Review: Revivals rule in Giordano Dance Chicago’s spring series

Lauren Warnecke on April 1, 2017

Friday and Saturday at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, Giordano Dance Chicago’s spring series displays a wide range of possibilities in American jazz dance. While some of the newer works show off this 54-year-old company’s capacity for currency, classical jazz dance reigns supreme on this program.

Created in 1993 as part of GDC’s annual Jazz Dance World Congress, former River North Dance Chicago artistic director Frank Chaves’ “Grusin Suite” is a primer on Chicago-style jazz dance, although Chaves’ isolations, touch turns, high kicks and hip circles are distinct from the method established by this company’s founder, Gus Giordano. The differences between Giordano jazz and River North jazz are subtle, but noticeable to a discerning eye.

Even so, Gio’s dancers handle the piece better than could anyone else, particularly in the second section’s jovial trio highlighting leading men Devin Buchanan, Zachary Heller and Adam Houston, and some exceptional full-company unisons toward the end of the piece. The inspiration for “Grusin Suite” is composer Dave Grusin’s infectious original soundtrack from “The Firm,” which accompanies the dance. It’s a great album (see also: Harlan Howard’s “Never Mind” performed by Nanci Griffith and Lyle Lovett’s “M-O-N-E-Y”), and when combined with clean, crisp jazz dancing and understated original lighting (by Todd Clark) and costume (reconstruction by Branimira Ivanova) doesn’t appear the slightest bit dated.

Audience favorite “The Man that Got Away” (1990), another RNDC endowment gifted by former co-artistic director and choreographer Sherry Zunker, has all the flair of a proper jazz solo. Dancer Ashley Downs carries it off with pizazz, humor and a bit too much whack to her kicks and tricks. It’s particularly refreshing to see Giordano dancers embodying these River North gems, which now enjoy a life beyond a vault full of VHS tapes. Since Chaves’ retirement in 2014, RNDC has been on hiatus, and although the company hasn’t officially declared that it’s finished, it’s telling, perhaps, that favorite works are starting to pop up in the repertory of companies that can execute the aesthetic. So it’s not hard to speculate why these former rivals might now work together as Giordano is trusted with maintaining some of RNDC’s signature works.

Two premieres from last season, Peter Chu’s “Divided Against” and Brock Clawson’s “Sneaky Pete,” contrast the razzmatazz of the RNDC rep and another revival: a dynamic, full-company restaging of Jon Lehrer’s 2008 “A Ritual Dynamic.” Last year’s newbies are improved with a bit of age, though Clawson’s “Sneaky Pete” is this program’s best representation of Giordano today. The film noir-inspired mini-narrative highlights dancer Zachary Heller as a man hiding in plain sight, until a lady in red (Maeghan McHale) discovers him. In the final chase scene, McHale and Heller full-on sprint from wing to wing, weaving in and out of Clawson’s tight contemporary phrase work among the swirl of Ivanova’s gorgeous A-line dresses.

Chu’s “Divided Against” suffers from its placement, following the bright and happy “Grusin Suite,” and is riddled with missed opportunities. What should be a steady build falls flat as the mood onstage fails to change leading up toward a climax dictated only by Djeff Houle’s original music score, but the versatility “Divided Against” asks of Gio’s dancers makes me love this piece anyway. Wiped-off facial expressions and slow-moving, contorted, unappealing body shapes are not the M.O. of this company, and if not for those other fatal flaws, “Divided Against” would be a stunning and surprising knockout

Closing the program is “Lost in this World,” Liz Imperio’s melodrama about a man and a woman who meet in a nightclub and are ripped apart by an alien invasion … or at least I think that’s what it was about. Imperio has an impressive resume as a Los Angeles-based choreographer to the stars. Her commercial hip-hop aesthetic likely reads better on television, with the support of close-up camera shots and J-Lo standing at center-center. But an exposed upstage wall, costume changes galore and all sorts of special effects couldn’t save “Lost in this World” from looking (and feeling) 2-D.