They’re Developing New Traditions

Something wonderfully thought-provoking happened near the end of the latest American Indian Dance Theatre program--it got minimalist. After an evening of sumptuously costumed traditional dance, with contemporary edges glimpsed here and there, “Modern Fancy Dance” came along--six young dancers in black T-shirts and shorts, dancing without an overlay of symbols, stories or decorative adornment.

There were still singers and drums, offstage, but the simple device of lining up dancers in casual black suddenly let you see the core aesthetic values of Native American dance unadorned. Balanchine did the same thing for ballet when he started costuming some pieces in practice leotards.

In the Indian version of fancy dance, the performers seemed to play with their traditional dance vocabulary, and you could easily see their intricate tapping, turning, bobbing and rebounding, the way limbs are kept in vibrant motion, the way bodies seem to shift and spin as if inspired by whitewater rapids.

Of course, the history of Native American dancing wasn’t at all neglected in the rest of the program on Tuesday night at the Bridges Auditorium in Claremont (the only Southern California stop on a current tour). The first act was made of inherited dances from various tribal groups, a mainstay strategy of this 13-year-old troupe.

Organized around a shaman figure (Marty Pinnecoose), there were grass dances and war dances, as well as the virtuosic hoop dance, with Dallin Maybee continuously spinning, his reed circles turning into flowers, wings and a geodesic dome.

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It was in the second act that director and choreographer Hanay Geiogamah experimented with more contemporary movement strategies, something he started to do in 1996. Staged strolls and rhythmic walks started it off, with groups of three or four wearing a mix of modern and traditional clothing. These passes weren’t particularly innovative--the dancers even looked slightly uncomfortable, in new territory--but they had the refreshing scent of the new about them. It was a sudden acknowledgment of Indians as contemporary people who intend to move in whatever direction they want--a good sign for the future of folkloric and national dance companies, which tend to freeze ethnic identity in decorative ways.

What followed were great examples of the kinds of individual experimentation and elaboration that have taken place in powwows for many decades. Solo turns were stunning, especially in “Men’s Fancy Dance” (when “fancy” meant longer and more neon-colored feathers in motion than you could imagine) with Michael Roberts, Doug Scholfield and Dwight Whitebuffalo; and also in a quicksilver women’s “Fancy Shawl Dance,” with Connie Danforth, Eva Duncan, Marla Mehkimetas and Bonnie Tomahsah.

Whether the dancers were elaborately costumed or not, the main thing you could see, so clearly, was a troupe of individuals with their history securely inside them and their future stretched out ahead.