DA CONSTAANTLYN EVOLVINGCE TRADITION AD CONSTAANTLY NEVOLVINGCE TRADITION BY OCTAVIO ROCA

here is no time like the ’s jazzy abandon, in present to look at the future of Broadway’s newfound love of , American dance. So much in every daring bit of performance art keeps coming, so much is left that tries to redefine what dance is behind, and the uncertainty and what it is not. American dancers Tand immense promise of all that lies today represent the finest, most ahead tell us that the young century exciting, and most diverse aspects of is witnessing a watershed in our country’s cultural riches. American dance history. Candid The phenomenal aspect of dance is shots of American artists on the that it takes two to give meaning to move reveal a wide-open landscape the phenomenon. The meaning of a of dance, from classical to arises not in a vacuum but in to postmodern and beyond. public, in real life, in the magical Each of our dance traditions moment when an audience witnesses carries a distinctive flavor, and each a performance. What makes demands attention: the living American dance unique is not just its legacies of and A poster advertises the appearance of New distinctive, multicultural mix of , the ever-surprising York City as part of Festival Verdi influences, but also the distinctively 2001 in Parma, Italy. genius of , the American mix of its audiences. That all-American exuberance of Paul Taylor, the social mix is even more of a melting pot as the new commitment of Bill T. Jones and Joe Goode, together millennium unfolds. And it makes for a uniquely with a vibrant new generation of American dance- varied, gripping tale of dance and dancers facing a makers who are responding to the amazing growth of new era. dance companies and their audiences from coast to Ours is a constantly changing tradition whose very coast. vitality is what we will bequeath future generations: Most of all, the optimism and sheer daring that the cowboys and sailors alongside the magical swans have long marked American dance are alive and well and sugar plums, the of political questioning from to , from Miami to and the dances of pure joy of movement, the Seattle, and from Houston to our capital in selflessness and optimism, the generosity of spirit, Washington, D.C. They are alive in Mark Morris’s the elemental theatrical excitement that is the cheery iconoclasm, in Lar Lubovitch’s invention, in promise of each rising curtain. American dance stays

U.S.SOCIETY&VALUES / APRIL 2003 alive by ensuring that it never remains the same, that Balanchine started is an exuberant work in progress, it is a living tradition, the American tradition. much of it being carried out today by muses turned Enriching that tradition involves not just looking ballet masters. , Balanchine’s ahead to the next surprise but also looking back with handpicked successor at Ballet, is both pride and affection at the giants of American perhaps the chief guardian of neoclassicism and dance who have made the future possible. continues to delight with new that reveal hidden possibilities within the syntax and speed of the THE BALANCHINE LEGACY American style. Helgi Tomasson, the most sublime "Ballet is like a rose," George Balanchine once said. male Balanchine dancer of his generation, is the "It is beautiful and you admire it, but you don't ask artistic director of and oversees what it means." In the colorful garden of 20th century one of the most exciting neoclassical repertories dance, Balanchine, who was born and studied dance anywhere. in Russia, cultivated the American rose: exuberant, In both and San Francisco bright, optimistic, and triumphant. He revolutionized Ballet, young is at the forefront ballet for all time, changed the meaning of of a new generation of choreographers who create classicism, nurtured the speed and athleticism he valid new works that are extending the definition of found in the New World, and made these qualities American ballet. has been performing integral to the very nature of beauty in motion. his own miracles in as founder and More than a century ago, Petipa took the French director of the Dance Theatre of . Edward style of ballet to Russia and transformed it into what Villella is reproducing and elaborating on the sensual we know as classical ballet. In the United States in Balanchine style in his . The fiery the 20th century, it took an atmosphere of openness has created her own Suzanne Farrell to change to nurture the genius of George Ballet at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Balanchine, and it took a lifetime of dance to change Performing Arts in Washington. Not one of these the classical ballet once again, to create an American troupes looks like the others, and not even New York ballet. Yet Balanchine shunned bravura, and he City Ballet looks the way older fans remember it. The worked consciously against the stellar virtuosity that dance goes on. marked the Petipa style. He deliberately distorted the That is Balanchine’s legacy, and it is part of our classical style even as he revitalized its tradition. past. But something so irretrievable as the past Like Petipa, Balanchine loved shifting geometric cannot hold back something as promising as the patterns and cultivated their intricacies with stubborn future. Balanchine’s biggest gift of all may well turn insistence. He absorbed the rhythmic freedom of out to be the revelation of the endless possibilities of American jazz and made the dancer's body reflect it. American ballet. To this day, Balanchine dancers boast feet flexed almost as often as they are pointed, hips loose and DANCE AS THEATER jutting, extensions impossibly high, turned-in poses, Those possibilities, of course, go beyond and unexpected resolutions in motion that could neoclassicism. It was another immigrant, Antony suddenly make sense of an entire musical score. The Tudor, who most radically changed the face of living style Balanchine created is drenched in both American dance by injecting a dose of emotional musical and kinetic logic: the sense of truth to the 19th century symphonic ballet formula, from phrase to phrase, the miraculous absence of adding depth and theatrical impact to the European preparation and the virtual explosion of movement narrative dance tradition. The American Ballet when it emerges, the utter integrity of music and Theater, the late Tudor’s home and today’s American dance. The man created works for every venue, from the Ringling Brothers Circus, from Broadway shows and the , to his very own New York City Ballet. The tradition of American neoclassicism that

