Beat Junkies

by Janet Anderson

For its 35th birthday celebration, Philadanco took to the Kimmel stage like a train going 100 miles an hour—often to its detriment. The ensemble was moving so fast, the actual dances blurred into each other, driven by an overwhelming, numbing, musical beat. Individually, though, the pieces and the dancers were impressive, eliciting gasps from the audience that provided a weird musical counterpoint.

"BAMM" is just that: bamm, bamm, bamm. Donald Byrd, one of the many choreographers to emerge from Alvin Ailey's troupe, created this piece, whose percussive Mio Morales score ceaselessly pounds while the dancers thunder across the stage. 'Danco's lighting designer, William Grant III, gave the piece shape with a pool of light that focused the movement, while in the shadows around it the dancers writhed and jumped, fought and flirted. As the music faded, the dancers advanced on the audience, making a pounding bamm-bamm with their feet.

Milton Myers, 'Danco's resident choreographer, created Of Kinship and Exoticism for the occasion, with a repetitive, beat-driven score by John Levis. The women in dark pageboy wigs looked identical, and the bluish wash of the lights and the aqua sheen on the costumes made it all seem blurry and surreal, an effect enhanced when strobe lights were introduced.

Dianne McIntyre's "Sigh of the Rock" for three dancers was a welcome shift in focus to individuals, set to 1950s rock 'n' roll (Little Richard, among others). Hollie E. Wright, Dawn Marie Watson and Mora-Amina Parker looked sharp in McIntyre's big, rolling open-armed movements that flew Lester Horton-style out of taut torsos as they slowly crossed the stage.

Along the way, however, they'd explode into movement responding to the heavy rock music.

The evening concluded with what may be the best dance in 'Danco's current rep, "Enemy Behind the Gates." With powerful choreography from another ex-Ailey dancer, Christopher Huggins, this is virtually a military exercise set to Steve Reich's nuanced and brilliant minimalist score. Grant's gorgeous shafts of white and red light crossing the dark stage added glamour to this all-out dance attack.

The very minute your eye lights on one member of Philadanco, and you think, "fantastic," then another equally superb one flies by—this is what makes the troupe a true ensemble: The star of each dance is the unit.

Philadanco Nov. 11, Kimmel Center