and dignified, the bond between them causing to emanate from the stage a tangible sense of humanity at its most giving. At its best.

And yet…

I couldn’t help feeling a little underwhelmed. This harmony, this comforting presence was something that didn’t quite feel real. It was as if we had been gifted the sense of renewal that comes with catharsis – but without the emotional crisis that delivers it. And as we (or at least, I) hadn’t really earned it, I couldn’t quite surrender to it. And I found it difficult to give myself over to the experience of community as it seemed to be presented here. But then, what makes a sense of identity? Is it just the good we stake our just claim to? Or is it the bittersweet commingling of virtues and vice, triumph and failure? The facing of our treacheries as much as the overcoming of our adversaries?

I don't know...I'm asking.

There were moments right at the start of the night when a path would open – and then shut again, a path which, if followed, might have led us into that grey zone between black and white, where the ascerbic and saccharine meet. Still, in light of Evidence, A Dance Company’s emphasis on reinforcing community in African American culture, and given that many of the diverse communities of which this culture is collectively an expression continue to suffer from social fragmentation and discrimination, perhaps this is just what's needed...

Anyway, that’s it. More tomorrow. So be sure to come back.