THE the world-renowned National Dance Theatre Company's 43rd season of dance
will take off at the Little Theatre on Friday, July 22.
It will showcase a feast of new works, pieces from the active repertoire, and old favourites such as Spirits at Gathering and the ancestral Kumina which has been off the boards for some years.
But it is the new works by a number of new choreographers that promise to be of special excitement. Homeland by Marlon Simms, who has just returned from Southern Methodist University with the welcome skill of dance documentation using the labanotation technique, utilises the vocabulary of NDTC in new and interesting ways.
Oniel Pryce, an up-and-coming dancer has created Certain Todays/Unborn Tomorrows with movement designs that promise to excite and arrest audience attention. Of The Cross is a carefully crafted mood-piece by Keith Fagan, his second piece of choreography for NDTC and Garvey Lives, created by Shelley-Ann Maxwell, offers a new look at an old NDTC theme of ancestral connections in the quest for identity with inventive choreography and in-depth reflection.
NEW GENERATION
The dance-works challenge an entire group of new-generation dancers on whom the renewal and further development of NDTC depend, starting with Keita-Marie Chamberlain and followed by budding front-liners like Mark Phinn, Marlon Simms, Kevin Moore, Jermaine Rowe, Candice Morris, Tamara Noel, Oniel Pryce, Marisa Benain and Patrick Earle. Some ten new recruits (supporting dancers) join established performers like Arlene Richards, Arsenio Andrade-Calderon, Abeldo Gonzalez-Fonseca to express the continuity and renewal so vital to all performing arts groups.
They appear, as well, in new works choreographed by established choreographers Clive Thompson (Ode), Arlene Richards (Borderline) and artistic director Rex Nettleford (Odyssey).
The season will pay special tribute to Bob Marley for the 60th anniversary of his birth with the revival of Court of Jah (by Nettleford), Tribute (by Eduardo Rivero-Walker) and a suite of Marley Songs arranged for the NDTC Singers by musical director Marjorie Whylie.
Cedella Marley is designing the costume for Thompson's Ode, while Colin Garland's magnificent designs for Court of Jah will be resurrected. Richards is designing for Nettleford's Odyssey ,while Barry Moncrieffe will design Shelley-Ann Maxwell's Garvey Lives.
Under the keen eyes of Barry Moncrieffe, associate director, assisted by Marlon Simms and Arsenio Andrade-Calderon (dance captains for remounts) and balletmistress Arlene Richards, the season is being prepared with the usual hard work and dedication of the dancers, musicians, singers, and creative technicians at the Little Theatre studio in time for the run which will last until August 21st.
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