Deeply Rooted Dance Theater Delivers Bountiful Fall Harvest

Kicking off this season’s Made in Chicago Dance Series Friday night at Chicago’s venerable Auditorium Theatre, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater (DRDT} proved something startling.  That it could be, in its own unique way, all things to all people.  You had to recall the explosive energy that marked another of the company’s one night only visits to the Auditorium last year to put a statement like that in context.   This year, different drivers propelled the company with objectives tailored to entrench a legacy of artistic breadth.   That hunger for growth while holding tight to an ethos of dance excellence were the attributes that kept shining through the company’s richly textured program last weekend.  With its five featured dances, DRDT showed how seriously it takes its mission to “reimagine and diversify the aesthetics of contemporary dance”.  Each of the works highlighted a different strength while staying true to the company’s singular ability to tell compelling stories through dance.

An arc encompassing DRDT’s quarter century plus existence, the program included revivals that recall the company’s past and current works that shape its present and future.  One of the revivals, Junto, choreographed by DRDT co-founder, Kevin Iega Jeff, glowed with the vitality and wit that underscore contemporary dance’s appeal.  A whirl of sophistication and zestful wit, the dance uses duets and quartets to sink it talons into a joyful expression of welcome.  Victoria Carot’s sleek and satiny costumes in gold, green, red and blue turned the dancers into elegant urbane sprites.  Through their grace and assured precision, they turned greeting into buoyant celebration.

Jeff created Junto in 1990; several years before heading to Chicago and eventually founding Deeply Rooted Dance Theater with Gary Abbott.  The dance reflects the talent of an exciting choreographer who successfully cultivated a distinctive voice in his field. Junto, along with the second revival piece that followed it in the program, 53 Inhale, salutes the company’s origins. 

Completing 53 Inhale a little more than a decade after co-founding the company, Abbott’s contribution exemplifies the range of dance sentiment and expression the company has always aspired to present.  A tribute to other choreographers and artists who influenced his creative development, the dance opens with feelings of melancholy before moving to a place of self-actualization and discovery.  Under a rolling apocalyptic sky, dancers moved with the synchronized stiffness of automatons in search of release and fulfillment.  Incorporating flourishes of urban swag, the dance also carries the scent of the new millennium as it morphs from a journey of searching to one of realization.

Closing the first half of the show, Vespers is becoming a signature piece of excitement for the company.  Percussion, intensity and drama all merge to draw the audience deep into an all- female odyssey of spiritual power.  A feat of dexterity, superb timing and athleticism, Emani Drake’s solo opening the piece is all about riveting high stakes and spectacle.  Memories of his grandmother’s church services inspired Ulysses Dove to create Vespers; settings where the strength and resilience of women could be seen in high profile.  Those services were also a place of fortification that gave its congregants the inspiration to vanquish the impossible.  The rawness and indomitability of that spirit saturates Vespers and Mikel Rouse’s intense and throbbing score fills it with urgency.  In Vespers second half, five other women join Drake in her execution of brilliant dance.  Also dressed in basic black, they all dazzled with cool, unruffled ease.  

An Honoraria Awardee of the 2023 Princess Grace Dance Performance, Ms. Drake exclusively soloed Keith Lee’s Mama Rose where the style of storytelling took a very different direction.  Much more reflective, and loose enough to allow personal emotion to shine through, Mama Rose was also inspired by a grandmother.  Saxophonist Archie Shepp wrote a poem of the same title with his grandmother front of mind.  He and pianist Jasper Van Hof then placed music behind the poem’s narration which forms the backdrop of Lee’s choreography.  The music, poem and dance fuse together to form both a beautiful tribute and a potent manifesto of fortitude.  Delivering as transfixing a performance in Mama Rose as she did in Vespers, Drake’s star is clearly ascending. 

Grounded in the realities of the present, the evening’s finale, Madonna Anno Domini stood out for its expansiveness and for its restorative impact.  Invigorated by galvanizing words of unity and rejuvenating in its use of transcendent music, the dance outlined how the broken can become whole. Choreographed by Nicole Clarke-Springer, the company’s Artistic Director, Madonna Anno Domini wonderfully conveys that message in movement.  Judging from the impressive variety and caliber of dance DRDT presented last weekend, the bright promise of its future stems from similar confidence and resolve.

Deeply Rooted Dance Theater

7:30 PM  –  November 3, 2023

Auditorium Theatre

50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive

Chicago, IL  60605

For more about Auditorium Theatre events:  www.info@auditoriumtheatre.org