Dorrance Dance: Beyond Belief

Foiled again! After seeing the national tour of Mean Girls last week, this post was all but destined to be another review of the show, which I was lucky enough to see on Broadway last fall. But in between seeing the show and writing this post, I attended a Dorrance Dance performance on Tuesday evening.  After that there was no other option: it is impossible not to champion Dorrance Dance. To be clear, I fully support giving Tina Fey money to do whatever she wants to do, so please go see Mean Girls when it stops in a city near you. But, for now, shall we dance?

A stuffy reputation is hard to conquer. Dance is the often seen as the abstract expressionism of the performing arts world because, absent the dialogue of a play or the lyrics of a musical, dance requires that the audience make a lot of interpretations on their own. Interpreting art is often intentionally challenging and forces the audience to look in a mirror and reconcile what they see. But tap dance has always been an easy entry point into Dance. Michelle Dorrance, a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, and her troupe of dancers are chipping away at that stuffy reputation. It is nearly impossible not to enjoy and be swept up in the percussive fluidity. The dancers move as one but maintain a distinct individuality that allows every audience member to identify with one of the dancers on stage.

Dorrance Dance started the evening with "Jungle Blues." The piece features the entire company dancing to Jelly Roll Morton’s “Jungle Blues” and the choreography instantly transports the audience to a Prohibition era speakeasy somewhere in Louisiana – at least, that’s where I went. The dancers tap, slide and land on their heels and toes and every part of the foot in between. How they don’t all have sprained ankles I’ll never understand. Dorrance talks in a 2017 PBS Newshour interview about how the desire for a certain kind of sound informs the type of movement the body must make to accomplish such. Watching a Dorrance piece will completely illuminate that idea. 

The second piece of the evening, "Three to One," is a bit more dramatic. Initially lit to show only the dancers legs, "Three to One" features just three dancers. In the middle of the piece Michelle Dorrance herself takes over the stage. She, in fact, is the only one actually wearing tap shoes for the piece. As an aside, if ever you were under the impression that you had strong legs, I am here to tell you that you do not.

The final piece Dorrance Dance performed on Tuesday evening was "Myelination." The piece features several distinct styles and tones. The discordant, tortured, writhing segment in the middle of the piece, lit in red, was borderline painful. No, strike that. It was actually painful. But what a fascinating notion, that just music, movement and light can provoke such a specific emotional reaction. Other segments are lit with softer colors and feature far less terrifying movements. All sections of "Myelination" blew the audience away. 

Coincidentally, Mean Girls features a kick-ass tap number, so perhaps it was destiny that just a few days later the very idea of tap dance was stretched beyond imagination. I'll leave you with this video in the hope that you will watch this one and get sucked down the YouTube rabbit hole so all of the Dorrance Dance videos garner more views and they eventually conquer the world making music with their feet.