Dance at nJPac Dazzles with Beauty and Boldness - ArtsFreePress

Dance at NJPAC Dazzles
with Beauty and Boldness
Gabrielle Salvatto and Anthony Savoy, Photo by Rachel Neville
By Valerie Gladstone
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is
NJPAC’s principal resident dance company,
which is enough by itself to set off a beacon
to summon dance lovers to Newark. The
company’s engagement last season grew
even more luminous with full houses and a
performance of Revelations that featured a
cast of 50 in the glorious final segment.
Judith Jamison, the Ailey company’s Artistic
Director Emerita and an NJPAC trustee,
spent her 70 th birthday here with thousands
of well-wishers—a cause for celebration,
which is also how NJPAC defines its dance
viewpoint. The joy of watching the perfect
chemistry of movement and music attracts
an enthusiastic dance audience, whether
modern, classical, folk or tap are featured
in the lineup.
Thanks to a committed dance presence in
NJPAC’s programming, you can savor them
all this season.
In December, NJPAC offers not one but two
holiday celebrations. The Apollo Theater’s
Ellington at Christmas on December 8
combines a concert by the 16-piece David
Berger Jazz Orchestra, choir and soloists
of Duke Ellington’s and Billy Strayhorn’s
Nutcracker Suite—a jazz interpretation of
Tchaikovsky’s score—and excerpts from
Ellington’s Sacred Music. The great Newark
tapper Savion Glover and dancers from the
Dance Theatre of Harlem School provide
the accompanying exhilarating dance. The
dynamic contemporary African and African-
American dance troupe Forces of Nature
follows on December 14 with a Kwanzaa
observance that showcases drummers and
dancers who are gifted in modern and
West African dance, ballet, hip-hop and
martial arts.
“We explore and tell the legends, history
and social history of the African-American
experience in dance,” says company Artistic
Director and Founder Abdel R. Salaam. “We
want to empower young people, families
and communities.”
Inspired by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr., Arthur Mitchell co-founded Dance
Theatre of Harlem in 1969 to give African
Americans an opportunity to perform ballet.
It is fitting, therefore, that the acclaimed
troupe will perform on January 17 in honor
of King’s birthday.
“His tragic assassination propelled Mr.
Mitchell to do everything he could as a ballet
dancer for African Americans,” says Virginia
Johnson, the company’s Artistic Director.
“We focus on the same thing today—what
we can do as dancers for the African-
American community through our school
and company. There’s new energy in the
organization as we show ballet’s relevance to
the African-American experience.”
4 New Jersey Performing Arts Center December 2013