{"id":6430,"date":"2019-07-10T11:52:41","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T15:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/?p=6430"},"modified":"2019-07-21T12:13:35","modified_gmt":"2019-07-21T16:13:35","slug":"grace-and-mercy-come-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/2019\/07\/grace-and-mercy-come-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Grace and Mercy Come Together"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Annique Roberts begins Ronald K. Brown \/ Evidence’s Grace<\/em> in Bard College’s Sosnoff Theater. Photo: Julieta Cervantes<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I think I first saw Ronald K. Brown\u2019s Grace<\/em> twenty years ago when it was brand new and performed by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Company. Last week I saw it again, when it opened the 2019 SummerScape Festival at Bard College, this time performed by the choreographer\u2019s own group: Ronald K. Brown\/Evidence: A Dance Company. The work itself hasn\u2019t changed much, but the context has.\u00a0 This year\u2019s SummerScape was inspired by the life, times, and environment of the Viennese composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who began his career as a child prodigy in classical music and ended it in Hollywood, writing music for movies from 1934 to his death in 1956. Grace <\/em>opens and closes with Duke Ellington\u2019s \u201cCome Sunday\u201d from his 1942 Black, Brown and Beige <\/em>suite sandwiching Roy Davis, Jr.\u2019s \u201cGabriel\u201d and Fela Anikulapo Kuti\u2019s \u201cShakara.\u201d A possible connection with Korngold? He and Ellington were contemporaries, and, beginning in the 1950s, the latter too wrote film scores. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The earlier Grace<\/em>, whether performed in 1999 by the Ailey company or revised for Brown\u2019s own company in 2003, was accompanied by recorded music. At Bard, the musicians are live and onstage, on either side of the tall, luminous opening in the curtains at the back (Brenda Gray has redesigned William H. Grant\u2019s lighting). Keyboard player Jake Sherman and percussionist Abraham Rounds sit stage left. Stage right houses keyboard player and music supervisor  Peven Everett, Chris Bruce (guitar), Dan Chmielinski (bass), Julius Rodriguez (keyboard), and and Corey Wallace (trombone). The sound gains tremendous power, even though the sung words by various of the musicians don\u2019t always come through clearly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ronald K. Brown’s Grace. <\/em> Foreground in the air: (L to R) Annique Roberts, Matthew Rushing, and Kirven Douthit-Boyd. Photo: Julieta Cervantes<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The musicians\u2019 presence helps transform the people onstage into a congregation. If they dance in unison\u2014and they do quite a lot\u2014I don\u2019t think of them as \u201cperforming\u201d for us, but as joining in dance the way singers in church raise their voices together. These dancers are individuals too, uniform neither in age nor training. Associate Artistic Director Arcell Cabuag joined Evidence twenty-two years ago. Keon Thoulouis danced with it for seven years, beginning in 2001 and returned to it in 2014. Annique Roberts joined it nine years ago. Matthew Rushing, who became a member of the Ailey American Dance Company in 1992, has guested with Brown\u2019s company since 2014. Kirven Douthit-Boyd, a member of AAADC for eleven years, is also a guest artist. Randall Riley, having been a part of Evidence for two seasons, returns as a guest too. This is the first season for three other dancers, and four more are apprentices. (I wouldn\u2019t mind being a fly on the backstage wall.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kirven Douthit-Boyd and musicians in Ronald K. Brown’s Grace. <\/em> Photo: Julieta Cervantes<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Roberts ignites the dance alone. Entering through the threshold in the back curtain, she walks toward us like a queen or a priestess. She doesn\u2019t then follow every musical phrase; thrashing and stepping and whipping and softly spinning, she\u2019s uttering her own prayer. Some of the performers wear white clothes (designer: Ibiwunmi Omotayo Olaiya), none exactly alike; some are dressed in red. Although three men in white and three in red may dance in unison, the costuming seems to stand for something, because by the time the dance ends and all file out through that portal at the back, everyone is dressed in white. Maybe it\u2019s that, in life, saints and sinners aren\u2019t always identifiable as such.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether they\u2019re rejoicing or expiating, lord, how they all dance! Brown founded his first company when he was twenty-one, and all that he knows of ballet, modern dance, and African forms has been woven and twisted together into his choreography and somehow Brownized. The dancers spin, leap, and dig their steps into the floor or slap it with their feet. Their hips are mobile; so are their upper bodies. Their arms fly or gesture. They\u2019re not intent on \u201cshowing\u201d us all this, but delving deeply, rhythmically into the movement as if they’re trying to make sense of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As Grace <\/em>is ending, Annique Roberts invites Randall Riley to join the others. Photo: Julieta Cervantes<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

