Collage, Counterpoint, Conscience

"Fondly Do We Hope...Fervently Do We Pray"
Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Dance Company
Eisenhower Theater
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
February 24, 2011

by George Jackson
copyright 2011 by George Jackson

Jones is a choreographer of contrasting works - big, messy, emotional dramas and compact movement studies. In his Abraham Lincoln opus of 2009, "Fondly...Fervently", he combines a sprawling epic about a crucial American presidency with terse, expressive dance measures. Operating, guiding the artistry of Jones' technique of collage and contrast seems to be a very personal conscience.

For Jones' monument to Lincoln, the stage design (by Bjorn Amelan) serves as the mold. Its classic yet portable columns, great circle of gauze curtaining and platform that projects into the audience have a European modernist sensibility. The musical medley (by Lindsay Jones) of heirloom songs, spirituals, Mendelssohn's "St.Paul" and original compositions is folksy American overall. The action (by Jones with Janet Wong and members of the company) is complex. There are biographies, not just of Lincoln and the very individual woman he married but also of Jones/Zane dancers. There are "The Issues", both explicit and implicit, such as Liberty, War, Duty, Destiny. War and social upheaval become actualities. And, in conclusion, there is the legend of the Lincoln ghost train that carried the body of the assassinated president from the capital but never arrived in his hometown for the burial. Jones has that train rolling into the future until Lincoln's unfinished work of government of, by and for the people is achieved. The script rings 19th Century stentorian; its excerpts from Lincoln himself, Walt Whitman and the King James Bible can't help doing so even when whispered. In contrast is much of the actual dancing. 

The first solo, which the tall and elegant Shayla-Vie Jenkins performs on the projection of the stage,  starts by giving her limbs a sense of freedom-under-control. Her arms and legs could dangle like a puppet's when its strings aren't taught but she keeps them lightly pulled. The movement spreads to her torso and total body. Remarkably it comes to seem simultaneously improvised (a casual limbering, stretching and folding) and neoclassically sculpted (fully rounded about a center within the body). Variations on this letting-loose then reigning-in solo occur for both men and women throughout "Fondly...Fervently". Each dancer gives the movement a personal inflection. Sometimes there is counterpoint between a soloist and a group of dancers on the main stage. At other times there are trios or quartets made of such dancing. There are duets too, some companionable, others confrontational. It was fascinating as long as Jones kept loosening and tightening the strings surprisingly, giving degrees of freedom and then focusing the momentum. Rarely did the choreographer resort to standard dance steps. 

This is a long work. Some group choreography in its latter partions could have used more polyphonic resonance and one or two of the later solos didn't quite ring true. Still, the total choreography for the company's 11 dancers is rich and fresh. Towards the end of Act 1 (The Biographies, The Issues) and in Act II (The War), I did grow tired of the drama - but that was prior to the Epilogue. What rerefreshed me, in addition to most of the dancing, was the close attention Jones paid to the difficult character of Lincoln's wife, Mary Todd, and that he included the lives of his dancers in the script. This gave variety! It also added humane dimensions (as personal as the limb action in the solos) to the Lincoln epic. Bill T. Jones has a lively conscience, but he's shown that already by keeping alive the memory of Arnie Zane in his company's name.

Lest names be forgotten, the dancers/actors were Antonio Brown, Asli Bulbul, Peter Chamberlin, Talli Jackson, LaMichael Leonard Jr., I-Ling Liu, Paul Matteson, Erick Montes, Jennifer Nugent, the already mentioned Shayla-Vie Jenkins and Jamyl Dobson. The musicians were Christopher Antonio William Lancaster, Jerome Begin, Clarissa Sinceno, and Norman Vladimir.