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Monday, March 10, 2003

By Jane Vranish, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

When Dayton Contemporary Dance Company romped through Pittsburgh about a decade ago, it was still laboring in the very large shadow of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Saturday night's Pittsburgh Dance Council performance at the Byham Theater showed a company with the same eager charm, the same boundless spirit, the same sinewy muscular attack to its African-American repertoire that it had always exhibited in its performances here.

But where there used to be those cookie-cutter pieces that Ailey and company showed Pittsburgh first ("Gazelle," "The Stack Up," etc.), Dayton had now nurtured its own choreographic roster, and the company was the better for it.

In the interim, the company has parlayed its American Dance Festival performances (and ADF's subsequently powerful backing) into a prominent appearance on PBS's "Great Performances" documentary on Black Dance in America. Now the DCDC dancers are showcasing a new identity, a new self-confidence, a new artistry that they are calling their own.

Of course Debbie Blunden-Diggs' gospel-tinged "In My Father's House" borrowed extensively from the Ailey masterpiece, "Revelations." The play of the skirts, the arms gesturing to the sky, the radiant opening of the arms and Ailey's signature cluster of bodies were too close for real comfort. But with the dynamic thrust of several solos and those "hallelujah" unison choruses (with ultra-dramatic pauses), the dancers swept the audience into a "House" brimming with life.

But if that work played upon the familiar, two other pieces on the program chose to plumb a rich African-American heritage from decidedly offbeat viewpoints.

The Mardi Gras opening of "Children of the Passage" wasted no time in getting down to the business of dance. A celebrated union of two generations of black choreographers, it joined the singular forces of Donald McKayle, a longtime choreographic favorite whose popular works include "Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder," and Ron Brown, whose company appeared with PDC last year and who is ushering in a new generation.

Some of the connections were lost when the seams were exposed by the vibrant straightforward style of McKayle and the more oblique complexities of Brown. But the ritualistic rescue of lost souls was joined at the hip by the edgy sound of New Orleans' Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

Warren Spears' "black" shut the door on the Detroit race riots in the '60s to focus on a high school dance. There were three boys in black suits and those skinny black ties. Their female partners boasted bouffant hair, orange Day-glo dresses and matching high, high heels.

Fond memories.

But Spears did not keep the violence outside. It slowly seeped into the archly entertaining preening, the '60s brand of innocence, the songs by Elvis and The Supremes. The girls became the victims and, all of a sudden, it made us uncomfortable.

Sheri "Sparkle" Williams, the high-powered veteran of this troupe, turned in a remarkably restrained performance that highlighted the confusion of this brand of teenage angst.

Shona Hickman-Matlock's "Unresolved" set itself apart from the other works by its universal theme about two lovers struggling in a relationship. The dance showed its hand early on by focusing more on the individual dance than the connection between the two. But the piece was elevated by the plush movements of Julius Brewster Jr. and especially Monnette Bariel, both prime examples of Dayton's artistic good fortune.