A DANCE TRIBUTE TO MICHAEL JORDAN
Gus Giordano, the doyen of Chicago jazz dance, has always been fascinated by the social phenomena that stir the public. Several years ago, for example, at the height of our curiosity about motorcycles and bikers, he choreographed a provocative piece about Harleys and the men and women whose sometimes violent lives centered around the machines.
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This year Giordano has created A Dance Tribute to Michael Jordan, the highlight of a program by the same name. Jordan’s style and grace make him exceptionally suitable for interpretation in dance. Basketball itself, for that matter, is almost balletic in its speed, lightness, and elevation. And for the most part, Giordano has succeeded in re-creating Jordan’s persona through the performance of accomplished guest artist Amar, who’s shorter than Jordan but has a similar feline grace. Amar’s teammates are also a technically strong contingent, and the ambience of a basketball court, with all the complex movements of the game, is theatrically limned. But Giordano is not merely imitating a game. His Tribute is an impressionistic, not a literal, interpretation.
Barred, a short spoof of class work at the barre choreographed by Mark Schulze, is a witty bit of nonsense showing how three dancers, each representing a different discipline–ballet, modern, and jazz–respond in their individual styles to Pachelbel’s Canon. Meanwhile a male colleague lies asleep in a contorted position on the barre itself. Leigh Kain, Chris Kerber, and Mary Mitchell contributed wholeheartedly to the fun, and Schulze (who played the fellow asleep) shows a real understanding of how each type of dancer approaches barre exercises.
