Spoleto Review: Dance, dance and music, too.
Music From The Sole, Jose Limon Dance Company and music, too
From a teaser at the official opening ceremony to the stage of Emmett Robinson Theatre at the College of Charleston, dance troupe Music From The Sole burst onto the scene of opening weekend of the 49th edition of Spoleto Festival USA with their six-show run of “I Didn’t Come to Stay.”
The 14-member ensemble, each with an instrument in hand and the alegre of Carnaval, wound their way from the back door of the theater through the enthusiastic, at-capacity crowd for an unceasing celebration that continued on stage for just over an hour.
Featuring five core musicians and nine dancers, all of the performers arguably played both roles. Jazz, or rhythm tap, has a distinctive separation between the dance genres in its percussive techniques and its integrated movements unique to its African, Irish, and Central and Southern American roots. It is this infectious combination of rhythm and whole-body exertion that captivates. Add a live jazz quintet to the mix, with buoyant melodies and improvisational acumen, and the results are remarkably invigorating. Co-founders Leonardo Sandoval and Gregory Richardson knew exactly what they were doing, striking a sweet spot in the blend.
The set design was simple and effective, rotating vivid, solid geometric shapes and vibrant color, playing with shadows and light. The design was complemented by soft, flowing costumes in brighter jewel tones, some with swirling patterns and bellbottom fits, giving a throwback to the 60s and 70s, with original music to match. From rooted African traditional calls to orishas, capoeira and samba, disco and fusion, Music From The Sole kept it moving, both in tempo and mood.
A funky rendition of the Charleston even made an appearance in the choreography. The synergy of the entire ensemble melded the space between the dance floor and the bandstand. Where one ended, the other began. Just as they had entered, so would they depart, in a line, climbing with their instruments and voices lifted in full Carnaval spirit and an audience on their feet.
The following weekend was dedicated to the abiding José Limón Dance Company from New York. Founded in 1946 by Mexican dancer José Limón, the company has endured, remaining at the vanguard of contemporary dance even after Limón’s passing. Every dancer is a graceful athlete. Their otherworldly strength and inordinately toned bodies are attuned to their environment and each other.
The opening selection set a single dancer with solo piano for “Two Ecstatic Themes,” a combination of Nikolai Karolovich Medtner’s “Tragedie Fragment a-moll, Op.7, No.2” and “Maschere Che Passano for Piano” by Gian Francesco Malipiero, choreographed by Doris Humphrey. Dancer Jessica Sgambelluri, dressed in white, was mesmerizing in her graceful and gallant movements, between swan and whirling dervish. The third program “Missa Brevis” was exquisite and haunting, finding an organ center-stage and Spoleto Festival USA Chorus in accompaniment.
It was the aptly placed “Join,” in the middle of the program, that stole the show. Dancers, dressed in a combination of supple fabric of muted earth tones, defied everything—from their liquid-like leaning and their near-silent landings to gender-reversed lifting and non-conforming costume roles. These company dancers are athletes, intrepid in their movement and fluidity. The fearlessness and enigmatic confidence is a sight to behold.
Music from artist-in-residence Ambrose Akinmusire was just as evocative in its energy. It was acoustic hip-hop, electronic, classical, and avant garde jazz, giving the dancers space to gracefully fall into time in the most unexpected ways. Both companies employed live music and enlivened composition to illicit depth and raw human emotion from their programs, transmitted through their bodies. They also engaged the interdependency between each other and the music to demonstrate the interconnectedness of collaborative art to moving results.
Above all, the profound joy that reverberated between these two dance companies, and that in equal measure found its way throughout the festival, was palpable. Whether it was alegre — a vibrant joy, very much alive—from Music From The Sole, or Limón’s rarefied treatment, or aja monet’s Black joy in the ordinary, or Patti Smith’s call for joy in remembrance, or praise house joy from Etienne Charles’s Gullah Roots, or the melancholic joy in singer Mahsa Vahdat’s voice, or the clarion call from Ambrose Akinmusire’s horn, or even in the subliminal sparks of joy in Spoleto’s sunshine-yellow signage, it worked.
In times of uncertainty, chaos and discourse, yet again, the arts soften hearts and offer meditation, contemplation and reprieve from the relentless pressure of the quotidian human experience. Perhaps most fundamentally, this season of Spoleto offered an answer to what we can become when in community: a wellspring of hope and an instrument of joy.
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