Of Volume and Variety

Velocity Dance Festival

Harman Hall

Washington, DC

October 15 & evening October 17, 2015

 

by George Jackson

© 2015 by George Jackson

 

The amazing amount of dance in and around Washington during October is attracting audiences. Velocity, which aims to show characteristic cross sections of the area’s movement landscape, held 10 events in a 3-day period. Sidewalk, lobby and Forum-space performances at the Harman were free. Those on the Harman stage were reasonably priced. Some of the public commuted from Velocity’s competition at the Kennedy Center to the Harman. These people saw the Suzanne Farrell Ballet’s free program on the KC’s Millennium Stage at 6 PM on Thursday (Oct. 15) and then Velocity’s very mixed 8 PM bill on the Harman’s stage. Vice versa for those going from Velocity’s Saturday (Oct. 17) matinee to still other competition: Washington Ballet at the KC Eisenhower Theater that evening.

 

Photo: Kasi Aysola.

 

Quantity can be exciting, but what of quality? Dancing of distinct elegance was shown in front of closed curtains on the lip of Harman stage by “amateurs”, people not even named in the printed program. Several couples, none of them young and all belonging to the DC area’s black citizenry, did hand dancing. It is a social form of which I’d not been fully aware. Partners mostly face each other, as is usual in social dancing. They hold hands prominently but with dignity. Bodies move rhythmically, gently. Hints of lindy hopping and jitterbugging surface and subside, always refined, ever controlled yet still lively. Occasional peppering occurs – a bravura step here or a tricky hold there. Even such moves are subtle, being dispatched with a nonchalant pride. Apparently, hand dancing is a local DC style that started in the early 1950s and has been proclaimed as Washington’s official form of dance by the DC Council. To promote and preserve the practice, The National Hand Dance Association was organized and from the evidence shown at Velocity is doing a top job. 

 

Another tradition admirably exemplified at Velocity was clown dancing. Annielille Gavino-Kollman has an unsettling smile, sad eyes and a body that can suddenly, surprisingly stretch from secretive kernel to expressive expanse.  Volleys of grotesque pantomime issue from a technically strong stance. The purpose is political, with  immigration being her particular issue. To me, Gavino-Kollman seemed to be following in the footsteps of those 20th Century, German modern dance women who mimed about cute things in nature and horrid things in politics – Lotte Gosslar, Trudi Schoop and their sisters. This is a lineage that has  practically disappeared. Where did Gavino-Kollman pick it up? That she calls her enterprise Malayaworks suggests an alternate or additional source – the Far East’s demon dances, but those were never partisan as the German women were. Whatever the genetics of this art might be, Gavino-Kollman’s commitment to it seems genuine.

 

Other choreographers, too, made political statements. For the Step Afrika! group, Jakari Sherman tackled recent unrest in Washington’s neighbor to the north, Baltimore. The company knows how to tread and stalk and to swing its arms as an ensemble. Delivering the message that all lives matter and that different races must learn to trust was, however, done didactically. The sense of it was stated personally, poignantly in an entirely different piece – a scene from Mat Elder’s “We Live for the Crows”. Two unexceptional individuals, both being men, are attracted to each other while also being wary. We watch body holds and parries by a black guy and a white guy. An object – a folding chair – becomes involved in their encounters. It functions like an excuse. The men bond yet part. Elder’s vernacular use of motion has verity. He and Thomas Moore Jr. performed.  

 

A more abstract story was told by two women. In “If I only knew”, we don’t know the relationship between Bethany Disque and Chelsea Brown but are led to wonder. Are they friends, sisters or lovers? Nor do we know the significance of the spotlight that shines on them, from which they try to shield their eyes but which dominates their attention. This drama is an old-fashioned but not at all dated example of a “well made” work. It holds ones interest from start to stop, it builds tension and skillfully withholds easy answers to persistent questions. Functional movement and small portions of fancier movement fit the co-choreographers’ intent. 

 

 

The festival’s other examples of modern or contemporary dance weren’t as memorable. With just a bit of a twist, some of the pieces could be taken as satires on contempomodern movement art (Stewart & Owen, Christopher Morgan, DC Contemporary, Deviated Theatre, Rebollar). Was the “Dendrovictus” duet by Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen intentionally stereotypic of the dominant male and the sessile female? Full of winding motion for him, the piece keeps him close to the floor while she rested on it. Somehow, at the end, she became liberated and rose to pose like the figurehead on the prow of a boat.  

 

Emerging choreographers i.e., students, turned in acceptable homework of the contempomodern sort for some of the sidewalk/lobby and Forum-space events. Ballet was shown on the Harman stage by Terra Firma,  American Dance Institute’s Ballet ADI,  Washington Ballet’s junior or Studio Company and The Suzanne Farrell Ballet. I was underwhelmed, even by the Act 2 adagio from Balanchine’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” as  it looked the evening of October 17. Michael Cook partnered well but Natalia Magnicaballi seemed cautious, withholding flow from Balanchine’s line design. Tap dancing fared variably at Velocity. The women of Footworks Percussive were fleet and light of foot but the percussive motion of the Sole Defined troupe tended to be harsh. Shannon Dunne emphasizes tapping by putting it atop tables and disguising the dancers as robots. Her program notes praise i-technology for codifying and homogenizing old style Irish stepping, but it was hard to tell from “If/Then”, the single example, whether surprises are up her sleeve.   

 

Dances from far away places have found a home in and around Washington. Two contrasting specimens of classical Indiadance were Yamini Saripalli’s’s and Kasi Aysola’s solos. Footwork so vigorous it could stamp out any opposition and a dagger play of the arms seem foremost in the former, whereas arching of the torso and an even distribution of energy throughout the body characterize the latter. Of course, there are similarities  too, but do the different emphases result from schooling or are they due to anatomy and temperament? Saripalli is an exponent of the Kuchipudi style, has long and thin arms and is female. Aysolo has schooling in the balanced Bharatanatyam style, possesses a more compactly solid body and is male. A female dancer originally from Pakistan, Tehreema Mitha, dressed herself as a boy for a prayerfully symmetrical dance based on Sufi poetry. Yolit Flamenco was founded not by someone from Spain but from Israel. Comparison seems apt, not just of flamenco stamping with the footwork of Indiadancing and of tap dancing but are there links among the styles’ arm and wrist actions? Yolit Yospe-Kachlon and her colleague Kyoko Terada  plus their musicians keep their flamenco boldly percussive and austerely sensual.  

 

This year’s was the 7th annual iteration of Velocity. The festival is sponsored by the voluntary umbrella organization Dance Metro DC, the arts funding branch - DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities - of the local government, the Shakespeare Theatre Company and the presenting group Washington Performing Arts. For next year, perhaps the umbrella organization could persuade some of Velocity’s competition not to schedule performances at the same time as the festival. It might mean even more tickets sold and dance fans too would be grateful.  

 

Photos:
Bethany Disque & Chelsea Brown.

Tehreema Mitha.