Talent abundant at black dance fest
The Black Choreographers Festival: Here & Now opened to a full and enthusiastic house at Dance Mission Theater on Saturday, Feb. 17, and delivered on its purpose of seeking out and showcasing noteworthy talent. The 14th annual event runs for three weekends in various locations; if opening night is an indicator, it will abound with fresh creativity and ideas to think deeply about.
The festival focuses on emerging and mid-career talent, and works in progress by established choreographers. Like any festival of its sort, black choreographers present artists at varying levels of artistic maturity and expressive clarity; this year it feels more like a nebula bursting with new stars, and sticking with sometimes overlong pieces yielded rewards in every case. Co-directors Kendra Kimbrough Barnes and Laura Elaine Ellis curated 10 artists, most from the Bay Area and a few from Los Angeles, each vastly different from the other but all linked by a passion for
themes with personal or social resonance, and sometimes breathtaking originality.
Dazaun Soleyn showed excerpts from his upcoming work “existence,” loosely inspired by code-switching. The former Robert Moses’ Kin dancer has a surfeit of intriguing ideas to play with, including compelling floor work and a fast-slow movement quality that continually catches you off guard; a duet he choreographed for Jhia Louise and Linda Steele was just as inventive and embodied.
Alexander Diaz has a towering presence but was almost unbearably fragile in his duet with Charlotte Keefe. She is technical, unfettered and tiny next to him, and they share a potent, soul-stirring energy. Theatrics like audience interaction are low-hanging fruit for this duo; they could minimize those and stand on their own, raw and vulnerable.
Joslynn Mathis Reed danced “Collaborative Concoction,” an all-too-brief solo marvelously attuned to recorded percussion and vocals by Itoro Udofia; grounded and soft, then snapfast and deliberate, she is magic to see.
The same can be said of Natalya Shoaf ’s “Complicated.” Music from Kendrick Lamar to Jóhann Jóhannsson created an otherworldly atmosphere around Shoaf ’s abstract choreography, so specific in structure and exquisitely edited in detail. The flexible and fearless Pauline Mosley mesmerized in the lead; four dancers served as a chorus, and Sierra Serban couldn’t help standing out from the pack. It’s hard to believe that Shoaf is a college senior; she is one to watch.
Frankie Lee Peterson III held his cell phone in “we must run our race,” a solo to James Fortune’s “Dear Future Me” that melded contemporary, jazz, hip-hop, ballet and theater with spectacular results. Delina Patrice Brooks also mixed media in the workin-progress solo “Seeds of Peace.” Inspired by the antigun-violence activist Mattie Scott, Brooks captured a mother’s intractable grief in 10 profound minutes of monologue, dance, song and poetry.
Three ensembles completed the bill: Visceral Roots explored homelessness in the heartfelt dance-theater work “District 6: 3692 Diamond Ave.”; Los Angeles’ Kai Hazelwood’s “Seeking…” featured four blindfolded dancers in extreme slo-mo to distorted live guitar; Chris Scarver’s “Cycles of Thought” showcased Peterson at the center of a postmodern quintet. All were founded on solid ideas but could be tightened. Neuroscientist-dancer Nkechi Deanna Njaka opened the evening with an invocation.
The Black Choreographers Festival continues with different artists, workshops, master classes and a panel on female choreographers working in the African diaspora. And surely much to discover.