Deeply Rooted Dance Theater Perennially Exciting

The first moments of Parallel Lives, a new Deeply Rooted Dance Company work performed over the weekend on the Logan Center stage, singe like an electric charge.  The music, composed by Evangelos Spanos, pushes and insists as does the solo dancer at the stage’s center.  She’s focused, graceful, exact, urgent and transfixing.  After helping to set the tone for this dance created by one of the company’s co-founders, Gary Abbott, she’s joined by several other female dancers who match her energy and intensity precisely. 

Something about their unity is surprising, it’s so palpable.  And there are aspects of it that seem oddly familiar.  It all becomes clear after reading a recent interview with Mr. Abbott where he talked about the work’s origins.  Growing up, he was the only male in a world of women; giving him an intimate view of a well-known phenomenon in the Black community.   One where the deep reliance of women on one another helped insure their own survival and that of their families. Parallel Lives begins as tribute to those bonds of iron and goes on to give it a period look.  Dressed in mid-century shirt waist dresses that flowed like fine gowns, the dancers’ costumes recalled a day when that co-dependence the piece celebrates could be seen as easily as it was felt. The dance then transitioned to a four-member mixed gender set where the theme of co-reliance is continued and presented with a more cerebral dance expression.

The message of cohesion dominated Deeply Rooted’s first two offerings Friday night.  Joshua L. Ishmon’s When Men…, following Parallel Lives, looked at the same kind of mutual reliance from a male perspective.  Highly narrative in its construction, the dance’s central message of resilience achieved through mutual support and trust was starkly clear from the language of the dance.  As was the understanding that the pressures subverting Black advancement and self-realization are still actively in play.

Pierre Clark, Ricky Davis and Nehemiah Spencer were not only called on to demonstrate demanding dance skills; they also needed to act.  Their ability to so adroitly accomplish both was yet another indicator of Deeply Rooted’s commitment to bring high quality dance to the stage with themes sensitive to and reflective of the Black community.

There was a time when it was impossible to go to a performance of any contemporary dance company where the music of Nina Simone wasn’t the musical underpinning of at least one work.  Now such occurrences are rare; making the appearance of Essence: A Portrait of Four Women an uncommon treat. Choreographed by Martial Roumain in 1972, it proudly wears and reflects the stylistic character of the period in which it was created.  Opening in a strikingly dramatic mood, four women perched like seductive provocateurs on widely spaced low slung pedestals.  Each captured in the glow of a softly colored spotlight in red, yellow, green or blue.  The opening chords of Simone’s seminal Four Women then filled the air to launch a series of solos that acted as dance etchings of the women profiled in the iconic song; Aunt Sarah, Sephonia, Sweet Thing and the unforgettable life force, Peaches.  Simone released the song in 1966 and it still retains an unshakeable connection to audiences over fifty years later.  In Essence, Simone’s anthem of pride acts as a bridge that perpetuates the notion that we share a common present even though we may have arrived from a different past.  As Nikki Giovanni recites her own brilliant poetry over a blazing rendition of Peace Be Still, Essence: A Portrait of Four Women also served as a reminder of how stridently vocal a call for unity can sound.

So much of Deeply Rooted’s Reaffirmed/Reimagined concert created regrets about not having seen more of what this talented and accomplished company does.  As well as entertain and stimulate, their dance stories rouse memories, encourage optimism and incite sentiments that have long lain dormant.  Closing the Friday night performance with Dedication, a stalwart in the Deeply Rooted canon since 1982 when it was created by Kevin Iega Jeff, it’s liberal use of symbolism and its unhurried journey through the spiritual and the ethereal let the beauty of dance shine. And makes following this distinguished company more closely a priority.

Reaffirmed/Reimagined

Deeply Rooted Dance Theater

December 11 – 15, 2019

Logan Center for the Arts

915 E. 60^th Street

Chicago, IL  60637

www.deeplyrooteddancetheater.org