Becket, Massachusetts — One of the main attractions of the Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival is the idyllic atmosphere here in Berkshire. But this year’s news is a great return to the indoors. In 2020, all performances were canceled due to two pandemic hits and a fire that burned down one of the festival’s two theaters. Last year, the show was held outside as the weather allowed. The main stage, the barn, which was converted into the first dance theater in the United States 80 years ago by festival founder Ted Shawn, had undergone the necessary renovations.
The Ted Shawn Theater is now reopening, with half of the exterior materials weathered and historic, and the other half clean and new. (The second theater has not been rebuilt yet.)
Last week, the first program at the refurbished theater showed another change. In 2020, two deputy curators, Melanie George and Ali Rosa Saras, joined us. The show “America (na) to Me” was their idea. In a speech before the show on Sunday, they introduced his American concept to Sean’s first program at the theater in 1942. Dance (square dance, Agnes de Mille).
Their idea is “to be more American, or to have a more prismatic understanding of what it means to be from the Americas,” and a more prismatic understanding of this week’s program, Ronald K. Brown / Evidence. It was taken over by the resurrection. Taken together, the two shows offered a partially hopeful and partially painful American vision through dance — just right in 2022.
“America (na) to Me” was a variety show. Diversity, inclusive, with 7 acts, a little overloaded. In a sense, it hasn’t changed in particular. Apart from the opening act (all male Warwick Gombey group from Bermuda), masked dance and drums originated in both West African and Native American, which was a female-led, female-centric program.
Some choices were clearly feminists. In “Ar | Dha” or “Half”, the exact Bharatanatyam dancer Mythili Prakash, a child of immigrant parents, revised the mythical dance contest between Lord Shiva and God Kali. Since she is a woman, she raises his feet to his ears and is forbidden to move to Curly. You can probably guess how the version of Prakash ended. Her lifted legs won, and the struggle before that was a bit muddy, but they were accompanied by some gorgeous songs (Sushma Somasekharan, Kasi Aysola, Ganavya Doraiswamy, Aditya Prakash). I composed the music in).
“The Unsung Heroes of the 20th Century” by Queen’s tap dancer Dormesia was a historic rescue mission and a homage to four unrecognized black predecessors. Cola redMable Lee, Harriet Browne, Fanita Pitts.. First the wonderfully wild Brinah Ali taps and sings Shero to Nina Simone’s “Four Women” song, then Star Dixon, Marie NDiaye, Quinn Johnson and Dormesia in their original style. They themselves did justice to each with a balanced solo.
Néli da Tirado’s “Dime Quién Soy” (“Tell Me Who I Am”) brought in some guys in search of a fun salsa bit and narrated some standard questions about identity, but Tirado 3 The other woman, who became most powerful when supported by a person, hit a fierce flamenco in a tracksuit while waiting for the subway. who is she? New Yorker.
With the addition of Gilbert Bolden III, a colleague of the New York City Ballet, and the recently retired Gonzalo Garcia, Gershwin’s piano prelude is played with cute ballet jazz (chosed by his husband Joshua Bellgasse). Did. Jasmine Khan created the most magical entrance — through the rear loading door that opens to the green outside — and mostly maintained the mystery with a captivating lightness and sensitivity solo.
Entrusted to performance artist Alex Tatarsky, he tackled the subject of Americana head-on, spitting out immigration, folk dance, and gesturing absurd rants about white qualifications throughout the “Americana Psycho Bubble.” Old-fashioned East Village style ridiculous, profane, this was a tongue slip to an American ID: almost too easy for a satire, but depressingly accurate.
Brown’s “Equality of Day and Night,” which premiered on Wednesday, also felt American distress. Featuring compassionate scores by live jazz pianist Jason Moran, those sounds alternate with recordings of speeches by Angela Davis, who has no flattering view of the United States.
Some of her points are evergreens (how criminal groups are imprinted on the bodies of black men) and some quaint (George W. Bush as a conservative overkill avatar). Brown’s choreography responds primarily to prayer and sorrow rituals. Dancers go around the witnessing soloists, retreat to corners, raise their hands, remove the upper half of their costumes, and stack them like offerings or bodies.
A series of repeated jumps miraculously jumps upwards — diagonally, out of nowhere. But unlike Brown’s older, juicy pieces (1999 “Gatekeeper” and 1998 “Upside Down”), “equality” is actually transcendental, even if Moran adds four-on-the-floor. You will not be trapped in the groove. -Floor drum machine beat. This calm mood also feels depressing.
For a real lift feeling on Wednesday, you had to rely on old pieces or wait for a bow. Brown, who had a stroke last year, went out with the help of his wand and the company’s deputy art director, Arsel Kabuag. It was like one moment in his work: he stood on the witness and saw others dancing. The big smile on his face said everything.
