In A Darker Light - Donald Byrd/The Group dance company performance at the Joyce Theater in New York - Brief Article

Dance Magazine, June, 2000 by Amanda Smith

IN A DARKER LIGHT DONALD BYRD/THE GROUP THE JOYCE THEATER NEW YORK, NEW YORK FEBRUARY 29-MARCH 5, 2000

The recent concert by Donald Byrd/The Group, titled In A Different Light: Duke Ellington, came packaged in three separate acts of vastly differing temperaments. The first, A Gentle Prelude, was the glamorous bit, staged under strings of light simulating a huge chandelier (scenic design by Jack Mehler). The piece for seven dancers, including guest Elizabeth Parkinson, was balletic modern, with much unison work and a general sense of romanticism, with the women in satiny evening gowns.

The middle section, The Shack, displayed the dancers in Nancy Brous's costumes of wildly patterned fabrics made into gigantic breasts and penises, and depicted various sex acts--lots of bumping and grinding and lascivious tongue-wagging and simulated copulating. Dead-center stage, and more over-the-top and full of attitude than anyone else, was Olivia Bowman, in a platinum blonde wig. I thought it was all lewd and tasteless. Many strip shows have far more subtlety than this.

An acquaintance--a documentary filmmaker who is knowledgeable about black history and whose work I respect tremendously --saw this otherwise: as a deliberate contradiction to the generally accepted image of Ellington as cool, dapper and elegant. She pointed out that the tunes for this section include Black and Tan Fantasy; the implication. in Byrd's view. was that the Duke's image as a sophisticated, discreet gent is in part a fantasy.

Act III was titled In a Different Light. This was modern ballet, almost severe--as if atoning for sins and excesses of the previous section--showing the dancers in a different light. Thus a blonde stripper with pasties in Act II became the petite, birdlike creature in white in this section.

Conceptually, I applaud Byrd's adventurous spirit and his craft, but I was dismayed by the fact that the energy within each section was the same: unremitting, minus hills and valleys. And for my money, the middle section pulled too far away from traditional concert work to put the train back on the track.