| Modern dance set overstays welcome Simpler pieces prove striking during Nova's tribute to founder 04/08/2001 By Margaret Putnam / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News Modern dance is a hard sell. Nowhere was that more evident than at the South Dallas Cultural Center, where Nova Dancing Company held forth Thursday night. There were more dancers – 14 – than members of the audience – eight.
Called "Cleaving/Clearing,'' the program was somber and celebrative, a tribute to André R. George, who founded Nova in 1995 and died in 1996 at age 32. An unnamed ballet created by Mr. George in 1994, seen on videotape, opened the concert. Later, another videotape showed him dancing two solos. A former member of Elisa Monte Dance, Gus Solomons Dance Company, Donald Byrd/The Group and Dallas Black Dance Theatre, he commanded attention.
Seven works turned out to be three too many. As striking as the dancers were who appeared on the first videotape, the piece was much too long. Ditto for Sendero, Karen Bower Robinson's pastoral examination of family relationships.
The Sea/A Meditation Mime, choreographed by Mamako Yoneyama for Real Woman Dancing, was lovely for its simplicity and strong images. Christy Sadler Gorman moved very little, letting her arms and hands tell the story. She tosses them toward the sea, flaps them as toward a clothesline, whips them like Japanese papier-mâché. Each gesture comes with a change in position – she'll rock on her knees, lean to the side or turn backward, keeping her arms always in motion, expressive and deliberate.
Artistic director Loris Anthony Beckles, who choreographed Thin Jets of Fire and two sections of Sweet Suites, favors straight lines, high kicks and suspended arabesques. There is a rush and flow and a minimum of patters. But while the steps have clarity and intensity, the dances do not develop.
The two exceptions were the group section in the second suite of Sweet Suites and his own solo in Thin Jets of Fire.
In Sweet Suites, Janet Jackson sings "when I lift my eyes ..." while four women and a man stand at one end of the stage. They thrust arms out and drop their heads with emotional fervor. Nothing could be simpler, but it works.
Mr. Beckles came close to dying two years ago of PML (progressive multifocal leukoencepalopathy), a disintegrative nerve disease. He lost the ability to write, speak and walk, so seeing him in Jets was moving.
He first appears on a dark stage. The dance is bare and minimal. He executes repetitive gym routines, first seated, then lying down. Other dancers show up, and he walks toward them. Going to one after the other, he raises his hands on their backs, leaning to find support. At the end, he simply walks off, limping, head held high, the essence of dignity.
Margaret Putnam writes for The Dallas Morning News.
PERFORMANCE INFORMATION
Nova Dancing Company, with guest artists Real Woman Dancing and Piper-Jamison Movement Children's Dance Company, performs at 8 p.m. Saturday at the South Dallas Cultural Center, 3400 S. Fitzhugh Ave. Tickets $12.50; discounts and children's prices available. Call 214-559-3993.
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