Madison Ballet's Midsummer Night's Dream Delivers

       Titania (foreground) and Puck.  Photo by Andrew Weeks 

by Susan Kepecs  

Peter Anastos’ Midsummer Night’s Dream, a blithe bit of fluff, wrapped up Madison Ballet’s fourth season (March 19-20 in Overture's Capitol Theater) with a bang.  Anastos’ ballet isn’t perfect.  I longed to see more from Titania’s lovely fairy corps, and in several spots slapstick acting upstaged dance.  The frequent tugs of war between the two jinxed couples in particular could have used some judicious editing, and a more balletic approach to humor would have played up the considerable chops these dancers possess, especially the limber Yu Suzuki (who also works with Chicago’s Elements Contemporary Ballet), in the Helena role.

Madison Ballet isn’t perfect, either.  While artistic director W. Earle Smith has assembled 17 strong dancers and stamped his rhythm-savvy Balanchine style on all of them, which lends unity to their individual strengths, the company’s other productions this year didn’t escape with clean slates.  But it was hard to find fault with this performance of Anastos’ 90-minute caprice.

In 2004, when Madison Ballet was still a pre-professional studio company, Anastos himself set the Titania role on Genevieve Custer Weeks, who often flew in for soloist roles while also dancing with now-defunct Oakland Ballet.  Last weekend a more mature Custer Weeks, in total possession of the part, took buoyant pleasure in its simple variations, pushing luxuriously through the music, syncopating a waltz or stretching an arabesque on pointe a breath beyond the beat.  Her acting-while-dancing skills are sharp, too – her gemlike little pas with the bumbling Bottom (played to the hilt by Zachary Guthier), hexed into a donkey by the wood sprite Puck shone with sincere humor.   

Joseph Copley, who joined Madison Ballet last year – he also works with San Francisco’s Margaret Jenkens Dance Company –  was an utter hoot as Oberon, parading around in a bright blue mohawk and long purple capes.  Copley, who’s blessed with both stage presence and striking technique, whipped off cabrioles, tour jetes, tours en l’air and a coupe jete menege with no break, and embroidered his entrechat quatres and brise voles with épaulement.  Even just standing, his back to the audience as he commanded his tiny fairies (drawn from studios across Dane County, including Madison Ballet) to dance, he was impressively expressive.

The wedding grand pas classique was gratifyingly full of movement.  The Royal Court corps and the two soloist couples flowed across the stage in kaleidoscopic combinations.  The regal, understated pas de deux was an ideal vehicle for Jennifer Tierney, an impeccable music box ballerina and a Madison Ballet soloist since the studio company days.  Tierney, solidly partnered by Gabriel Williams, floated in and out of his embrace, wheeling around in arabesque or rising weightlessly into low lifts.  At one point Williams kneeled; Tierney, balanced on pointe in deep penche arabesque, supported only by his upheld hands, lowered her head almost to the floor – a breathtakingly extended line.

A couple of amusing moments captured the essence of Shakespeare’s comedy without sacrificing the ballet canon.  Juliana Lehman, from Titania’s fairy corps, bounded onstage alone in a big pas de chat, eyes wide, only to be chased away by a hissing Puck.  Helena, fleeing the pursuing Lysander (Bryan Cunningham), disappeared stage left.  Cunningham flung himself into a wide échappé, pointed toward the wings – you could hear him thinking “Aha! There she is!” and lept after her.

             But it was Marguerite Luksik, as Puck, who stole the show, delivering her light, elastic, Pan-like variations, built from impish sixth position prances, low tours en l’air, pas de chats and bounding saut de chats, with sheer mischief.  That’s exactly how wood sprites would dance, if they were real. 

Acoustic Africa Brings On the Spirits

by Susan Kepecs

It always moves me when people, faced with adversity, make art.  There’s been a lot of that around here lately – the citizens of Wisconsin have been superlatively creative in the struggle against Dictator Walker.  But nowhere have our brothers and sisters survived more catastrophic political and economic assaults than in Africa.  Somehow, through slavery, colonialism, economic exploitation, environmental disasters and post-colonial strongmen, the spirits of the arts persevere.  Beyond a shadow of doubt, African musicians make some of the most magnificent music on earth.  Get ready to savor the sound on Thursday night, (March 10), when the 2011 Acoustic Africa tour takes the Wisconsin Union Theater stage.  This is music from the Orishas, a panacea for the Walker-weary blues. 

