A Little Sojourn In Paradise

This article originally appeared in Voice of Dance (http://www.voiceofdance.org) on June 25, 2007.

Savion Glover, Invitations to a Dancer / Joyce Theater, NYC / June 19 - July 14, 2007

Savion Glover. Photo by NiNA.

The master tapper Savion Glover may have been cool providing the feet motion-captured for the irresistible dancing penguin Mumble in the movie Happy Feet. But he's hot in his new live show, Invitations to a Dancer, at the Joyce Theater in New York through July 14.

A big chunk of the program takes place on three raised miked rectangles--each just roomy enough to hold a guy and his dancing. Glover, who's obviously the main man, is flanked by a pair of sidemen, Marshall L. Davis, Jr., and Maurice Chestnut, who provide a nuanced obbligato to Glover's star turn. Combined, the sounds their feet make have unquenchable vitality. This is cannily coupled with a hint of threat, like the distant noise of a ferocious storm or an infernal machine revving up to do its secret job. Every so often, though, Glover lightens the mood with sheer gaiety, lifting his knees and freeing his feet to gambol blithely in the air, as if the law of gravity had been briefly suspended.

From time to time, Glover generously cedes the center space to one of the sidemen. Davis uses the opportunity to concoct an impressive solo that is heavy and grave, his feet thudding against the top and sides of his platform as if to announce what we all knew was coming--the end of the world.

Related to this solo is the theme of knocking that prevails throughout the three men's work together. Knocking at the door, hoping to find a welcoming person behind it? Knocking at the gate of opportunity or, perhaps, Heaven? Despite the obsession lurking in the repeated knocking, Glover's optimism buoys these ideas, especially when he smiles. Often a sullen performer, or at least one reluctant to acknowledge the presence of his audience, Glover frequently gives way in this show to one of his rarely recognized assets--the angelic smile of a child who hasn't yet been notified of the world's troubles.

The biggest miracle of the trio's work remains its collaboration. Performing alone, a good hoofer can sound like a series of different musical instruments. Three so finely attuned to one another can become a whole jazz band at once. The fact that--apart from the steady outline of a session-much of the work is improvised simply boggles the mind.

The second half of the show contains a long solo by Glover, and watching--better yet, hearing--what he can do is like a little sojourn in Paradise; one is keenly aware of the privilege. Alone on a dusky stage, caught in the narrow glare of a downlight, he performs a few casual feats like keeping his gleaming turquoise tap shoes nearly flat on the floor while making them sound like a bubbling spring that accidentally got itself amplified. Then he gets down to business. Sober-faced now, body bent over, he barely moves from his spot while he focuses on generating a wide spectrum of sound. He seems to be a man who, past a wild youth, is now addressing his life with sobriety. Suddenly, he appears to have aged decades, threatens to collapse to one side, then the other. When the knocking theme recurs, it might be an inexorably ticking clock. Before the mood gets maudlin, though, he straightens up, reclaims youth's vivacity, and tries out some new inventions.

Understandably, Glover worries about providing sufficient diversity in his productions. Incomparable as his dancing is, two hours of relentless, essentially abstract footwork would exhaust the viewers' attention--in part because the experience is so intense. Tap, remember, didn't start out as concert dance, and the formal conventions of the proscenium stage remain slightly alien to it.

So Glover, being, among other things, a savvy showman, experiments with variety. Early in 2005, he made a point of dancing to classical music--a worthy try, and worth pursuing, though the marriage wasn't fully consummated. Another show, in the Christmas season of the same year, had a religious, praise-God bent.

For the current production, Glover tried introducing non-tapping women into the mix. Accompanied by Glover and his two sidemen, three barefoot femmes move with lush enthusiasm, front and center, in a jazz mode laced with dollops of ballet. Two of them, Lauren Last and Jerica Niehoff, are pulchritudinous beauties with Broadway instincts. The third, Sheila Barker, wiry and graceful--and the only African-American on the distaff side--is far more accomplished and interesting than her sisters. Wonderfully supple in an Indian-inflected, jazz-rooted duet with Glover, she proves to be the only one of the lovelies who can really reflect his rhythms. In another number, Glover challenges a fourth gal, Suzana Stankovic, who is got up as a tiny ballerina-doll off a music box--fluffy white tutu, pointe shoes, and all. Stankovic, who is game and strong, tries to make her antics funny, but since she is, at best, a mediocre classical dancer, the effect is grotesque.

There is no instrumental or vocal accompaniment to this show. Given the spectacular aural variety and ingenuity of the tapping, one hardly noticed.

© VoiceofDance.com 2007. Reprinted with permission.