U.S.SOCIETY&VALUES / APRIL 2003 national company, continues in the 21st century a A RETURN TO MEANING tradition of dramatic ballets that are thrilling But perhaps it is on America’s West Coast, with the reminders of the immediacy, of the vitality, of this art particular flavor of the arts of the Pacific Rim, that form. Lar Lubovitch’s Othello, choreographed for American modern dance is witnessing its most both the American Ballet Theater and San Francisco original developments. Working in San Francisco and Ballet, is the most ambitious and successful among Los Angeles, Patrick Makuakane has been recent narrative ballets, but there have been many revolutionizing the world of Hawaiian dance and from coast to coast that prove there is more to redefining the meaning of the folk art known as hula American ballet than neoclassical steps: the with his unique company, Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu. revitalized repertory of Gerald Arpino’s His work proclaims the universality of Hawaiian of Chicago, Stanton Welch’s Houston Ballet, and culture even as he mixes hula and contemporary Mikko Nissinen’s Boston Ballet; the continuing rhythms in a giddy multicultural frenzy. balletic explorations of the African-American Also in San Francisco, the Lily Cai Chinese Dance experience by the American Dance Company creates a uniquely American blend of Theater under ; works as diverse as traditional Chinese stage pictures, international pop, Yuri Possokhov’s Magrittomania, Dennis Nahat’s Blue and the cutting edge of post-modern dance. Cai’s all- Suede Shoes, Michael Smuin’s picaresque The female, quite beautiful company also boasts a Christmas Ballet. determined desire to entertain, even as the If American ballet presents a varied and colorful choreographer subtly nurtures a new dance language panorama, American modern dance boasts a that stands a radically new Chinese-American fusion. veritable kaleidoscope of possibilities in the new The African-American experience, gloriously century. The Merce Cunningham Dance Company expressed in dance by pioneers from Alvin Ailey to amazes at least as much today as it did when the more recent Bill T. Jones and David Rousseve, Cunningham first teamed up with in 1953 has its most youthful and original proponent today in to declare the independence of both music and dance Robert Moses. His West Coast company, Robert from any restrictions other than those of the human Moses’ Kin, mixes jazz, blues and rap, poetry and mind. street talk, casual movement and rigorous Paul Taylor is no longer the new kid on the block, postmodern syntax in new works — including Never but this greatest living American choreographer and Solo and the masterful Word of Mouth — that add up his Paul Taylor Dance Company continue to to a slice of African-American life, a universal dance challenge and entertain with the originality of new message, and, perhaps above all, a gripping works as well as the depths time brings to continuing theatrical experience. revivals of what are by now classics of modern Margaret Jenkins, a student of Merce Cunningham, dance: Eventide, Company B, Esplanade, Black makes dances that reflect the coincidence and Tuesday, and many more. disjunction, violent clashes and sudden rests that The Mark Morris Dance Group, which like Taylor’s make up much of modern life: Her Margaret Jenkins troupe has regular seasons around the United States Dance Company is a seismic force in the American and frequent tours abroad, marries affection for the dance avant-garde. classical tradition with the impish freedom to smile Difficult to classify but impossible to ignore, fellow and make its own rules: Irreverence and disarming Californian Joe Goode makes dances that explore sweetness combine with exquisite in and often explode the primal, mythic values of the Morris’s , which revisits classicism with American heartland. He is the real thing, never gusto while investing steps with a riotously boring, always surprising and utterly original, and his contemporary spirit. Morris is a classicist with a true highly theatrical work is deeply personal, the truth of populist’s heart. it universal. With his Joe Goode Performance Group, the San Francisco choreographer blurs the boundaries of theater and dance while enriching both fields with irresistible insouciance. In his profoundly

