The Kreative Arts dance establishment has joined a long line of companies, troupes and schools in the production of full dance productions to show off work they have been doing. Some have well established seasons or annual productions.
“Greens and Golds 3: Watch We Now” is the latest show in this line; the 2019 production of what has now become an annual performance in this “Greens and Golds” series. “Watch We Now,” staged at the Theatre Guild Playhouse was choreographed and directed by Artistic Director Jonathan Hamer and Assistant Director Esther Hamer.
The performances and performers were several and varied – many different types and topics exhibited by a large cast of dancers ranging from beginners to professionals. But it all seemed to be a part of a scheme that guided the production which was highly focused on dance. There were performers listed in the programme as “Debutantes” as against those listed as “Adults”, all in some way having a connection to the company or school.
Many groups have this kind of opportunity to showcase what their pupils have learnt or what their members have worked on. But this performance demonstrated a few important differences from most of what is seen in productions of this nature.
First, there seems to have been a deep concept that informed the performance, there were themes of sorts. Second, the performances demonstrated qualities not always found in a number of shows by dance groups and schools exhibiting their work.
In earlier years there was a strong theme of patriotism and one imagines that might even have been the thesis that gave the series of productions a name – green and gold being taken from the colours of the Guyana flag and appropriately incorporated into the spectacle that is normally a part of performance texts. But in “Watch We Now” there was only one item that was obviously patriotic – an excerpt from the spoken word poem “Motherland” by Mark Luke-Edwards and Yarrodin Bowen. This was enhanced by movement and presented by the Debutantes.
Otherwise, the strongest discernible theme was dance itself. A number of items used dance and movement to articulate an idea or a subject, such as “Labour”, in which there were visible motifs reflecting men at work. In items like these, the choreography tended to be a bit more abstract while illustrating its subject in a number of other ways to make it recognisable.
“Dance Through Time” was a more overt work about dance, as was “Bloodline” to a slightly lesser extent. The first went back decades to trace forms of popular dance which were the fashion in those previous ages, with the Adults imitating the moves, which might have been excursions into nostalgia for some in the audience. The second had an appeal to the present time through Steven Ramphal’s “Soca in Me Veins”. In contrast to the choreographies that tended to abstraction, these celebrated the favourites of the dance halls of then and now. They, however, never quite captured the spirit and energy that drive those dance moves and relied upon audience memory and familiarity for effectiveness.
On the other hand, the production’s more sophisticated choreography took the audience on journeys of the imagination through dance. This is what dominated the first half of Greens and Golds as the concept of the performance properly took shape. This was both literal and metaphorical as the imaginative presentation carried over into the printed programme.
The titles of the series of dances were presented as parts of a poem – the shape that it visibly took on the page. Additionally, it read as a poem that helped to articulate the thoughts, ideas and the imaginative stimuli of the choreographers and directors. Clearly, the concept was dance. Dance employed to work out the emotions and strong feelings of the artist. These ranged from “Dreams and Nightmares”, through “Sculpts of our Imagination” and “Liquid Suspension” to “The System” and “That Damn Box”.
These were obviously titles that expressed outrage and resistance on the stage as well as in the written poetic expression, which included an outcry against “perspectives/shaped by society”. This became more explicit in “shaped by that damn box /that sometimes keeps our artistry bound and gagged” with an impulse to “escape”.
This is the kind of work for which Esther Hamer is known as both poet and dancer. While she often gets opportunities to exhibit this in her work as a member of the National Drama Company, in a show like this she can be more independent and individual. This is one of the significant differences between this show and others of its type – the way it has a purpose of showcasing the work of its students and members but used as a vehicle to express an artist’s creative imagination and make statements.
Esther herself appeared in a number of the dances, which in a sense outpaced the other items because of her own virtuosity. There were items such as “Challenge” or “100 Degrees”, there were moments when she was able to dance with attitude not expressed by the other dancers. What is more, surely the pas de deux with Jonathan Hamer was of a professional class and apart from the others.
Another important area in which “Greens and Golds 3: Watch We Now” stood out above other school shows is what it showed off as the work of its students. Very often, the difference is seen in the younger dancers. In classical dance, mainly in foreign first world countries, children learn to dance at an early age. In Guyana many young children are sent to various dance classes and these schools stage concerts to show them off.
We do not get the impression, however, that they are learning to dance. They prance to music. No introduction to technique is discernible. At best, they are taught a dance to a particular piece of music. They are taught a dance, rather than taught to dance. Or they just prance.
On the contrary, in “Greens and Golds” even the youngest children seemed to have some presence on stage. They appeared to understand what they were dancing. They appeared to be learning to execute dance techniques. They exhibited a sense of performance in the “Watch We Now” show. Some amount of understanding contributed considerably to the quality and effectiveness of the dance and that was what was in evidence.
An excellent example of this was the item called “Hakuna Muziki”, which was a very technical piece. Many techniques and devices were used and the execution by the Debutantes was good enough to make it more than just work – they made it outstanding. It was one of the complex pieces, which also illustrated another strength of the production. It was of good technical quality through its uses of sound and spectacle.
Ironically, it was in the technical areas – particularly lighting, that flaws were introduced because of the failure of the Theatre Guild’s lighting system. Not for the first time, there is where hitches contaminated the flow of the performance. It was ironic because lighting, as a part of the spectacle, was one of the highlights of the performance. Lights were very creatively used in many pieces, taking advantage of colour and stylistic effects.
A great deal of attention was paid to the spectacular in the production, to which those lights contributed. Creativity was much in evidence in the costuming, which was the main ingredient in the array of spectacle. The images, shapes and colours virtually kept pace with the crispness and fluency in a performance in which items succeeded each other without announcements.
The production was stage managed by Ayanna Waddell with lighting by Darwin Peters.
