There’s something startlingly unique about a Gus Giordano dance performance. And it’s not always about what’s happening on stage. If you’re in the right spot with an ideal vantage point to observe, you’ll see a profusion of contained excitement, simmering anticipation and flat out joy that just doesn’t exist in other arts space. Hugs and smiles and kisses flow like wine at a bacchanal; fast and free. There’s impressive fashion, loads of personal style and no shortage of individual beauty everywhere. People are treating each other like members of a very close, very large extended family at an overdue reunion. And for all appearances, this cauldron of love is genuine. That’s a lot of energy agitating before the show even starts. But it’s a typical and arguably an appropriate prelude to a Giordano Dance Chicago show.
If this company knows anything, it’s how to keep its audience “excited and engaged”. Fifty plus years old and the dance ensemble looks more like a sweet faced vixen of twenty; lean, confident and beautiful. Opening its Fall season Friday night at the Harris Theater with a rascally 2004 work by Mark Swanhart, Sidecar frothed with dramatic good humor. Dancers flopped vigorously from both wings of the stage like rudely tossed aside toys before launching into a flirting, courting extravaganza of silly rag dolls. Individual couples would spin out and create their own tiny vignette of seduction. Costumed in the era of James Dean, an air of nostalgia hung over the performance celebrating youthful romance.
How companies select works to present from season to season is likely driven by a whole host of factors. Surely an appreciation of levity and gleeful release factored into assembling the works chosen for the company’s Live in the Momentum repertoire this season. More smiles were in store with Loose Canon, choreographed by Jon Lehrer in 2006 which tapped the skills of five personality rich dancers. Set to Pachelbel’s Canon in D major as played by Wynton Marsalis; this iteration is at its core burlesque, a comical parody effectively using dance as its medium.
Calling the Giordano troupe a tremendously competent dance company would be a slack compliment indeed. Because it is foremost a jazz dance company, the promise of thrills served on a platter of surprise is nestled into the core of the company’s DNA. One of the Giordano Dance Chicago’s hallmarks is to deliver on that surprise with beautiful execution.
To this point the season’s premier had been satisfying. But excitement needs another ingredient if it’s to ignite. It could a single dancer whose will or gifts or essence of the moment causes them to shine like an irresistible light as they dance. It could be the whole troupe in identical mental and physical sync moving as one with spellbinding accuracy. It could be the exceptional performance of a work that clearly demands much and gives much. Friday night, that synergy coalesced in Jolt.
A full company piece, the curtain rose to dancers lined up and standing at attention, military style. Legs apart, faux drinking from hefty mugs and exhaling big sighs of satisfaction; you knew some kind of drinking dance was about to ensue. This one was paying satirical tribute to America’s, if not the world’s, favorite liquid stimulant. Coffee. It didn’t take long for the mugs to turn into drums and Evan Bivins’ original score of deep bone tapping percussion to get things jumping. Kinetic to the point of frenzy, admiringly clever, and completely intolerant of error, Jolt epitomized what it means to push boundaries in the name of art. A display of perfect synchrony may not have been achieved as strongly as some may have wished, but that pace, with its lightning formations and stunning breakouts, enthralled .
The second rush came at the end Soul, choreographed by dance veteran Ray Leeper. Created in recognition of the arts advocacy of Chicago philanthropist and Tribune columnist, Candace Jordan, the work used as it musical base exemplars of soulfully throbbing pop tracks from the late 60’s and early 70’s. Gladys Knight and Al Green lit the wick with dancers performing Leeper’s take on the period’s dance aesthetic. But it was when those initial strains of Tina Turner’s classic redo Proud Mary hit the audience’s ear that the crowd erupted with approval. Those cheers helped unleash a new abandon on the dance floor. The company became a Tina Turner revue, emulating that Tina snap in twisting hips and her sassy brazenness in their high stepping struts. Thirty seconds in and dancers were cruising blithely along in fifth gear. Even without technical exactitude completely locked down, the ovation was adoring and filled the auditorium with the same spirit of elation that defined the start of the evening.
Giordano Dance Chicago
Fall Season 2018
Live in the Momentum
October 26 & 27
Harris Theater
Millennium Park
205 E. Randolph St
Chicago, Illinois