U.S.SOCIETY&VALUES / APRIL 2003 moving millennial epic The Maverick Strain, irony Performance Group, like Robert Moses’ Kin or The yields to emotion, movement to ecstasy, nostalgia to Foundry. These are only some of the best examples, hope. but more could be cited: the brilliant dance satire of Some of the most original modern dance anywhere Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo and the is being created by The Foundry, a dance collective intimate dance of the Lawrence Pech Dance founded by Alex Ketley and Christian Burns whose Company, the earthy sensuality of New York’s Ballet electrifying performances and theatrical use of avant- Hispanico, the rock-and-roll energy of Ballet San garde video techniques contain much that is new, Jose, and the jazzy elegance of Smuin Ballet. Young and even more that is daring. Perhaps the best news Americans are challenging and redefining our about Burns and Ketley’s work is the conviction definition of dance. embodied in their project: Cunningham’s revered Dance in the United States is a kaleidoscopic art abstraction for its own sake has been left behind as a form that reflects a wildly varied, multifaceted culture. glorious aesthetic of the 20th century and, in the Dance after new dance appears like so many dawn of the 21st, dance is returning to meaning, to reflections in a living mirror, their lights adding up to important themes, to drama and musicality, and to a constellation of optimism. American dance reflects renewed technical virtuosity. The Foundry is at the American life. ■ vanguard of American dance.

Octavio Roca is the chief dance critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, EDEFINING ANCE R D and he has been theater, music, and dance critic for the Washington Dance in the United States today is unique. From Post, the Washington Times, and the CBC-Radio Canada network. The classical and neoclassical ballet to the frontiers of author of Scotto: More Than a Diva, Roca has also translated several modern dance, it is safe to say that there is nothing works for the stage, including The Coronation of Poppea, Orpheus and Eurydice, The Soldier's Tale, and Our Friend Fritz. He collaborated with quite like New York City Ballet, the American Ballet the composer Lucia Hwong in the cantata The Uncertain Rhythm of Your Theater, or the Paul Taylor Dance Company, like the Pulse, which was premiered by the San Francisco Women's Margaret Jenkins Dance Company or the Joe Goode Philharmonic in 1993.

PrProfile:ofile: Choreographer Robert Moses

Over the past decade, American experience. But he Robert Moses — whose dance soon realized that that experience technique was once described actually was a collection of as “an explosion in the eye” — diverse and divergent has developed a national and experiences. As he later put it: global reputation for his artistry “We must define ourselves in and creativity. Much of that relationship to what is distinctly work is rooted in his own ours, with the understanding that multiracial company, Robert nobody has accomplished Moses’ Kin, based in San anything alone.” Robert Moses and Catherine Ybarra dancing in Francisco. But it emerges as Word of Mouth, which was choreographed by Moses. At Stanford University, well through his frequent where he is a lecturer, and energetic presence on university campuses in elsewhere, Moses focuses as much on dance heritage residencies and master classes. and the African-American experience as he does on Moses began his career in dance as a featured the technique of the art form. In his work, he strives performer with some of the most respected U.S. for a multicultural focus. An example of this is Union troupes — including American Ballet Theater and Fraternal, a piece he created three years ago, Dance. He founded Kin in 1995 with an blending his modern dance perspective with a John eye toward giving expression to the African- Santos score that melds Congolese drumming and

U.S.SOCIETY&VALUES / APRIL 2003 Cuban danzon music mirroring the couple’s dance of works set not to music but to a spoken dialogue popularized in Havana’s social clubs. — the archival tape of a 1961 seminar whose One of his greatest choreographic successes is participants included novelist James Baldwin, Word of Mouth, a celebration of African-American playwright Lorraine Hansberry, and poet Langston oral traditions incorporating a wide range of Hughes, among other prominent African Americans supporting material — from a poem by Nikki in the arts. Giovanni to the music of Duke Ellington, the Staples Ultimately, Moses sees choreography as more Singers, and contemporary rap. It is, Moses has expansive than linear. “Dance is about imagery,” he observed, about “all the things we carry with has said. “We must stop treating dance as if it were us…things we need to know…about our senses of music or literature, because while it sometimes tells ourselves…about the lineage of language and how a linear story, it reaches people in a different kind of that holds people together.” way.” To the extent that dance is a system, he Recently, Moses has moved in the direction of maintains, “it has to be serving the image, or the nonfiction in fashioning new work. Early in 2003, he motion, and not the other way around.” ■ unveiled A Biography of Baldwin, the first in a trilogy

