Evidence

by Janet Anderson

Ronald K. Brown brought his small dance troupe (seven movers including Brown) to the Kimmel last weekend. He presented irrefutable "Evidence," which is also his company's name, of the talent that's already brought him accolades and honors. He's not the first to mix African movement and modern dance, or to tackle big themes like religion and liberation with the combination. But he may be the first to merge these aspirations so seamlessly in movement that the dance exists joyfully on its own.

The evening started with "Upside Down," a group of excerpts from the evening-long "Destiny" created in collaboration with Jeune Ballet d'Afrique Noire of the Ivory Coast. The dancers wore long skirts, men and women alike, and moved across the stage in linear patterns suggesting a ritual headed toward a conclusion. Twice a dancer falls and is carried offstage on the shoulders of his comrades in what appears to be a mourning procession. Identifying the ceremonial moment didn't really matter. Spiritual allusions gave the piece dignity, but it was the way individual dancers spun movement off, seeming almost to be improvising, then snapped back as a unit instantaneously hitting the same count, that made the dance crackle. It's thrilling to see choreography where movement erupts so freely and yet is so tightly composed.

"High Life" seemed less confident. Here Brown relied on a story of sorts, the journey of the African American from slavery to the present. The fragments of dance skip back and forth between spiritual highs, dignity under oppression, and material lows, giving in to the high life. But dragging suitcases around the stage to reinforce the notion of journey was unnecessary. And it wasn't always clear whether the dudes in the nightclub scene were naughty materialists or celebrating justifiable high spirits.

Brown brought down the ceiling, literally, in his last piece, "Walking Out the Dark." A simply constructed dance for two couples, "Walking" has the shape of a square dance. Each performer faces a partner. Instead of a happy do-si-do, they burst upon their partner in movements of exquisitely expressed rage, frustration, attraction and finally submission. Finally dirt falls from above over four prone bodies. Brown has talked about African suffocation rituals where burial represents personal cleansing; perhaps this was the subtext. Everyone got the idea that by dancing, the dancer's bad feelings were released. Certainly they left none but good ones in the audience.