By Michael Reckord, Freelance WriterPATRONS WERE still streaming into the nearly full Little Theatre on Sunday morning when the house lights dimmed and Marjorie Whylie's mellifluous, perfectly modulated voice sounded.
"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC) wishes you a Happy Easter. This is the first performance in our 40th anniversary year. The programme will proceed without interruption."
At 6:03 a.m. the NDTC's annual 'Easter Morning of Movement and Music' began. As promised, there were no interruptions, just a few brief pauses. When the show ended at 7:10, it had passed the ultimate test - a 10-year-old boy and his five-year-old sister who sat in front of me had not taken their eyes off the stage the entire time. Considering the notoriously short attention span of children, this was quite a feat. Even the continuous applause and enthusiastic comments from the mainly adult audience after the show were not as reliable a guide to the quality of the presentation as the rapt attention of those children.
Fit, graceful and well controlled dancers - those who had been battling a weight problem over the last three years had slimmed down appreciably - and melodious NDTC singers performed a total of 17 items. That number of pieces in almost 70 minutes meant, of course, that brief works were presented in rapid succession.
Still, one did not get the feeling of hurry, just good pacing.
The singers were in good voice.
As is known by the thousands who have been attending these free Easter Morning concerts over the last 20 years or so, the emphasis is on spirituality. Not surprisingly, then, the ethos of much of the show was joy and serenity, which were reflected in the songs of the NDTC Singers. They included compositions and adaptations by Musical Director Whylie - Alleluia; a suite of Jamaican spirituals, What a Wonderful Thing, Heaven Is My Home, It's Me, Lord; music for Psalm 23, and a new arrangement of The Lord's Prayer. With the women smartly dressed in purple and lavender and the men in grey suits, the Singers were in good voice.
An excerpt from Artistic Director Rex Nettleford's large work Diaspora was the first dance item. It featured the full company in mainly earth colours - green, brown, black, maroon - dancing an intricately patterned work. The piece involved dancers working in two or three small groups, each performing separate yet complementary moves.
This was followed by Trio, a grouping of works by Clive Thompson, Arlene Richards and Nettleford. Andrea Lloyd was expressive and beautifully controlled in the first, a solo; while the second, a 'solo' performed by Mark Phinn, had the two children in front of me wondering, in whispers, how the dancer could be flying. The piece was done in ultra-violet light with the dancer dressed in a reflective white costume. At one point an unseen companion in full (non-reflective) black lifted and danced with him above his head. A powerful piece.
The third dance of the trio featured women in brown with flashes of red underskirts, dancing to the same song, Hush.
Carol Orane's solo, A Prayer, choreographed by Arsenio Andrade, made good use of lighting effects. She remained upstage throughout the performance in a pool of white light, its outer edges delineated by a length of white cloth. In that circle of light she agonised, with face, body, limbs and hands, over how long Jesus would have her suffering on earth.
Costume designer Arlene Richards, who made superb use of colours, also knew when to stick to the basics. She dressed her dancers in full white for the excerpt - Psalm 23 - from Sacred Ground, and in full black for Salome, which showed three women at Jesus' tomb on Easter Sunday. Appropriately, they displayed a mix of agony and joy.
The men in the company danced in Andrade's Fusion and, magically, they appeared to stay suspended in the air half the time. It was not a work with the usual NDTC vocabulary (perhaps because the choreographer is from Cuba), and the difference was refreshing.
An excerpt from Nettleford's The Crossing marked the last major appearance (the finale excepted) by the dancers. To music from Quincy Jones' Roots, the full company moved around the stage like a mighty ship, masts, flags and sails thrusting skyward. A forward thrust of arms and bodies forming a tableau climaxes the work, powerfully.
The strength of Sunday's presentation makes the full season, which starts in July, something to look forward to.
