Surrounded by dancers, musicians and community leaders on the Jay Pritzker Pavilion stage, Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project co-director Mashaune Hardy gave the final sendoff for “Divination: The Dancing Souls of Black Folk.” This year’s showcase in Millennium Park served as the celebratory end of a two-year process for 10 dance companies participating in the project.
But Hardy suggested that Saturday night’s free concert in the park was more a beginning than an end, with a proclamation and a challenge posing as a question.
“Have you been moved?”
If the answer is yes, Hardy said, then continue to support these dance companies with your time and, perhaps more importantly, your pocketbooks.
Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project’s mission is to preserve, protect, embolden and empower Black dance in Chicago. The project kicked off in 2019 with an inaugural eight-member cohort culminating in a similar concert at Millennium Park two years ago. Titled “Reclamation,” that evening seemed to say, “We’re here.”
“Divination,” by contrast, said “… and we’re not going anywhere.”
Several of the original CBDLP companies returned for this second round: Muntu Dance Theatre, Najwa Dance Corps, Joel Hall Dancers and Center, Forward Momentum Chicago, Chicago Multicultural Dance Center (which houses the Hiplet Ballerinas) and Deeply Rooted Dance Theater. Importantly, the 10-member cohort now employs a more expansive lens of Black dance by adding footwork, via The Era, and tap, with M.A.D.D. Rhythms. New members Praize Productions and Move Me Soul completed the line-up, plus a community cast of young dancers performing a rousing finale and DJ Duane Powell setting the mood with an onstage set before the show.
Most of the work CBDLP does and the resources it provides are aimed at supporting each of these (historically underfunded) dance nonprofits — some who’ve been precariously operating for decades. Give them additional tools and resources to strengthen their infrastructure, the model says, and the dancing has a better platform on which to shine.
This was so abundantly clear in performances by The Era, M.A.D.D. Rhythms and Deeply Rooted, for example, who have exquisitely met the moment as current leaders in their respective forms.
The Era’s Brandon “Chief Manny” Calhoun, Jamal “Litebulb” Oliver, Jemal “P-Top” Delacruz and Sterling “Steelo” Lofton performed a new piece, partly choreographed and partly freestyle, to beats by DJ Spinn. A surprising twist: In one section, the group slowed footwork’s lightning-fast speed to an ooey gooey pace — almost a dirge — giving us a chance to see the elements of their rousing finale building block-by-building block.
M.A.D.D. Rhythms revived portions of Donnetta “LilBit” Jackson’s 2022 “Mixtape 2.0,” a genius combination of tap dance and old-school hip hop, anchored by Missy Elliott’s “Get Ur Freak On.” And Deeply Rooted previewed an excerpt of artistic director Nicole Clarke-Springer’s new “Sacred Spaces,” a simply stunning work set to gospel music by Mahalia Jackson, Bobby McFerrin and GMWA of Worship and dedicated to Clarke-Springer’s daughters and mother.
The night also served as an official baton passing to Hardy and project co-director Kevin Iega Jeff following director Princess Mhoon’s departure, announced Aug. 14. Jeff and Gary Abbott, both co-founders of Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, curated the production.
1 of 3
Expand
It should not go unnoticed that, as a whole package, “Divination” was tighter and stronger than “Reclamation” two years ago, better leveraging the strengths and weakness of Pritzker Pavilion as a dance venue. Pieces were short, upbeat and avoided floor work — an absolute necessity if you want the front half the house to actually be able to see the show instead of watching it on the jumbotrons above the dancers’ heads. Seamless transitions involved truly gorgeous, compelling videos introducing each company, tying the whole thing together with stirring spoken word by Lauren Dotson. Most dances were performed in simple, white costumes, which wove a through-line between otherwise disparate artistic voices.
And that’s kind of the point. In a single evening, an organization committed to Black dance demonstrated how impossible it is to define what that is. Najwa and Muntu bookended the program with traditional patterns and beats from points of origin. Others, like Move Me Soul, took a transatlantic approach, fusing West African techniques with American forms like jazz and modern. Ballet is a foundation for Deeply Rooted, Forward Momentum, Hiplet and Praize. As tap dancers, M.A.D.D. Rhythms tells the story of how percussive dance made its way from Africa to the deep South, then on to Chicago, where The Era’s footwork was born. I can’t know what it’s like to carry that kind of lineage and legacy. Lucky for me, though, we could all see it in every one of those dancers, leaving an audience of thousands moved — and wanting more.
Lauren Warnecke is a freelance critic.