Shawn Harper
Sierra Kay Powell, Brienna Tipler and Jessica Hoyt perform Charles Weidman’s “Lynchtown.”
Kanopy Dance opened the 2015-2016 season on Nov. 13 at Overture Center’s Promenade Hall with Juxtaposed, an excellent program that includes a powerful revival of “Lynchtown.” The company dedicated the show to the memory of Richard Zillman, a Kanopy board member who helped the dance company find and clarify its voice.
Works from company co-director Lisa Thurrell opened and closed the evening. “Prayer,” from 2012, is a spare and lovely showcase for the younger dancers in Kanopy’s second company who revealed strong Graham technique. Regular company member Sierra Kay Powell was the featured soloist and drew me in as she surrendered completely to the choreography. She is one of those dancers who can maintain the ache and tension so central to Graham technique and can make the simple exhalation of her breath compelling.
In Prayer, Thurrell found the perfect score from Arvo Pärt, but not so much in 1996’s Come Months, Come Away. The dated music from composer Geoff Smith reminded of the most annoying sections of the Phillip Glass Koyaanisqatsi score, coupled with a female operatic voice warbling lyrics based on classic works from Shelley, Keats and Emily Bronte. I found myself imagining the dance happening in silence with the poets’ words projected on a screen or printed in the program. Still, the intense and striking work from dancers Olivia Rivard and Jessica Hoyt shined through.
Kanopy co-director Robert E. Cleary’s This Is Not America is by far the best piece I have seen from him. Stripped down but powerful, the piece features the Ahn Trio’s classical take on David Bowie’s titular song as well as interview excerpts from the documentary The Thin Blue Line. The cast — Juan Carlos Díaz Vélez, Carlos Ramirez-Araujo, Cody Olsen and Alyssa Jendusa — all delivered, and the pas de deux between Jendusa and Olsen was especially eloquent. Costume designer Amy Panganiban should also be praised for her contributions to the piece’s impact.
Chicago-based company Winifred Haun & Dancers (with Kanopy II dancers rounding out the cast) performed excerpts from Haun’s 2009 ballet-length work Promise, which is inspired by John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden. Program notes indicate that Haun spent many years exploring the themes and images in the novel. A thoughtful choreographer, she is able to evoke a sense of place (California’s Salinas Valley) and westward expansion as well as the push/pull in the troubled union of Cathy and Adam, including a pas de deux between Zada Cheeks and Ariel Dorsey. After seeing Haun’s company perform several times with Kanopy I am tempted to make the trip to Chicago to see more from them, especially when they perform Promise in its entirety.
The most satisfying piece in the program is modern dance pioneer Charles Weidman’s groundbreaking “Lynchtown” from 1936. As a child in Nebraska, Weidman witnessed a lynching and used this dance to address the contagion of violence and mob thinking. His own percussion score accompanies and the music and choreography remain as startling now as they must have been at the premiere. As the instigator, Olivia Rivard is a marvel — a ferocious, insidious harpy whispering into the ears of her community of dancers. When the women of the company perform a series of tuck jumps turned sideways that then devolve into staggering and scary wide steps, we see things careening out of control toward violence. I was astounded by what Weidman was able to achieve. It’s impressive that the work still resonates nearly 80 years later but disheartening that the work remains an accurate indictment of current events.
Juxtaposed runs through Nov. 15.
