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Dorrance, a MacArthur Fellow, founded Dorrance Dance in 2011; this weekend marks the fifth time Global Arts Live has brought her company to Boston. Dorrance and Bessie Award winner Asherie met in 2004, when both were teaching at Broadway Dance Center, Dorrance tap, Asherie breaking. Asherie’s “Odeon” was the Celebrity Series’s first event at New England Conservatory’s Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theatre in the fall of 2018, and she was part of the company that presented Dorrance’s “SOUNDspace” at the ICA in 2023.
“The Center Will Not Hold” begins with the sounds of percussion before the curtain rises to reveal John Angeles seated at a tabletop instrument. Silhouetted against a blue-lit industrial backdrop with towering stepladder, he bangs out the opening three minutes of a sophisticated rhythmic score that combines his live performance with commissioned music from Donovan Dorrance, Michelle’s younger brother. The lights dim and then come up on Asherie and Dorrance standing side by side. Wearing sneakers and more or less staying in place, they react individually to the music while staying in touch with each other. They seem to be asking how we relate through movement. The center just about holds.
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That’s the theme for the rest of the hour, as Kathy Kaufmann’s lighting cues the emotional shifts. To music that at times resonates with pain, the dancers, all in black and sneakers, line up facing the audience and move in agitated jerks and pops, exchanging positions, suggesting brief solos, a fraught ensemble wary of one another. Angeles, who otherwise is visible upstage left behind a percussion kit, comes forward and is flanked by Manon Bal and Tomoe “Beasty” Carr, their arms gesticulating frantically; it’s as if he were there to keep the two women apart.
Dorrance, now in tap shoes, engages in a furious battle with Angeles and his ambulatory percussion, each in turn driving the other back. Matthew “Megawatt” West crabwalks, handstands, headstands, and serves up eye-popping floorwork while Ron Myles circles warily; for a moment they face off. Donnetta “Lil Bit” Jackson does an explosive solo in front of the group, which then moves to shield her from the eyes of the audience.
Halfway through, there’s a kind of intermezzo where Angeles, Dorrance, and Eriko Jimbo sit at the percussion table and bang it with their hands, fusing music and dance. Bal and Carr confront each other again before the men intervene and produce a truce of sorts. Asherie and West reprise the piece’s opening duet. Then Asherie and Dorrance turn that up a notch, Asherie showing exquisite control in ghostly, slow-motion spinning while Dorrance shadows and finally circles her with frenetic tapping.
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Dancers move in and out of spotlights as if dodging unfriendly eyes; then the lighting brightens and we get brief animated solos from Jimbo, Virgil “Lil O” Gadson, West, Bal, and Carr, the latter two still eyeing each other. Jackson, Myles, and Michael Manson Jr. “tap” as a trio while Dorrance accompanies them from a distance; the footwork is perfectly matched, but only Dorrance and Jackson actually have tap shoes on. The center now is a hybrid of tap and breaking, the two street forms indistinguishable. Angeles brings the piece to a close by leaving his percussion kit and joining in, his clapping and body-slapping now the only audible sound. Community restored, all 11 performers stomp and clap, making their own music, dancers indistinguishable from the music as well as from the dance.
“The Center Will Not Hold: A Dorrance Dance Production”
Created and directed by Ephrat Asherie and Michelle Dorrance. Performed by Dorrance Dance. Presented by Global Arts Live. At: Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre, Friday April 25. Remaining performance: April 26. Tickets $66-$94. 617-876-4275, www.globalartslive.org
Jeffrey Gantz can be reached at jeffreymgantz@gmail.com.