AA ConversationConversation WWithith Judith Jamison

No one who ever saw Judith Jamison in dance companies now. As the dance performance can forget the tall, lithe world retracts, it expands. It just keeps figure, with arms seemingly extending breathing. The caliber has gotten much into outer space, who brought higher, and there are more opportunities. significant recognition to dance as There may never be pioneers like performed by African Americans. As a Alvin Ailey, and there may not be times dancer for the globally acclaimed Alvin like that again. But because the ground Ailey American Dance Theater from has been made so fertile, young people 1965 to 1980, Jamison performed are feeling that wonderful creative urge landmark pieces — such as the to make a statement — that “I have anguished Cry and the exultant something to say, too.” Revelations — that invariably brought Judith Jamison dancing In my generation, 30 years ago, audiences to their feet. Her years on in Cry,1976. dancers were filling their time between stage with the Ailey company laid the foundation for performances as waiters or postal workers. Now, her second career; since 1989, she has been a dancers dance between performances. At the Ailey choreographer and artistic director of the Alvin Ailey school, for example, we have choreographic American Dance Theater in New York City. workshops for dancers. They realize today that a dancer’s life is short. Earlier generations never Q: What has been happening over the past decade thought that way. In the past 10 or 20 years, a sense or so in dance that excites you? of urgency has arisen. “I’ve got to get it done now. A: Quite simply, the most significant development is I’ve got to get my statement out to the world as soon that there are more opportunities for dancers to as possible.” My generation was never about dance. Even though we have companies closing and longevity. Dancers are so smart now, planning their funding is difficult, every time I turn a corner, there’s lives and stretching themselves in ways that we some young choreographer who wants to take the didn’t years ago. plunge. That has never been more consistent than it Q: Is choreography taking new forms? is now. I have three friends — one who’s a veteran, A: I think so. But I always wait for the next brilliant Donald Byrd, in Seattle — who are starting new person coming up. There are many new stars on the

U.S.SOCIETY&VALUES / APRIL 2003 horizon, young choreographers who have the At two o’clock this afternoon, I had one cast doing brilliance but need the exposure. Take Troy Powell of Revelations, and tonight I have another one dancing Ailey II, our junior company. He was 10 years old it. As long as they believe in and are committed to when Alvin discovered him as part of our outreach their craft, they transcend the age of the piece. But program to schools. Later he joined Ailey II, and then the piece must be brilliant. As long as a person is I brought him into the main company, where he influenced by the world and knows the craft, there will stayed for 10 years. He had an agenda. He wanted to always be something new. If you want to get down choreograph. Since he was full of all the knowledge with some West African movement and add some he had gained as an “Ailey baby,” he did. Now he is club dancing to it, then all of a sudden it becomes Ailey II’s resident choreographer. something new. There are always people stepping out Q: We know that, historically, Alvin Ailey picked up on that edge — and they’re getting younger and techniques and ideas during his many travels younger. overseas — more than a generation ago — to exotic Q: In this somewhat uncertain economic period, how locales. Are there influences from abroad affecting the does dance cope? scene today? A: You have to nip and tuck all the way. It’s all A: I think the situation has reversed itself. I relative — whether you just began or whether you’re remember going to discos in Europe while we were 45 years old. But I can still do, artistically, what I on tour, and we’d bring dozens of records with us, to want to do, with a lot of help from my friends. bring the music to Europe. Now it’s the reverse. Q: How do you see the field of dance evolving over There’s been a real evolution, a return of our own the next decade? stuff back to us. Influences keep streaming back and A: We might have people getting away from dance forth across the oceans. We’re very influenced by as something that comes from very deep within. We each other. might start becoming more technologically oriented, Q: Is dance today still dominated by the creative depending on what the world becomes. What’s giants of the past — George Balanchine, Jerome beautiful to me, to this day, is dance that’s not Robbins, , Alvin Ailey — or are there overproduced, so that I can actually see the dance. I new forces taking hold? don’t want dance to be overanalyzed, so outside of A: I see new forces constantly, new dancers, new the inside that it’s no longer about our humanity. I interpretations. I was in Revelations in the 1970s. I don’t have a deep fear of that, but we should always saw it with Mr. Ailey in 1963 — same work, different be careful and understand what we’re doing as interpretation. Each generation validates itself. Each human beings, what the gift is. As long as we stay generation’s dancers bring something fresh. They attached to this theme, to the entire spiritual rejuvenate the piece, which is brilliant in the first physicality of what dance is, then we’ll be all right. ■ place. The dance lives because they’re doing it. The interview with Judith Jamison was conducted by Michael J. Bandler.

U.S.SOCIETY&VALUES / APRIL 2003