LaDiego Dance Theater
LaDiego Dance Theater presented Nutcracker—Land of the Sweets on Saturday night, November 18th, choreographed by Daniel Marshall (LaDiego Artistic Director and Founder), Aliyah Hassan, and Natasha Ridley. The Educational Cultural Complex in downtown San Diego was packed — all 275 seats were filled and additional seating had to be added in the back.
This was a completely reinvented Nutcracker, with music by Duke Ellington rather than Tchaikovsky. LaDiego’s Nutcracker is a modernized, bluesy reinvention of the late–19th century ballet, and provided a thoroughly enjoyable evening of dance.
The LaDiego Dance Theater Nutcracker creates a wonderful 1940s and 1950s nightclub atmosphere, reminiscent of Harlem’s Apollo Theater and the legendary Cotton Club. A full-scale ballet, presented in two acts, LaDiego’s Nutcracker delighted the lucky audience with more than a dozen wildly diverse pieces.
The panoply of dance styles included classical ballet, jazz ballet, tap dancing, swing dancing, and Arabian Nights set pieces. Several of the ballet sequences included terrific partner work. Several of the jazz sequences included very difficult allegro sections, often with triple counts (“and-a-one”) extended for eight measures or more.
Nutcracker—Land of the Sweets opened with a nightclub party scene, and the dancers conveyed a real sense of party. This is one of many great things about LaDiego Dance Theater. LaDiego dancers have a strong sense of what they’re doing on stage. You don’t see them “acting” — they simply inhabit their characters, and the result is believable performances.
And, delightfully, most of these dancers have extraordinary charisma and theatrical instincts. The range of technical ability varies, yet everyone is dancing full-out and having tremendous fun. LaDiego dancers know how to put on a show.
A few words about technique — LaDiego Dance Theater puts dancers with varied skill levels on stage at the same time, a remarkable method I’ve never seen elsewhere. Dancers with only a handful of years of training are thrown into the deep end of the pool, and the result is fast-forward on-the-job training. And, owing to the skill of the choreographers and artistic director, the dances are seamless, inventive, and highly entertaining.
Overall, the company technique is thrilling. If they were in New York, the three principal dancers, Aliyah Hassan, Danika Pramik-Holdaway, and Natasha Ridley, could all be members of the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. Likewise, the LaDiego men are very strong. Justin White, Vincent Hardy, and the guest artists, Aaron Ellis and Jason Marks, performed with boldness and vigor, and all were excellent partners. And, of course, there is the electrifying Daniel Marshall.
Soloists Taylor Hogg and Liz Mantalas, and company dancers Lindsey Bach, Stephanie Breining, April Cortes, Lucy Duck, Sulijah Learmont, Lauren Pasqual, and Jenny Peterson all performed beautifully and well. LaDiego dancers are musical dancers with great stage presence.
LaDiego Dance Theater is all about dance theater. When I watch this company perform, I see an embodiment of two of New York’s greatest jazz dance troupes, the Fred Benjamin Dance Company and the George Faison Dance Company. When word would go out that one of these companies was planning to have a season, the entire New York dance world took notice.
I’m very happy to witness this tradition being continued. Well-trained dancers reveling in the joy of dance, skilled performers having so much fun and creating terrific drama at the same time. Choreography that uses the whole stage, set to music that makes you want to jump out of your seat. Powerful emotion, the highs and lows of human experience, and the thrill of being alive. These qualities make great dance theater great.
LaDiego Dance Theater is traveling this noble road.
Add comment November 26th, 2006