Let’s start at the end. By the time Deeply Rooted Dance Theater got to the main event of Saturday’s season opener at the Auditorium Theatre, it was already almost 10 p.m. It’s safe to say “Lifted,” a spectacle that’s still technically billed as a work in progress, was well worth the wait.
Choreographer Jeffrey Page’s long resumé includes credits in dance, opera, musical theater and commercial music. As one example of his range, he choreographed the music video for Beyoncé’s “Countdown” and the Broadway musical “Violet.” It’s tempting to wonder how Deeply Rooted got Page to say yes to a world premiere with the company founded by Kevin Iega Jeff and Gary Abbott — now led by Nicole Clarke-Springer and Makeda Crayton. For nearly three decades, Deeply Rooted has been pegged as a bit of an underdog, passionate and professional but rarely touring and never really playing with the big dogs in Chicago’s dance scene.
Seeing those 16 dancers pouring their hearts out on that cavernous stage to a crowd of nearly 2,000 people — in a supremely exquisite production made just for them by Page — and with a capital campaign buzzing in the background as they prepare to break ground next summer on a $20 million South Side dance center, Deeply Rooted may be a late bloomer in some eyes, but seeing everything come together in such stunning fashion was a beautiful reminder that this is a company of underdogs no more.
“Lifted” opens on a bare Auditorium stage, stripped of its theatrical trappings, exposing the back wall and lighting equipment above and off stage. The dancers stand together but move independently, wiping one arm with the opposite hand, tracing it across the chest, allowing the chest to open toward the rafters, then permitting a fold at the waist driven by momentum. Music arranged by Ian Scott sounds like church, a gospel-infused chorale that will shortly ignite as a joy bomb of swing and hot club jazz. I don’t know if Page intends to draw a parallel between the church and the club, but as “Lifted” progresses, he pulls in feverish footwork inspired by vernacular jazz with an occasional balletic twist.
The stark, warehouse feel of the bare stage transforms in pieces as the cyclorama and scrim come in from above, followed by the curtains framing the proscenium, complemented by lighting designer Thomas Weaver’s slow shift toward a richly saturated container of deep magenta and purple-y hues — masterfully balanced with glowing amber. It’s just enough front light to see; not so much that we lose the smoky jazz club vibe.
“Lifted” left us wanting more. But if this is a work in progress, as it’s billed in the program, the only sign was that no one really seemed to know when it was over, unfortunately making for an awkward end to a long night. Two works taken out of the vault were meant to remind us of Deeply Rooted’s journey. They do; Jeff’s 1984 “Desire” and Abbott’s “Flack,” created 10 years apart, are exemplars of the Deeply Rooted aesthetic using ballet and modern dance as a vehicle for African American stories and experiences. Had the dancers not gone all in, this trip down memory lane could have dragged the evening down. Instead, it provided a platform for extraordinary performances by Emani Drake, whose unparalleled talent was recently recognized by the Princess Grace Foundation, plus Sam Ogunde and Nyemah Stuart, to name a few. Bookended by Page’s “Lifted” at the end and beginning with a newly finished stunner by Clarke-Springer previewed this summer at Millennium Park, “Desire” and “Flack” can appear dated, if only because they lean on screen saver-esque projections en vogue at the time these pieces were made.
By contrast, Ulysses Dove’s “Urban Folk Tale,” a juicy morsel created for Dayton Contemporary Dance Company in 1990, looks like it could have been made yesterday. Dove had a Balanchinian-like commitment to simplicity, seen in both “Urban Folk Tale” and “Vespers,” a magnificent piece the company’s women performed the last couple of seasons. Black-on-black costumes and stage designs are punctuated by dancers Ahmad Hill and Mekeba Malik’s white T-shirts and mahogany brown chairs and tables set on opposite sides of a divider, sterile pendant lamps hanging above. Our vantage point as audience members is a little like Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window,” peering in on two couples (completed by Drake and Allyssa McCallum) as they navigate ups and downs, conflicts and resolutions in their relationships. It feels voyeuristic, seeing private moments play out publicly. With these two couples’ jaw-dropping execution of Dove’s demanding choreography (staged by his brother, Alfred Dove), that is quickly gotten over — and impossible to look away from.
Lauren Warnecke is a freelance critic.
