Michael Reckord, Gleaner Writer
Members of the National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC) perform at Morning of Movement and Music. - photos by Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
Easter Sunday, 5:30 a.m. The sky is overcast except that, above the eastern hills, the grey clouds wear a gradually widening hem of silver. It's a sign of dawn, as is the crowing of cocks.
Dozens of cars are heading for the Little Theatre where the dancers and singers of the National Dance Theatre Company and those connected to the company's annual Easter concert are already assembled. Soon, the parking lot fills up and the other arriving vehicles are manoeuvred on to the sidewalks above and below the theatre.
At a minute to six, Marjorie Whylie, the leader of the NDTC Singers and Orchestra strikes a familiar chord on her keyboard and the audience stands for the playing of the National Anthem. As they settle back into their seats, the lights go down in the auditorium and up on the left apron of the stage.
It's a sign. The show is about to begin.
Twelve singers file on - six men in dark suits; in front of them, six women in white tops and blue skirts. The first song, Alleluia (a Whylie composition), indicates the mood and theme of the programme. It is about giving thanks, praising God, in music and song, in movement and dance.
Lusty rendition
To the singers' lusty rendition of the hymn Now Thank We All our God, the dancers go through an additional five minutes of the warming up they would have started an hour before. But this is stretching, twirling, leaping and running in step, with style. It enables them to show off their disciplined, well-toned, graceful bodies. Left to onstage, the singers give us Deep River. They are solemn, and seem really to be longing to cross over Jordan.
Then comes the first major dance item, an excerpt from Children of Mosiah (Rex Nettleford), with music by Burning Spear and Peter Tosh. Regal in their colourful costumes, the dancers make beautiful floor patterns, adopt striking poses. But suddenly, amidst the confidence, there is some anxiety, some searching around for something. A cock's crowing sends them scurrying off the stage.
Blow Ye the Trumpet in Zion, the singers' next song, from Joseph Elliot's sacred cantata Man of Israel, is followed by another Nettleford creation, an excerpt from Katrina. A mainly slow, meditative piece, it ends with a wonderfully controlled solo by Alicia Glasgow.
Back again are the singers, with a suite of three songs, the first of which is another Whylie composition, God is Working His Purpose Out. The others are O My Jesus and Don't You Know. This year, it seems the choir is focusing on the vocal element of their performance; their movement is minimal.
Husband-and-wife dancers, Carole Orane Andrade and Arsenio Andrade Calderon, next perform - so beautifully - the Ave Verum excerpt from Bert Rose's
Edna M ballet. The romantic love suggested in that duet gives way to love of another kind, the love of Jesus (Mark Phinn) for his friend, Lazarus (Marlon Simms). The second-half sequence of the dance (Of Sympathy and Love by Clive Thompson) in which Lazarus is resurrected from the dead is mesmerising.
Carole Orane-Andrade and Arsenio Andrade-Calderon perform Bert Rose's Ave Verum at Little Theatre, Tom Redcam Avenue, in St Andrew, on Sunday.
Kevin Moore's dance Celebration Courage is brief and energetic. It features four male dancers - Simms, Phinn, Patrick Earle and Allatunje Connell - in largely ensemble dancing, and ends with a striking star burst formation tableau, with the dancers' heels on the floor and each body raised diagonally on one hand.
Carl Bliss' solo, Were You There, sung mostly a cappella, is quite wonderful. The applause it draws is the loudest up to this point. But that applause is soon matched by the amount given to the following act, another solo song - by Jhana Williams of Ave Maria to which Andrade Calderon performs his own dance, also titled Ave Maria.
The bird motif returns in the Milton Sterling's dance He Watcheth which is joyfully performed by Keita-Marie Chamberlain, Tamara Noel, Tovah-Marie Bembridge and Stefanie Thomas in shocking pink, floor-length dresses. The motif recurs in the next item, the Singers' charming version of the folk song I Heard a Parakeet in De Garden.
After the Marlon Simms dance Joyful, Joyful, performed by the full company to a hip-hop version of Beethoven's Ode to Joy, the singers return with The Lord's Prayer (music by Whylie) and Noel Dexter's Psalm 150. Nettleford's choreography to the latter item allows the dancers to close the show (at 7:25 a.m.), wonderfully.
Dancers perform Milton Sterling's He Watcheth at Morning of Movement and Music, hosted by the National Dance Theatre Company, at the Little Theatre, Tom Redcam Avenue, in St Andrew, on Sunday.
Carl Bliss performs Were You There
