Draft of Shadows. - Eastman Theatre, Rochester, New York - dance reviews

Dance Magazine, Dec, 1994 by Herbert M. Simpson

Garth Fagan Dance Eastman Theatre, Rochester, New York September 23-25,1994 Reviewed by Herbert M. Simpson

Homeboys Garth Fagan, David Diamond, and Steve Greene, as well as the twenty-four-year-old Garth Fagan Dance, all feel unrecognized in Rochester, yet Fagan's Draft of Shadows, set to the first two movements of Diamond's Symphony no. 3, and the revival of Sojoum (1984) to Greene's original score, got an ecstatic reception at these performances. I find Fagan's familiar, Orwellian Sojourn an evolutionary event more than a milestone, but Draft of Shadows (1993) is a real achievement.

It's deliberately incomplete, avoiding the wholeness of Diamond's big, embracing symphony because Fagan can't yet see that far or buy into yea-saying. Acknowledging a thematic inspiration from two lines of Maya Angelou's overprized Clinton inaugural poem, Fagan typically used his personal response to four words--arriving, nightmare, praying, and dream--to create memorable, emotionally charged new movement. Angelou writes, "arriving on a nightmare/Praying for a dream," but Fagan, who arrived plenty privileged, considers that those African-Americans who arrived on a nightmare continue to encounter one.

Despite a bewitching opening of swirling music, C. T. Oakes's magically lit, foggy stage, and dancers in silvery black pseudomedieval Japanese garb, the first (nightmare) section is tormented. Bodies twist in the air as though blown about by Dante's subterranean wind. Only Norwood Pennewell is allowed even momentary calm, and only he and the extraordinary Sharon Skepple seem self-propelled, her extremities slashing the air like blades. Joel Valentin and Micha Willis, unrecognizable as dervishes with long hair twisting in their faces, gain momentary attention as driven embodiments of frenzy.

The more varied, dreamlike section has two couples, Valentina Alexander with Lavert Benefield, and Steve Humphrey with Bit Knighton, their legs tied together as in a three-legged race. Alexander and Benefield are unencumbered in a lyrical duet, Humphrey and Knighton more circumscribed as an elderly couple under a shawl. Emphatic mime shows washing gestures, hands greedily rubbing, and praying. Other symbolic movements look like steps taken cautiously into the void. Balanced multiple turns add nonpropulsive beats here, while attitudes sink smoothly and slowly to the floor. Fagan's handsomely paneled bright unitards and gauzelike culottes, as pleasing as the inventive movement and luscious music, seem affirmative. But the vision refuses to conclude in unreal (dishonest?) resolution. Opaque but truthful, it satisfies because it is exquisitely composed and performed.