Evidence performance incorporates photographic elements into spirited dance

Author: Catherine Ahearn

A pitch-black room gives way to a single face, then a single dancer whose pointed, tense and deliberate movements accompany an isolated photo as it zooms closer, consuming the entire screen. Ronald K. Brown, artistic director of Evidence, A Dance Company and choreographer of "One Shot: Rhapsody in Black and White Dance Sessions," sought to combine tradition and heritage with power and exuberance, which resulted in a poetic quest for spirituality and freedom in a performance last Saturday at the Kevin P. Mahaney '84 Center for the Arts Dance Theatre. Like all journeys, "One Shot" had its missteps, but the generally enthralling quest did not fail to carry its spectators to its compelling destination.

Brown's show took its energy from the moving backdrop of black-and-white images taken by photographer Charles "Teenie" Harris, a Pittsburgh photographer who famously catalogued the city's black population throughout his lifetime (1908-1998). The haunting snapshots movingly depict school children, jazz musicians, scenes from the civil rights movement and religious life. Often, the dancers would pause to consider the image looming behind them, making the audience shift its attention between dancer and photograph throughout the performance. The images directed the show and grounded the choreography in history and memory.

Through a mixture of ballet, traditional African dance and contemporary dance, "One Shot" responded to Harris's photography with reverential choreography that relied heavily on the powerful movement of the limbs, from a rippling swinging of the arms down to forceful stomps of the feet. The audience soon began to recognize repetitions of movement and style that ran through the entire piece, giving it force and cohesion.

Told in seven sections with two acts, "One Shot" proved most powerful when the entire company was on stage, moving in series, each dancer falling into and out of a line of movement. In the first act, "The Meeting Room," the group choreography was enthralling, as scenes from the civil rights movement passed from right to left behind the dancers, who were are all dressed in identical green shirts and pants. As the dancers flowed off and onto the stage, mimicking each other by dipping into the same grab bag of choreography, the audience perceived the makings of a procession broken by the natural flow of bodies. A sense of balance was unmistakable due to the vision of the united company, pushing and pulling, stepping forward as others fell away.

The second act shifted drastically in tone, which was set predominantly to songs by Lena Horne. Flirtatious numbers focused on couples coyly meeting and dancing playfully while never abandoning the fundamental rhythms of the work. Brown's solo in this half of the work, titled "One Shot: Crossroads," felt slightly off-key with the rest of the performance. Instead of large bodily movements, his choreography responded most often to the quick notes of the piano in a piece by Phyllis Hyman. When Brown embraced the symphony of the piece as a whole and returned back to the sweeping, eclectic motions of the rest of the performance, the solo proved effective as the final piece.