Hitchins
On the weekend, the University Dance Society staged its 38th season at the Philip Sherlock Center for the Creative Arts, Collage: Fusing Together the Patchwork of Dance. Like the University Singers and the UWI Panoridim Steel Orchestra, the dance society provides an artistic outlet for the student community.
Having seen the talent, but moreover the potential, of the performers and choreographers on display, it really is a shame that the university relegates to an extracurricular group what should be a degree programme producing trained pre-professionals.
Sunday's show consisted of eight numbers split evenly by an intermission. Michael Holgate was responsible for the opening number, I Saw My Land, a triptych presenting portraits of Jamaican society through a mix of traditional folk and current dancehall movements.
Groupthink and anonymity
This was followed by one of the show's most powerful numbers, Pharisaic-(al), an indictment of society's inexorable push towards conformity, groupthink and anonymity, and the struggle of the individual to break free. Sade Bully (daughter of noted theatre director Alwyn Bully) used a repetitive percussive track, a large group and modern dance to realise her dark vision. She is a young, exciting talent, one of a new generation of artistes (like playwright Amba Chevannes and filmmaker Storm Saulter) who, forgoing or sidelining more lucrative careers, are determined to revitalise our indigenous art.
Maria Hitchins and Denise Gibbs followed, respectively, with Shoes, and Depths to close the first half. The former was a peppy, frivolous number light on actual dancing. The latter, Depths, was a journey of spiritual discovery which suffered from over-narration. By explicitly telling the audience every step of the journey, the performers onstage were rendered superfluous instead of being instruments of expression.
The second half began with the night's other standout performance, Conversations in Passing, stepped by Stefanie Belnavis. Belnavis, formally trained, used a judicious mix of movement and voice, with the performers running soundlessly across the stage, intoning vapid introductions, their bodies and words gliding in and out of focus. Like all good art, it leaves room for the viewer to inhabit the piece, to become part of Conversation.
Enjoyable experience
The other numbers were The by Lawson Pinder (ambitious but lacklustre), Crate X-citement by Maria Hitchins (see her earlier piece), and Mango Passion by Marlon Simms (one-note). The show may have been served better by ending with the numbers by Bully, Belnavis or Pinder.
But Collage: Fusing Together the Patchwork of Dance was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, a night of cultural edification, and a reminder of the inexhaustible abilities of the human body in motion.