The 2009 DANCE MAGAZINE
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032-36 DMAwards_finREV_0915.prep.qxd 9/23/09 12:21 PM Page 32 the 2009 DANCE MAGAZINE DPMC QC AWARDS We love giving out awards because it’s an opportunity to honor some of the greats in our field. Each of the recipients has made a contribution to dance that is both unique and outsized: Jason Samuels Smith, the hard-hitting tapper who cares about community; Allegra Kent, a legendary ballerina who now teaches, coaches, and writes; Ohad Naharin, who revolutionized international dance; and Sara Rudner, who gave postmodernism a spiritual, ecstatic element. Please join us on Nov. 9 for the Awards ceremony (see page 52 for details). 100 96 Jason Samuels Smith 75 50 He moves like bolts of lightning, spewing Hatchett’s Professional Children’s rhythms from his feet like African talking Program at Broadway Dance Center. His 25 drums. His peers call him Iron Man, for mother, Sue Samuels, was a jazz dancer 15 the hard-and-fastness of his taps and and master teacher; his father, Joseph “Jo steeliness of his convictions. Others call Jo” Benjamin Smith, was a jazz dancer 5 him irrepressible, rambunctious, and bru- and choreographer who was a consultant tally charming. Hammering his piston- for the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever. driven rhythms as if delivering his beats Jo Jo and Sue were co-directors of Jo Jo’s Teacher Dance for Thornton Jayme to freedom, Jason Samuels Smith is the Dance Factory, predecessor to BDC. A John Henry of tap. He has helped to more serious interest in tap was ignited in forge rhythm tap as a cutting-edge dance Samuels Smith when Savion Glover form on the American stage. began teaching master classes at BDC. It Growing up in the Hell’s Kitchen burst into flame in 1996 when, at the age section of Manhattan, Samuels Smith of 15, Smith joined the cast of Glover’s studied jazz, tap, and ballet in Frank Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk. 32 NOVEMBER 2009 *As Seen In DANCE Magazine. Unauthorized Duplication is Prohibited.* This proof has been quality checked Please Initial One: by DPMC. DPMC will not accept OK CHANGES DNC0911_032r1 liability for any proof approved by client. AS IS NEEDED 032-36 DMAwards_finREV_0915.prep.qxd 9/23/09 12:22 PM Page 33 Jason Samuels Smith He was part of a fresh young crew of In 2003, he DPMC male dancers who brought the raucous- choreographed QC ness of rhythm tap to blasting proportion the opening num- with a flat-footed, emphatic style. ber on the Jerry Samuels Smith at the time may have Lewis Muscular looked like Glover (his hair dreaded, his Dystrophy Association pants baggy) and sounded like him, but Telethon—with three gen- he soon began to distinguish himself. He erations of dancers ending in became an avid collector of film clips of a salute to the late Gregory rhythm tap masters (“Peg Leg” Bates, Hines—winning both an Emmy Bunny Briggs, Chuck Green, Gregory Award and an American Hines, Jimmy Slyde, Dianne Walker), Choreography Award for out- which he stored in his iPod and viewed at standing choreography. He every waking moment. He also began lis- starred in the film Tap Heat tening to the music of jazzmen Art (2004) along with tap elder Tatum, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Arthur Duncan. In 2005 Smith Gillespie. In 2003, he co-organized the collaborated with Indian kathak first annual L.A. Tap Fest with Chloe guru Pandit Chitresh Das in an Arnold. Dance critic Jane Goldberg exploration of the affinities between wrote of his performance that year, “He tap and kathak. has invented a whole new vocabulary of Appearing with his company rapid fire heels and toes.” It was a strik- A.C.G.I. (Anybody Can Get It) at 100 ingly aggressive style that was full of Jacob’s Pillow last summer, Samuels complex syncopations and stabbing stac- Smith brought a crew of fresh marvels, 96 cato phrases. mostly women, and attracted sold-out 75 Samuels Smith had also begun an audiences. His solos of astonishing 50 investigation into his roots as a socially speed and power and remarkable ensem- conscious African American performance ble numbers built excitement. Dancers 25 artist. Tap’s tradition could never be sepa- packed his classes at Jacob’s Pillow—as 15 rated from a long history of hardship, they do in workshops around the world. 5 from slavery to blackface. “Being a tap Thus, it is for being ferociously pas- dancer represents all of those struggles,” sionate; for “re-sounding” the rhythmic Jayme Thornton for Dance Teacher Dance for Thornton Jayme he says, “and I feel a commitment, per- cadences of the elders; for bringing tap sonally, to the title ‘tap dancer.’ ” Seeking back to the jazz beat; for influencing the to balance the artistic and social integrity next generation of rhythm dancers; for of the form with its commercial viability, celebrating the power of women in tap; Samuels Smith pushed to expand tap’s and for investigating the spiritual terrain possibilities and emerged as a leader in of the art form that Jason Samuels Smith the art form—as performer, choreogra- is deserving of a 2009 Dance Magazine pher, and director. Award. —Constance Valis Hill DANCE MAGAZINE 33 *As Seen In DANCE Magazine. Unauthorized Duplication is Prohibited.* This proof has been quality checked Please Initial One: HANGES by DPMC. DPMC will not accept OK CHANGES EEDED DNC0911_033r1 liability for any proof approved by client. AS IS NEEDED 032-36 DMAwards_finREV_0915.prep.qxd 9/23/09 12:22 PM Page 34 2009 DMAWARDS 20 Allegra Kent In 1953, when Allegra Kent joined the New York City Ballet, she was 15, it was 5, and I was 22—a Balanchine addict ever since the company was born. From the start there was no overlooking her. Yes, there were only about 50 dancers then, and, yes, City Center was relatively inti- mate (although not from the second bal- cony, where people like me perched until we could infiltrate the orchestra at inter- mission). But Allegra would have stood out in Yankee Stadium. There was no one like her: no one with her unique combi- nation of delicate allure, total resolve, and passionate way of propelling herself through space. Obviously, Balanchine thought so, too. By 1954 he had created his first role on her: the enigmatic girl in the DPMC QC “Unanswered Question” section of Ivesiana, clothed in a stark white leotard, barefoot, her hair floating downward, held aloft by four men, never touching the ground. She was the object of intense desire, yet she was pure innocence: with- holding, spellbinding, unaware, yet some- how intensely complicit in the mysteries she represented. This would be the pattern for most of Allegra Kent and the great roles Balanchine fashioned or Edward Villella in refashioned for her: She embodied all Bugaku in 1963 seven of the Brecht-Weill Seven Deadly Sins (Lotte Lenya was her vocal alter ego), yet again she was innocent, vibrantly nal casts of Dances at a Gathering, Stars the three children she was determined to part of the action yet outside it—and and Stripes, Divertimento No. 15, have, eventually choosing to perform again in white. In her most famous role— Episodes, Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet. only once or twice a season. the Sleepwalker in La Sonnambula, end- Both Balanchine and Robbins happily In her brilliant autobiography, Once lessly bourréeing across the stage in her exploited her amazing range. a Dancer…, she wrote, “Ballet was the floating white nightdress, holding her Allegra always appeared to be frag- magic and exhilarating force in my life. 100 candle straight before her—she was not ile, delicate, but like all ballerinas, she Natural laws were held in abeyance. The only untouchable, she was asleep; both was as strong as steel. Her flexibility floating laws of clouds and the gyro- 96 unaware and aware, once again a roman- was astonishing, her extensions stunning scopic laws of tops took over, stretching 75 tic object that’s unobtainable. in those pre-Guillem days, her jump the limits. The body could do wonderful 50 When Balanchine created Bugaku for huge—it was her jump that first thrilled things. Some of these marvels were her and Edward Villella, the most sexually her two early teachers, Bronislava achieved by technique, but there was 25 explicit of all his ballets yet the most rigidly Nijinska and Carmelita Maracci (both of something else….” It was that unique 15 formal, he revealed the tension in her that whom she has written about in these “something else” that compelled he understood stemmed from a profound pages). It was her charm and spirit that Balanchine’s attention and devotion for 5 but repressed eroticism. This was the role endeared her to her favorite teacher at 30 years, and that her audience so loved. that prompted Tanaquil Le Clercq to iden- the School of American Ballet, Felia She was enchanting. Yet with her ©Bert Stern, Courtesy NYCB Archives NYCB Courtesy Stern, ©Bert tify her as a “rubber orchid.” Doubrovska. But it was her raw talent, unearthly beauty, demonic energy, goofy She triumphed in most of the great her sheer dance ability, her total com- humor, and uncanny aloofness, she also Balanchine roles—Terpsichore, Odette, mitment to movement that captured Mr. appeared to be enchanted—under a spell, Sugar Plum; the leads in Concerto B. No other dancer could have retained and vulnerable. Even toward the end of Barocco, Agon, and the second movement his loyalty and love through the erratic, her career, watching her in Scotch of Symphony in C.