Garth Fagan Dance

Ruth Seaton James Centre

Ruth Seaton James Centre was filled almost to capacity on Wednesday evening, and the excitement was palpable. The reason? Garth Fagan Dance, of Broadway's The Lion King fame. Based on this Tony Award-winning production, the expectation many of us had, I think, was that this is a ballet company that creates extraordinary dance inspired by and drawn on the movements of the graceful creatures of the African planes.

Garth Fagan is much more than The Lion King, however. This company has a huge body of work, and the style of dance is absolutely unique: the programme reports that Garth Fagan, the visionary at the heart of it all, has been called "a true original" and "one of the great reformers of American dance."

I must quote the programme again, because it describes so well this 'singular dance language': "the sense of weight in modern dance, the torso-centred movement and energy of Afro-Caribbean, the speed and precision of ballet, the rule-breaking experimentation of post-moderns."

Ballet Review, also quoted in the programme, says: "The dancers he has trained are virtuosi, no doubt about it, and fearless too, able to sustain long adagio balances, to change direction in mid-air, to vary the dynamic of a turn, to stop on a dime."

It was a superb performance. Each piece in the programme was quite different from the last and demonstrated the remarkable breadth of this genre of dance. In the opening ballet, Prelude, which featured 15 dancers on the stage, we saw snippets of The Lion King, but also an indication of what was to come. It was an opportunity to really appreciate the very, very high level of proficiency these dancers possess, and thanks to minimal costuming and Abdullah Ibrahim's "African Piano" that lent to the character of the first part of the piece it was a breathtaking start to the evening.

"Sonata and the Afternoon" was, seemingly, a romantic dream. Infused with tenderness and love played out in the drowsy heat of that time of day, it was set to a poignant piano and violin duet by Brahms. It was here that we saw just how magnificently this technique brings out the utter beauty of the human form, such was the exquisite choreography on this traditional theme, and the perfection of the performance.

"In Memoriam: The Brave, The Hands, The Minds . . . All Mankind" was an enormous contrast. Dedicated to the victims and survivors of September 11, 2001, it was extremely moving but also shocking in that it demonstrated, quite fearlessly, the impact of that terrible event on the people who were there. The choreography drew on the footage and still photography of the people watching this disaster unfold that we are all so familiar with: staring into the sky, elbows jutted outwards while hands shielded eyes and hands pointed upwards: their bodies an eerie reflection of the aircraft that were flown into the buildings, before breaking from that angular poise to run from the scene.

This ballet demonstrates the most remarkable aspect Garth Fagan Dance: more than anything else I've ever seen, it takes the language of the body in a particular situation and translates it into a form that is immediately recognisable, and in doing so, tells us more about how we feel about it.

The In Memoriam choreography captured that body language, but much more importantly, compellingly demonstrated how extraordinarily unnatural and forced that body language was.

The disbelief, shock and ultimately the fear was evidenced in every stance and movement. By demonstrating this, it helps us to understand how very, very far out of our human experience that event was.

The first half concluded with another contrasting work: Touring Jubilee 1924 (Professional) which was set to music by the Preservation Jazz Band, which is, incidentally, due to take the stage for the Bermuda Festival this month.

This wonderful work picked up on the many variations of jazz, from a New Orleans funeral to the jitterbug. Lively costumes and really remarkable interpretation of the cultural events and style of dance made this an uplifting and spirited piece.

The evening's second half consisted of two works that were more abstract in nature: "DanceCollageForRomie"and "Translation Transition", which continued to enchant the audience with this gorgeous style of dance and the dancers' incredible skill.

What a wonderful evening! Both inspiring and edifying, The Bermuda Festival has done Bermuda an enormous service by bringing Garth Fagan Dance to the stage of Ruth Seaton James.