“Homage”
Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company
Kogod Courtyard
The National Portrait Gallery^
Washington, DC
November 16, 2013 at 1:30 PM
by George Jackson
copyright 2013 by George Jackson
It's not that the choreography calls attention in any obvious way to a ceiling suspended high above the dancers. Rather the opposite happens, for there are passages in Burgess' premiere with bodies sinking to the ground or clinging to the floor while other figures bend down toward them. However, the net of glass and steel that had been cast over the museum's courtyard to form an undulant roof floating four stories overhead is like a magnet and magnifier. It gives objects, actions, perceptions - everything existing and happening below - an uplift and makes them appear larger than life. "Homage" takes place in an expanding universe. It is Burgess' most spacious work. First things first, though, for those who read printed programs prior to seeing performances: this piece germinated as a collage of the dance artists included in the Portrait Gallery's current exhibition*, "Dancing the Dream". American all, by birth or choice, they are diverse and different. Yet "Homage" doesn't impress itself as bits and pieces. There is flow, continuity, coherence - perhaps because Burgess sees even the most distinctive of dancers as part of one history.
The cast of eight assembled to one side of the dance floor. First out on it with a jaunty stride was an all-American guy. His tune was "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and his attack on the music and text involved shoulders and elbows as well as fast footwork. Others followed, not all together, not all at once but twos, threes or singly in easy counterpoint. The soundtrack kept changing smoothly from music (Chopin, Schumann, Elvis Presley et al.) to speech and back again. The dancers regrouped, went off and returned in a somewhat different guise or mood. Seldom were they as clear a type as Yankee Doodle. There were solitary women, involved women, determined men, dreamers. They moved differently to a degree, with some journeying into themselves while some explored interactions with others or with the scene. Yet all were precise, emphatic, big in scale. They did not collide but interwove deftly. The multiple strands of a saga unfolded, with the view we were given being somewhat at a distance.
On the soundtrack, I recognized Martha Graham’s clarion enunciation, Katherine Dunham’s voice as warm and wise as a bedtime storyteller’s, Merce Cunningham’s matter-of-fact declaration. I did not see Graham, Dunham, Cunningham et al. in the dancing. References may have been there, but they didn’t call attention to themselves. Or, the choreographer saw them differently than I. Apparent in the dancing was Burgess’ soft strength, this time freshly and expansively refined. Also there were the traits of the company’s dancers – polished to a high patina.
Actually, I had arrived early and like others who had done so was able to see the choreographer give his company a class and then watch a run-through of “Homage”. The class seemed strenuous, an amalgam of even ballet and spiked modern moves. The run-through was in dark practice wear without the subtlely sensual color spectrum of Judy Hansen’s costumes. Sitting through the work twice only hightened the pleasure its counterpointing and continuity gave me even if it didn’t make me see Martha Graham where I’d not seen her before. Nor did Yankee Doodle Dandy make me see Jimmy Cagney of yore. The view was of those in front of me, heirs perhaps but dancing now - Christin Arthur, Yeonjin Cho, Sarah Halzak, Katia Chupashko Nori, Felipe Oyarzun, Alvaro Palau, Ben Sanders (the Yankee Doodle), Kelly Southall.
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^ The courtyard is shared by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum.
* For a review of the exhibit, see www.danceviewtimes.com for November 3, 2013.
Photos, from top, all by Mary Noble Ours:
Sarah Halsack and Kelly Moss Southall in “Homage.”
Christin Arthur and Kelly Moss Southall in “Homage.”
Yeonjin Cho in “Homage.”