Savage Jazz coming to Met
The Savage Jazz Dance Company, deemed “the most layered, sophisticated concert jazz dance company in these Western climes” by Dance Magazine, comes to The Met on Saturday.
This San Francisco Bay area company performs dances in a unique relationship with America’s great jazz musicians.
Founder, choreographer and artistic director Reginald Ray-Savage’s approach to choreography gives equal weight to both music and dance. Instead of using music as accompaniment for dance, it is the energy and excitement of jazz music that drives his choreography.
His dances attempt to capture the essence and integrity of jazz music, then enhance its emotional impact through the kinetic energy and visual beauty of dance.
“We don’t make jazz dances,” Ray-Savage told the San Francisco Chronicle. “We make dances to jazz music.”
The basis of his technique began with Ray-Savage’s early training with dance pioneer Katherine Dunham, whose modern dance was infused with African and Haitian elements. As Ray-Savage developed and refined his style, he added ballet and contemporary modern dance.
To this unique blend of styles, he conceived a choreography in which certain portions of a dance were not choreographed.
Ray-Savage’s commitment to the improvisational nature of jazz means that when the musicians improvise, his dancers must also improvise. The improvisational sections put the dancers in double jeopardy because they must respond not only to the music but to other dancers on stage.
That provides elements of surprise as dancers perform without the safety net that choreography provides. As a result, performances are never the same.
Joining Savage Jazz for a portion of the program will be the Whitworth College Jazz Quintet, directed by Dan Keberle and Brent Edstrom. Other dances will be performed to recorded music by a variety of jazz artists, including Wynton Marsalis, Aretha Franklin, Ralph MacDonald, Max Roach and Miles Davis.
In addition to their performance on Saturday, Ray-Savage and his company will be offering two jazz dance workshops in conjunction with area dance instructors and the Inland Northwest Dance Association.
The workshops, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, will take place at the Dance Emporium, 7410 N. Division St. They will encompass a variety of performance and ballroom dance forms and are open to the public.
For additional information and registration, contact Isabelle Cook at 927-0972 or Gail Bongiovanni at 922-4493.