Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer

Dance Theatre Xaymaca presented a fine evening of dance for their 2006 season at the Little Theatre, Tom Redcam Avenue, last weekend. The almost all-female (there was one male dancer) cast presented a well-textured evening of movement. The season attests that their 11 years of performance is bearing talented fruit.

The season featured choreography from Kirk Rowe, Kameica Reid, Oneil Pryce, Dwayne Barnaby, Chris Walker and the group's founder and artistic director, Barbara McDaniel. Dance Theatre Xaymaca possesses a talented cadre of dancers who did justice to the choreography, presenting an evening valuable as entertainment and art.

The dances were generally well enhanced by imaginative, colourful costuming, as well as good use of lighting to impact both mood and message. 'Evolution', choreographed by Rowe, made a good start to the

show. With a visually dramatic opening using candlelight, the dance was interestingly conceptualised. The pieces were generally quite commendable and the outstanding pieces of the evening were Walker's 'Awomanda', Reid's 'Tension' and McDaniel's 'Moods'.

In his choreographer's description of the 'Awomanda', Walker uses three words, 'rae tae tae'. The words were quite apt in summing up the vibrantly costumed, energetic dance, which spoke eloquently of female sass. The description was also particularly apt because the dance is infused with a very Jamaican vocabulary crafted onto the jazz rhythms to which the dancers moved.

Impressive

'Tension' was particularly impressive because of the potential talent that it speaks of in its choreography. Choreographed by Reid, one of the troupe's dancers, the dance featured two movements and explored sexual tension in its positive and negative variants. The first was a passion-filled duet featuring Onaje Bell (the evening's sole male dancer) and Tara Price. The movement was decidedly sexy enough to be worthy of being crafted to the bluesy poem Brother to the Night (A Blues for Nina) from the Love Jones soundtrack.

The piece highlighted that Reid has the potential to find her own voice, as she choreographed the jazzy dance with a refreshing, energetic spirit. However, though quite fun, the second movement of the dance too clearly mirrored the music video for Beyonce's, Ring the Alarm, to which it was choreographed.

'Moods' brought the evening to a satisfactory close. One of the two dances choreographed by McDaniel, the work provided a kaleidoscope of movement that moved through a number of moods from the comic to the militant to the sad. Interestingly, though the fourth movement, choreographed to Junior Gong's Confrontation, was fun to watch, it spoke of our tendency to choreograph dancehall purely for movement and hardly ever to evoke a deeper message.

The dance's most delightful element, both for choreographic originality and the dancers' skill, came in the third movement, with a fantastic performance by Anika Jobson and Renee Hartley.

The 2006 season also included Pryce's 'Bits and Pieces', Barnaby's 'The Quest' and McDaniel's 'God A God', rounding out an evening that proved a delightful adventure in dance. This season of dance shows that with 11 years under their belts, Dance Theatre Xaymaca is bearing talented fruit.