The showcase began with Isadora Duncan’s The Revolutionary and continued with Tenant of the Street by Eve Gentry, I Ain’t Got No Home (from Dust Bowl Ballads) by Sophie Maslow and Time is Money, by Jane Dudley. Muscular crevices glistening with sweat—clenched fists, sharp dramatic sweeps of the foot and flailing arms—costume, music and color all came together, meticulously to evoke a different era. A courtly Victorian couple danced excitedly, while a man’s red shirt, khaki hat and chocolate-dark skin induced an appreciation for color contrast-combo.
To follow, were thirty-three high school students rendering of Panorama, another Graham classic that will be performed in conjunction with Appalachian Spring, Lamentation Variations and Sketches from ‘Chronicle’ June 10th. White t-shirts and jeans, the girls had their hairs uniformly pulled back; there were only two male dancers, and most were aspiring dancers. Two commentators at the podium steer the dancers into circles, unity and interlocking and to the inevitable flux, change and separation, characteristic of the “cruel disproportion”, “injustice” and “unrewarded labor” bases on which ‘on which our country was built,’ intones the narrator: “Its out heart, ancestors and hard work that makes our country beautiful,” she laments, as the students stomp, step forward, move their arms and clap their hands- choreographically.
