Robert Garland’s “Return” was a fitting opener in more ways than one. It marked the literal return of his company, Dance Theatre of Harlem, after a decade away from Chicago. The plotless neoclassical funk ballet, created in 1999 to bops by James Brown and Aretha Franklin, is also a kind of cyclical reminder of what artistic director Garland described in his curtain speech as “all of (himself) in one place.”
That is the heart of this gem of a company, which was performed for one night only Saturday at the Auditorium and marks the official kickoff to its season highlighting North American dance. New York City Ballet principal dancer Arthur Mitchell founded Dance Theatre of Harlem in 1969 at the height of the civil rights movement, first teaching ballet classes out of a garage in Harlem at a time when Blackness and ballet did not often go together.
Despite some progress, the American ballet has been painfully slow to evolve as the fully integrated art form that Russian expat George Balanchine envisioned when he launched New York City Ballet. It’s still typical to look on the stages of any American ballet company and see just one or two dancers of color. Balanchine yielded to headwinds which, apparently, persist (about 10% of NYCB’s current roster is Black). But Mitchell forged ahead, achieving the vision that ballet is for everyone.
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Thus, it matters a lot that Dance Theatre of Harlem, now approaching its 60th anniversary, came back from the dead following a one-year hiatus forced by financial difficulties that ended up lasting for eight. The company came to Chicago in 2014, a couple of years after restarting, staging Garland’s “Return” and others from the archive. Two years after that, it came back as a leading voice in Black artistry with works charged by the social and political moment — and has not been here since.
That’s not the only reason Chicago showed up — and it did, filling more seats at the Auditorium for a dance performance than I’ve seen in a long time. Rather, it’s that thing Garland said, about a kid from Philly who liked both classical ballet and funk-soul music and found a way to spectacularly marry the two.
Consider only the torsos of soloists Carly Greene and Micah Bullard in “Return,” for example, visible beneath Pamela Allen-Cummings’ mod-inspired miniskirt dresses and slightly bellbottomed unitards: In one moment, articulated undulations hint at the origins of hip hop, then snap into an adroit posture for a series of perfect pirouettes. Roma Flowers’ lighting takes the hint, oscillating between simple, classic looks (like a striking red-backed silhouette) and two brief color-changing discotheque fever dreams.
That kind of versatility doesn’t just happen, nor can the dancers hide behind “Return’s” funky cold Medina in “Donizetti Variations,” a restaging of the jaunty, peasant-styled relic created by Balanchine in 1960. Paired together, the works seem to proclaim, “Yeah, we do this, too,” implying Dance Theatre of Harlem has as much fluency with ballet’s more staunchly European stylings as it does with 152nd Street. They do, and sparkling performances are on offer in “Donizetti’s” intricate petite allegros and elegant solo material for Kamala Saara and Kouadio Davis. But I’m not sure, of all the Balanchine material out there, this is the one to do. Its frothy, pastel hues and single moment of contrived levity (when one dance claims a trumpet solo for a joke about jamming her toe) is one of those quintessential examples of Balanchine’s repertoire showing its age.
“Firebird,” on the other hand, is timeless, and really makes the full picture of Saturday’s program start to make sense. Created by John Taras in 1982, the one-act ballet based on a Russian fairy tale was first choreographed by Michel Fokine in 1910. Commissioned by Serge Diaghilev to original music by Igor Stravinsky, “The Firebird” was produced for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, a company whose brief 20-year run produced some of ballet’s most celebrated (and contested) works — “The Rite of Spring” and “Afternoon of a Faun” among them. Taras, who died in 2004, danced for both Fokine and Balanchine. The latter produced a “Firebird” of his own in 1949. In making his own version more than 30 years later, Taras moves his “Firebird” from a Slavic forest to a Caribbean canopy, with exquisite scenic elements and costumes by Geoffrey Holder evoking birds of paradise, orchids and other flora and fauna from the tropics.
The tale goes a bit like this: A man (the stoic and stunning Derek Brockington) encounters a mysterious bird (Alexandra Hutchinson) who gives the man a feather to hold on to. It comes in handy when a Prince of Evil (the ominous Jhaelin McQuay) threatens the love story between the man and a Princess of Unreal Beauty. That is the actual name of Saara’s character, and an apt explanation of her performance.
Brockington deploys the feather, calling Firebird to his aid. Hutchinson perfectly embodies her character, blending sheer elegance with abrupt, avian-like cocks of her head, activating the red plume on top of it, and flittering of her fingers cast backward over a garnet and burnt orange bustle.
As most fairy tales go, they live happily ever after, with the Firebird saving the day and literally flying overhead to admire her effort. This “Firebird,” considered a signature DTH work, is not entirely lacking hints of its 1980s vintage, with enough chiffon for the “Pretty in Pink” prom in the many fairy nymphs swirling about the stage. But what makes this piece so special is how it manages to transcend time. The Guardian referred to Taras as a “roving Balanchinian,” who spread the concept of plotless ballets across Europe and South America. This was one plot he and Balanchine both clearly adored, and Taras’ interpretation is so keyed into Fokine it may as well have been choreographed for the Ballets Russes. Sprinkle in the gorgeous Dance Theatre of Harlem dancers, and you’ve got the makings of a pretty transformative evening.
Lauren Warnecke is a freelance critic.