Irish Times writers cast an eye over jazz dance revival show, Hoofers, at the Samuel Beckett Thetare Dublin and a concert by Jamaican bass-baritone Willard White.
Hoofers
Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin
In the post-Fame 1980s, jazz dance was popular in Dublin dance studios and made sporadic appearances on stage with groups such as Chambers Jazz Dance Company and even Dublin City Ballet, featuring home-grown choreography alongside works by Lou Conte and Gus Giordano. As fashions changed, jazz dance had to make way for aerobics and its spin-offs, and even the dreaded line-dancing became a preferable outlet for socialising. But the joyous tap-dancing in Tapestry Dance Company's feel-good Hoofers shows what we have been missing onstage, and although the company has been persuasive advocates for tap since 1996, its stage appearances are all too infrequent.
Along with live music by the Derek O'Connor Quartet, choreographers Diana Richardson and Eric Weitz bring us back to the Hoofers Club in 1920s Harlem. An offset square wooden stage is placed next to the musicians, and although the surroundings are less dingy and smoky than Lonnie Ricks's Manhattan club, an intimacy and immediacy subvert the theatrical surroundings of the Beckett centre. The music has also been updated with Dave Brubeck and jazz covers of Van Morrison alongside Billy Strayhorn and Benny Goodman, but the performers have retained some of the old-fashioned sparring between dancer and musician.
Of course, since the arrival of Riverdance and its imitators, the prevailing experience of percussive dance has been highly co-ordinated chorus lines, often miming to recorded taps. The four individual dancers in Hoofers are refreshingly different: Tracey Martin with graceful slides mirrored in her floating arms, Katy Davis more understated and introspect, Weitz boldly relishing the struggle of virtuosity, and Richardson with a languid body that belies the blurring movements of her feet.
Add to this O'Connor's helter-skelter tenor-sax solos, backed robustly by Dave Fleming (bass), Jimmy Smyth (guitar) and Guy Rickarby (drums), and you get some punchy routines. There is some real virtuosity, particularly in the penultimate a cappella, where Weitz and Richardson go feet-to-feet in battle, but it's never the brash in-your-face variety, and, like the rest of the show it ends up charming as much as impressing.
Ends tomorrow
Michael Seaver
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Willard White
The Helix, Dublin
The Jamaican bass-baritone Willard White is a distinguished opera singer whose career has taken him to the world's most important lyric stages. Now in his late 50s, he continues to adroitly exploit the impressive power, burnished tone and evenness of delivery over a wide vocal range that have long been the hallmarks of his technique. On top of that, he is a splendid actor in both opera and spoken theatre, where his credits include the title role in Othello with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
His theatrical skills were strongly in evidence on Sunday, when, as protagonist in a tribute to the legendary American singer and actor Paul Robeson, his warm speaking voice and sense of timing were most impressive. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of his singing was compromised by the use of amplification, which produced a flow of ultimately wearying in-your-face mezzo-forte all evening.
The slick, cabaret-style presentation involved a biographical narrative read by Beverley Humphreys, with soundbites from Robeson's writings and speeches delivered by White, who also sang some two-dozen songs from the American bass's repertoire. The programme, which was dominated by spirituals, also offered folk songs and parlour favourites, numbers by Hoagy Carmichael and Duke Ellington, and excerpts from stage works by Kern and Gershwin.
The ambience of the event was rather like that of a late-night jazz club. The lighting was atmospheric, and the musical backing was provided by an instrumental ensemble of piano, trumpet, drums, electric guitar and bass.
The musical arrangements by pianist Neal Thornton emphasised the jazz-club ethos, with sophisticated instrumentation of the overly clever kind that drew undue attention to itself, especially in the splendid trumpet-playing of Sid Gauld, and often upstaged the simple lyrics and melodies of the songs.
John Allen