They come and go; they break out into brief solos. And, near\nthe end, when they\u2019re all dressed in white, and Gordon Chambers has arrived to\nsing another version of  \u201cSee My People\nThrough,\u201d tall Riley seems to have doubts. Does he belong with the throng that\nstands watching him? Roberts confronts him, dances at <\/em>him. Of course he belongs. Together, the dancers all process in\na calm orderly way through that portal at the back, as if it were a church door\nand the service had ended. Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ronald K. Brown’s Mercy<\/em>. L to R: Arcell Cabuag, Hannah Richardson, Stephanie Chronopoulos, composer Meshell Ndegeocello, Paris Jones, Valeriane Louisy Louis-Joseph, and Michael Battle. Photo: Julieta Cervantes<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Grace <\/em>shared the program with Brown\u2019s new and shorter Mercy<\/em>, a SummerScape commission. The composer, musician, and singer is Meshell Ndegeocello. She and Brown met at Bard, where she was performing earlier and began a collaborative process. Behind the five fabric pillars lurk equipment for electrified music. She plays electric bass and sings. Percussionist Rounds shifts between drums and a vibraphone, and Sherman mans a Fender Rhodes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this, the costume designer known familiarly as Wunmi has dressed the dancers in black tinged with purple and vice versa. Grace is a state we may or may not achieve. Mercy is something we bestow or beg for. \u201cHave mercy on me,\u201d sings Ndegeocelllo after the drums have begun. And formal though the dance\u2019s structure is, those who enter and leave the stage, join and separate, need that compassion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Annique Roberts begins Mercy, <\/em>as Meshell Ndegeocello plays her bass guitar. Photo: Julieta Cervantes<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This dance too begins with a solo by Annique Roberts, but it\u2019s less calm than the one she performed in Grace. <\/em>So are the gestures and positions the dancers assume. One of them seems to open invisible doors or to raise their hands in surrender. At other times, the image is that of a person beinghanged \u2014 one arm stretched high and his\/her head fallen to the side. They kneel, bowed over, their hands clasped behind their backs. We imagine them hit. But none of this is pure pantomime; it\u2019s part of the dancing and the stillness that punctuates it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bit by bit, the \u201cpillars\u201d lift. \u201cLook at all the light I\nbring,\u201d sings Ndegeocello.  As the music\nrises and thins out and the light fades, all the performers raise their voices.\nAsking for mercy or grateful for it having been granted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think I first saw Ronald K. Brown\u2019s Grace twenty years ago when it was brand new and performed by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Company. Last week I saw it again, when it opened the 2019 SummerScape Festival at Bard College, this time performed by the choreographer\u2019s own group: Ronald K. Brown\/Evidence: A Dance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[1446,1440,3159,3161,3168,3079,1447,3164,220,3157,3162,3166,3158,1445,536,3160,862,3163,3167,3170],"class_list":{"0":"post-6430","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-contemporary-dance","8":"tag-annique-roberts","9":"tag-arcell-cabuag","10":"tag-duke-ellington","11":"tag-fisher-center-at-bard","12":"tag-hannah-richardson","13":"tag-joyce-edwards","14":"tag-keon-thoulouis","15":"tag-kirven-douthit-boyd","16":"tag-matthew-rushing","17":"tag-meshell-ndegeocello","18":"tag-michael-battle","19":"tag-paris-jones","20":"tag-peven-everett","21":"tag-randall-riley","22":"tag-ronald-k-brown","23":"tag-ronald-k-brown-evidence-a-dance-company","24":"tag-sosnoff-theater","25":"tag-stephanie-chronopoulos","26":"tag-valeriane-louisy-louis-joseph","27":"tag-wunmi-olataya-olaiya","28":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6430"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6457,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6430\/revisions\/6457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}