Above: Michelle Dorrance
~ Author: Oberon
Sunday July 21st, 2024 matinee – Michelle Dorrance’s SHIFT was another hit in the Joyce Theater’s mostly marvelous 2023-2024 season, which is now drawing to a close. The hour-long work was ideally lit by Kathy Kaufmann, with sound design by Christopher Marc, and casual costuming organized by Amy Page. Ms. Dorrance’s choreographic designs are a collaborative venture with her dancers, extending to improv.
To say that the dancing was sensational and thoroughly captivating is an understatement; adding to the vibrancy of the show were segments when some of the dancers took up musical instruments and regaled us with their impressive playing…to say nothing of a couple top-notch vocalists.
Before the house lights went down, the dancers appeared on the bare stage and began warming up – randomly at first, but then forming a circle and delivering individual tap motifs in turn as the others kept rhythm. This drew the audience deeply into the world of tap.
Once the house lights are out, it’s a hopeless task to take notes at The Joyce. But I’ve done my best to salvage what I could from my over-written pages.
The ‘formal’ program began with the first of six sections, entitled Dedicated To You, after the Sammy Cahn song, which was performed live by Ms. Dorrance (ukelele), Claudia Rahardjanoto (bass), with vocals by Ms. Rahardjanoto and Addi Loving, and danced by the Company’s male dancers – Sterling Harris, Luke Hickey, and Leonardo Sandoval – along with Elizabeth Burke and Ash Griffith is a smooth, swaying style. One of the singers soon joined the dancers whilst the other began whistling…such a fresh feeling, meshing music and dance in an imaginative union.
There followed the little glass ii and the little glass ii remix, which sort of flowed together into one continuous number. An especially intriguing segment was a male solo in which the dancer was followed about by a wheeled spotlight; after a bit, the dancer and the light-man switched places. The music takes on a psychedelic aspect; the lighting turns blood-red. Phrases are passed about, from dancer to dancer. Michelle Dorrance has a solo, which the other dancers observed from chairs ranged around the space. Michelle resumes playing her ukelele, but the music turns into a deep rumbling.
I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire, with Ms. Dorrance singing lead to her ukelele accompaniment, backed by Ms. Loving, Asha Grffith, and Elisabeth Burke; their harmonizing was terrific. The male dancers have a trio which morphs into an octet, danced in a pool of light. Competition and camaraderie vie, to rhythmic clapping.
Elizabeth Burke seated herself at the grand piano for Moon, with Ms. Rahardjanoto on bass and Ms. Loving doubling piano/percussion. This followed by Ymir, to recorded music by Dawn of Midi. But I’d been forced to abandon note-taking in the dark, and so I just sat back and watched as the dancing continued – by turns subtle and sensational – from which I derived great pleasure. I began to feel a blessèd assurance in an uncertain world.
I’d expected a grand finale, a veritable tempest of tapping, but instead the performance ended on a purely musical note, with a song that hit me like a tsunami: That’s The Way It Is, by Alex Kramer and Joan Whitney; it just happened to perfectly reflect the emotional state I’ve been in of late. I have to include some of the lyrics here, so that I’ll always know where to find them:
In the playbill, Ms. Dorrance offered the following note, in which she hit several nails on the head, reminding us of what’s at stake for our country in the weeks to come. I felt compelled to scan it and share it here:
There were no curtain calls, and as the lights came up I realized what a sense of community had enveloped us during the show. I could easily have watched it again…immediately.
~ Oberon
Oberon's Glade 