Opening night lights

Haigood and Moses reprise familiar works at the Black Choreographers Festival

By Rita Felciano

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

On Feb. 10 the 2006 "Black Choreographers Festival: Here and Now" started on a low note, even though the schedule for the two-week-long event looks impressive enough. Organized by the African and African American Performing Arts Coalition and K*Star*Productions, the festival's workshops, symposia, art exhibit, films, master classes, and apprentice opportunities speak of a concerted effort to spotlight contemporary African American dance.

But the heart of any festival of this type has to be the live dance component, particularly if it promotes itself as "dancing into the future." That's where — at least on opening night — the organizers' ambitions apparently outstripped their ability to deliver. A smallish audience at the Project Artaud Theater was served a program of three solos, one duet, and an ensemble piece by a youth company. Given that the best works were reprises by well-known artists who regularly pack houses on their own, this was thin fare.

The evening opened with a selection from Joanna Haigood's 2005 Dances around the House, based on one of Remy Charlip's Air Mail Dances. Without its architectural context, the excerpt at Artaud looked even more mysterious and inviting than it did last year at the Exploratorium. The Dutch door frame, suspended against the theater's black proscenium wall, acquired a huge personality of its own. Haigood approached it like a seeker, frightened by but inevitably drawn to the mystery her actions might unlock. A poet of understatement, she wove magic out of swinging, climbing, and playing with this simple wooden frame. Music by Nino Rota and Django Reinhardt aptly underlined the explorations.

Robert Moses also beautifully performed his 1997 solo Doscongio. Set to two movements of Chopin's Sonata for Cello and Piano, the piece has the dancer noodling and slinking through the score with but a few direct references to the music, among them arms imitating descending piano runs. Doscongio very much grew out of Moses's own body, with dancing that is both relaxed and fiercely focused. Maybe the whiplash turns and sputtering feet were not quite as incisive as they have been in the past, but Moses remains a mesmerizing dancer.

Haigood returned with Susan Voyticky in the evening's sole premiere, Fragile, performed on a double-ring trapeze. Voyticky, a member of Keith Hennessy's Circo Zero, is a much stockier and more muscular performer than Haigood is, so the two complemented each other rather nicely. However, Voyticky's choreography for Fragile needed to better explore the idea of fragility and the potential of these very different performers. The opening image, in which Voyticky seems to emerge out of Haigood's body, and the closing one, in which she cradles Haigood on the floor, had some promise. For the most part, however, gestures of genuine expressiveness never blossomed.

Culture Shock, a large ensemble from Oakland, performed director Kim Sims-Battiste's 2005 Miss Kim's Groove. These days many hip-hop choreographers find ways to translate an original vocabulary into more than showmanship. Groove was not one of these instances. Though fervently performed, the work's interlacing movements quickly became monotonous. In the long run, energy, a steady beat, and full-out dancing only go so far.

Opening night also featured Los Angeles artist Chloe Arnold performing with a father-son duo of African-style drummers. Intriguingly called "improvography," Arnold's In the Spirit engaged her in a playful competition with Mosheh Milon Jr., in which she challenged him to pick up the speed and accuracy of her spitfire rhythms.

It's worth noting that earlier in the day the Dallas Black Dance Theater had presented two extraordinary solos at San Francisco City College: Essence, by Christopher Huggins, a hot young choreographer from Chicago, and African American dance pioneer Asadata Dafora's classic 1932 Awassa Astrige/Ostrich. Both were worthy of festival fare. *

BLACK CHOREOGRAPHERS FESTIVAL: HERE AND NOW

Fri/17–Sat/18, 8 p.m. and Sun/19, 3 and 7 p.m.

Also Sat/18, 3 p.m.

Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts

1428 Alice, Oakl.

$10–$20

(415) 863-9834

www.bcfhereandnow.com