To the category of Classics Revisited, assign Garth Fagan's full-length Griot New York, which, under the aegis of The Lively Arts at Stanford, swung into Stanford University's Memorial Auditorium Saturday evening (April 24) trailing clouds of glory. Since the work's premiere, a lot has happened to the Jamaican-born, Rochester, NY-resident choreographer, not least commercial celebrity stemming from his choreography for Julie Taymor's The Lion King on Broadway (a touring version of the popular 1997 show is currently playing an open-ended run in San Francisco).
But a lot has also happened to Griot New York, since it was unveiled in 1991 and subsequently toured the land. At that time, the work, which also played Stanford back then, was heady with illustrious collaborators. The original score by Wynton Marsalis was performed live by the composer's band. And there was intense buzz in the arts community about the huge sculptural elements, fashioned by no less than Martin Puryear (who also collaborated with Fagan on the costumes). The buzz was sufficient to earn Griot New York a date with television's Dance in America, when that now-diminished series was a flourishing concern.
Fagan has visited Northern California infrequently in recent years, but this return booking proved that Griot New York has lost none of its idiosyncratic power. The company, now as then headed by the magnificent Norwood Pennewell, remains an eleven-member ensemble that attacks fearlessly, displays as much brains as sensuality and revels in its own humanity. What was new during this engagement was the Wycliffe Gordon Septet, a forceful jazz aggregation that delivered Marsalisscore from the pit and earned itself an unchoreographed set during the entr'acte.
In a week that celebrates dance as a national cultural force, it was great to be reminded that landmarks of dance need not be transitory, if they are revived with the care and vigor exhibited Saturday. A griot is a West African storyteller, and Fagan's Gothamized version, in eight sections, shuns narrative in favor of capturing urban energies and solitudes. The titles of the movements allude to places in Africa and Jamaica, but ethnological inquests give way to something far less cerebral.
What brought Fagan to the public's eye in the early 1980s and kept him in its gaze was his gorgeous eclecticism; he seemed to embrace almost everything in modern dance. You might find bits of Graham here and allusions to Caribbean dance there, but it didn't matter; you stopped counting. Fagan wasn't promoting a movement or a syllabus; he was reveling in his own imagination and in the collaborative willingness (one might almost say submission) of the members of his company. Back then, he strove hard to convince you that these performers weren't just partying; they were virtuosos in their own right. As I recall, Fagan began almost every mixed program with a work designed to do little more than show off his dancersprowess, a kind of postmodern 'tudes.
Thirty-three years after Fagan's founded the group (it was once known as the Bucket Dance Company), the choreographer's vocabulary has fused into a style, but, oddly, it is a style impervious to imitation. In the course of its eight episodes, Griot New York contains raucous moments and it offer contemplative sections, too, but they all bear a single fingerprint. Puryear's sculpture - a hanging upturned jug, a melting spatula, an African totem and a narrow white stairway ascending into infinity - still catch the eye, but these days, it is impossible not to focus on the dancing.
Garth Fagan Dance. Photo by Steve Labuzetta.
The dancers crawl, leap, launch awesome d'velopp's, hang on each other's backs. But what they do best is balance, sometimes for a small eternity, and when they do, you can feel the muscles in your own back tightening. Fagan often falls in love with a particular combination and he reuses it in different contexts. A dancer will grasp the arabesque of a partner and will rotate it 360 degrees, and it looks positively seamless. The second time it happens, you may notice that, upstage, a man is laying himself across another's body so precariously you suspect the couple will collapse; the moment is virtually thrown away.
Transitions in Griot New York are unpredictable. Sometimes, dancers simply walk away after pulling off some demonically difficult bit of business. At other moments, they just shuffle or sidle across the stage. The choreography exploits every part of the dancersbodies. "Bayou Baroque," the second section, is all about backs and shoulders and avian positioning of the arms, with all the dancers suddenly in black outfits and headgear. The lyrical highpoint is "Spring Yaound'," the duet for Pennewell and Nicolette Depass, which ranges from intense manipulation of limbs to down-on-the-knees adoration in the course of a few moments. Unfortunately, the extended trumpet solo sounded much too overbearing here. One recalls the sweet rhapsody Marsalis drew from his instrument way back when.
One other note: Depass dances topless in "Spring Yaound'." The Lively Arts at Stanford did not feel it necessary in its advertising, its program or by voice-over to alert us to the dreaded nudity. It just happened, nobody in the hall stormed off in a cloud of sanctimonious outrage. Everybody survived and enjoyed. It's what is called being adult and I couldn't be happier that, among Bay Area presenters, Stanford, in the matter of protecting both our morals and the republic, has taken the lead.
Garth Fagan Dance will next perform Griot New York Thursday, April 29, at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT.
