History Gets Tangled in JazzAntiqua’s Lesson

In evoking the origins and evolution of the blues, the locally based JazzAntiqua Dance and Music Ensemble, which performed Saturday at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, inevitably retraced the same historical path as “Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk,” but without the brilliant stylistic fusion and sense of focus that made the latter so memorable.

Obviously, the story of how enslaved Africans created a new culture in their diaspora can be retold in many ways as a source of pride and inspiration. Titled “In the Beginning . . . ,” the earnest but disjointed JazzAntiqua version developed no new or distinctive insights. Indeed, the major collaborators on this one-act epic often seemed to be working at cross purposes, with the emotional heat and social vision of poetry read by Bruce Nelson and Ava Dupree becoming very remotely distilled in the jazz score by Marcus Shelby, and some unintended ironies emerging from the juxtaposition of traditional West African dancing (choreographed by Nzingha Camara) and ballet-influenced jazz dancing (choreographed by Pat Taylor).

For starters, artistic director Taylor seemed to be trying to dramatize a direct connection to Africa in these sequences--a black continuum--but her reliance on ballet technique only reinforced a sense of distance, providing a reminder of the hyphenated, partly European nature of the African American cultural forms being explored. But at least everyone performed skillfully, and the guest artists from Le Ballet de Kouman Kele West African Dance Company looked spectacular in red on the wide Ford stage.

Now 6 years old, JazzAntiqua boasts not only the sophisticated Shelby jazz quintet but a number of excellent dancers. In the suite of repertory excerpts that opened the program, Elaine Wang brought exquisite lyric suppleness to the balletic solo ending “Come Sunday” (choreographed by Taylor to music by Duke Ellington), with Charles Zacharie dancing powerfully both in this piece and in “Evening, 9:10 461 Lennox Avenue” from the Taylor/Shelby “Midtown Sunset.” Valerie Hampton found a persuasive emotional center for a very scattered solo in “In the Beginning . . . “ and Daryl Copeland danced strongly all evening long. Finally, actor-singer Nelson raised the voltage of the evening every time he appeared with his intensity and authority.