The NDTC’s Easter morning show satisfied

It’s Easter morning.

Part of an audience of hundreds, you are sitting in the Little Theatre, Tom Redcam Avenue. At 6 o’clock sharp, the lights go down in the auditorium and up on the stage in front of the red curtains. The aprons at the sides of the stage also light up for 10 of the National Dance Theatre Company Singers to walk on, five on each one. They are still for a moment.

Then, as if obeying an unseen conductor, the curtains slide open, two dancers run onto the stage, the orchestra in the pit below starts to play and the Singers begin: Lift Up Your Voice and Sing.

It’s all very efficient and you sense that you’re in for a good show. Your feelings have been confirmed by the time the curtains close again, 70 minutes later.

The audience’s continual cheers and applause throughout the ‘Morning of Movement and Music’, the Easter production’s official name, showed there was general satisfaction with it. No surprise there; experience counts. The Easter concert is 42 years old, and the NDTC is 61.

A TRIBUTE

With Marlon D Simms as artistic director and Dr Kathy Brown as acting musical director, the ‘Morning’ was staged as a tribute to the recently deceased Barbara Requa, a founding NDTC dancer.

There was a lot to see and hear, for the company is large. Listed in the programme are 21 dancers, 11 singers, seven musicians and the two lighting directors, Michael ‘Rufus’ McDonald and Taryn Bridgewater, whose sensitive work contributed much to the numerous moods of the dances.

Though the names of their designers are not mentioned, the many and varied costumes worn by the dancers also helped to enhance the intention of the choreographers. Most were colourful, though all the dancers were in black for the excerpt from Rex Nettleford’s Katrina (2006), which opened the show.

The colour was appropriate, conveying as it did the darkness and danger caused by the hurricane. Its ferocity was shown by the score of dancers’ portrayal of wind and rain with their energetic running, leaping, spinning, swaying, shuffling, and general controlled chaos.

The fury of the hurricane was in contrast to the tranquillity of the next dance, an excerpt from Clive Thompson’s Phases of the Three Moons. The solo was by the amazingly graceful and controlled Kerry-Ann Henry, who, in a flowing white dress, danced to ethereal singing by Kathleen Battle and Christopher Parkening.

Wisely, the third item on the printed programme was scrapped. It was listed as a congregational hymn, Crown Him With Many Crowns, to be sung by the audience. However, as it speaks about Jesus dying on the cross for humanity, it would not have found favour with the non-Christians in the audience.

Instead, we got an excerpt from Barbara Requa’s Sunday Morning, with Harry Belafonte singing My Lord What a Morning for nine colourfully costumed performers to peacefully dance to. That number was favourably received.

Next up was Anthony Miller from the left apron giving a dramatic reading of Eloise Skimings’ poem Easter, about Jesus’ resurrection. Miller’s emotional delivery was matched by the next solo performer, Kevan Williams, who sang His Eye is on the Sparrow.

After the excerpt from Nettleford’s 1997 expertly choreographed, powerfully danced work Tintinnabulum came the fourth religious item on the strongly spiritual concert. Featuring the singers and musicians performing the traditional hymn I Want Jesus to Walk With Me, it was the seventh of a total of 14 items,

ELEMENTS OF SURPRISE

Five of the pieces in the final seven were religious. No wonder the rumour persists that some people go to the Easter concert instead of going to church.

The elements of surprise and novelty caused three works to stand out in the ‘second half’, though there was no intermission, and items were separated by mere seconds. Ewan Simpson’s arrangement of Tremaine Hawkins’ joy-filled song, I Never Lost My Praise, saw a dancer (Patrick Earle) unexpectedly become a singer.

It was followed by Earle showing he was also a good choreographer, having teamed up with Keita-Marie Chamberlain to create the only new dance for the morning, We Celebrate…We Believe. Third, musical director Brown’s arrangement of Jerusalem featured infectiously bouncy drumming and lovely melodies.

The excerpt from Simms’ 2005 work, Homeland, was pure happiness, and it flowed into an equally happy arrangement by Marjorie Whylie of Our Father. That in turn segued into the work that traditionally ends the show, Nettleford’s choreography of Noel Dexter’s version of Psalm 150.

A flyer in the printed programme promised what should be another wonderful concert, the company’s 2023 season of dance, starting in July. The venue is the same.

entertainment@gleanerjm.com