TV REVIEW : ‘Generations’: On Dance Function in Tribal Life

Tonight’s “American Indian Dance Theatre: Dances for the New Generations” on PBS really ought to be seen in conjunction with the company’s previous (1990) “Dance in America” telecast.

The earlier program concentrated on dances, the new one on social context. Together they tell a story that neither can manage alone.

Airing at 9 p.m. on KPBS-TV Channel 15 and KVCR-TV Channel 24, and at 10 p.m. on KCET-TV Channel 28, the hourlong “Generations” documentary uses American Indian Dance Theatre merely as a linking device, focusing instead on how dances function and are taught in several different North American tribal communities.

The company dancers become, in effect, adopted children of tribal groups in British Columbia, North Dakota, Maine and Massachusetts, learning dance techniques and traditions alongside young locals.

Fascinating insights emerge in these sequences about the varying role of dance as a social, ceremonial and competitive activity for the Kwakiutl, Penobscot and Iroquois people, among others. Such issues as governmental repression of Indian culture, and the challenge of keeping it alive in urban areas, also receive generous screen time.

Had the program been a half-hour longer, the dances themselves might have achieved their proper weight. Instead, they are poorly shot and heavily edited--not as drastically cut, perhaps, as most of what the ongoing PBS “Dancing” series shows, but still inadequately represented.

*

Choctaw filmmaker Phil Lucas punctuates the telecast with gorgeous ghost effects: the glory of Indian dance as a kind of mirage on the American landscape. And, with editor Will Godby, he adroitly weaves documentary, performance and historical footage together to create remarkable fusions of past and present.

The continuity of Indian tradition is not merely talked about here, it is demonstrated through the kind of laminated imagery that film alone can provide.