Reflections on NDTC's Easter concert

As the curtains draw to a close on the National Dance Theatre Company’s (NDTC) concert at the Little Theatre on Sunday, I, like the rest of the audience filling nearly every seat, reluctantly stopped applauding the now-hidden dancers and singers, getting ready to depart.

From the row behind me, a girl’s voice asked, “Are we going to church now?” Amused, I thought, “So where do you think you’ve been for the past hour?”

My question flowed from the religious atmosphere that the NDTC’s 43rd Easter Morning of Movement and Music had established. As with most, if not all, of the previous concerts, the theme focused on praise and thanksgiving to God, and I suspect that many people have been using the trip to the theatre as an excuse for not going to church.

Twelve of the concert’s 18 items had titles that referenced a church service, and those which didn’t had content that was at least quasi-spiritual. The show began with Opening Hymn, with the dancers moving to choreography by Company Artistic Director Marlon D. Simms and the singers and musicians performing Oh Worship the King, a hymn based on Psalm 103. It ended with the full Company performing Psalm 150, with choreography by Rex Nettleford and music by Noel Dexter.

Friends of the NDTC will know that the now deceased Nettleford and Dexter, two giants in their respective fields, contributed tremendously to the world-class quality of the company. They are missed, but – and this was a topic of discussion among several groups after the show – there was a “freshness” in Sunday’s concert that arose from the company’s many newcomers.

They are easily identified if you know the “code” used in the printing of the concert programme. The font sizes and capitalisation used show that there is a four-part membership spectrum.

The range is from the names of full company members being printed in capital letters to the names of the newer performers being in an incrementally smaller font. You can see that there are many more members among the dancers and singers with names in the smaller fonts than those in all-caps.

But the newcomers showed they can be excellent. For example, two singers whose first names are in one of the smaller fonts, performed one of the most applauded items. I refer to Toni Barrett and Shane Wright who sang The Potter’s House (words and music by Varn Michael McKay, arrangement by Conrod Hall). Theirs was a dramatic conversation in song.

Amaya Gomes, whose name is also in one of the smaller fonts, not only danced gracefully in a colourful floral skirt to a French song by Celtic Woman, but she and Dance Captain Paul Newman together choreographed the solo work, 'Luminosity'. Created last year, it was one of the more recent pieces, with only Simms’ Creed (2024), being younger.

This latter dance was one of the highlights of the concert. It is important both because it’s the only addition to the Company’s repertoire for the year and because it is a major work. Choreographed to an adagio for strings by Leonard Bernstein, it calls on the talents of 11 male and female dancers and asks them to – in several movements, individually and collectively – flow smoothly from one fantastical shape to another.

Some of the shapes, many seen only in silhouettes against a cyclorama, were beautiful; some looked like monsters. Imagine four octopuses dancing together. It deserves another viewing. No doubt it will be brought back for the summer Season of Dance.

The Easter concert in recent years has added a poetry reading, and the 2024 poem was written and read for the occasion by Joan Andrea Hutchinson. Written just a couple of weeks ago, the author told me, the poem, Those Whom the Gods Love Die Young, is about the birth of Jesus, the pain of his crucifixion and the joy of his resurrection. It was dramatically delivered in both Standard English and Jamaican.

The morning as a whole was in tribute to the late Dr Wigmore Francis of the NDTC Musicians, while two of the dances were performed as tributes to the late theatre director and educator Brian Heap and to the people of our long-suffering neighbour, Haiti.

entertainment@gleanerjm.com