The Acoustic Africa tours (they’re semi-acoustic, really) sound more intimate and closer to the music’s traditional roots than heavily amplified Afrobeat / Afropop, though this softer sound is contemporary, with cutting edge, socially conscious lyrics.  The first Acoustic Africa tour, which played the Union Theater in the fall of 2006, featured Malian guitarist Habib Koite plus South Africa’s Vusi “The Voice” Mahlasela and Ivorian dancer / chanteuse newcomer Dobet Gnahore, who was such a hit she was asked back to Madison several times in rapid succession.

The second installment of Acoustic Africa is a guitar-based show, featuring three superstars, Koite, Afel Bocoum and Oliver Mtukudzi, who’ll perform individually and together in varying combinations. Each of these virtuosos brings several backup musicians from his own band to fill out the sound.  In addition to backup vocals, percussion and bass, these players add the lute-like West African n’goni, the Malian njarka fiddle, the Zimbabwean m’bira (thumb piano) and other instruments.

Of the three frontmen, Koite’s by far the best known in the States.  He’s played with US musicians as diverse as Bonnie Raitt and the avant garde Art Ensemble of Chicago.  Koite plays traditional music in non-traditional ways, usually on a nylon string, plugged-in acoustic guitar that he tunes like a kora or n’goni.  International flourishes acquired by listening to Jimi Hendrix albums and spending years playing club gigs in cosmopolitan Bamako, Mali’s capital, adorn his multi-ethnic approach to Malian music.  Koite’s a griot by birth – “I come from a family of traditional musicians,” he says.  “But I went to school – the National Institute of Arts – to study classical guitar.  When I started to create a style for myself I learned the regional musics of Mali so I could play for everybody in my country.  I wanted to use language and music and scales from the north, from the west, from the Sahel.  To you it probably sounds like one style, but Malian people know the regional differences in my songs.”

Afel Bocoum, also the son of musicians and the protégé of his uncle, Ali Farka Toure, the late king of Malian desert blues, has a gentle sound, steeped in the ambience of his ancestral town, Niafunké, in the semi-arid, agrarian Sahel on the Niger river.  Of the three stars on this tour Bocoum is the most traditional, though his lyrics address the contemporary social issues of his home turf.  In his music the Malian roots of the delta blues come through loud and clear.  Compare Bocoum to, say, a recording by Robert Johnson.  You can’t miss the echoes of Mali in 1930s Mississippi.  (Blogger isn't letting me post YouTube videos today, but you can easily find both of these artists, and in fact, all of the musicians I talk about in this post, on the web). 

Oliver “Tuku” Mtukudzi, from Zimbabwe, created his own mix – “Tuku music,” a name his sons came up with – from the sounds of southern Africa. “Borders are created by a handful of divided people with special interests,” he says.  “The borders don’t matter.  Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa – the same tribes live in all those places, and their art overlaps.” 

The influences in Tuku music include Zimbabwe’s polyphonic m’bira, chimurenga (Zimbabwean social justice music), the swift Harare beat called jit and South African mbaquanga, itself a mix of Zulu jive, township jazz and Xhosa tribal twists.

Though they have very distinct styles, Koite, Bocoum and Mtukudzi wrote a song together for the tour.  It’s based on Malian Mandinga music and Shona sounds from Zimbabwe, and appropriately titled “MaliZim.” 

Mtukudzi, who says this is the first time he’s done a project with West African musicians, was delighted to find common musical ground.  “What surprised all of us when we wrote ‘MaliZim,’” he says, “was that despite the geographic distance we have rhythmic similarities.  We use those similarities in the song, but we also take different rhythms and mix them.  If you know what you’re looking for and have a good ear, when you listen to it you can say ‘oh, that’s Mandinga,’ or ‘that’s m’bira,’ but it all comes together very well.”

What’s notable, besides the music, is the determination of these players to live in their home countries when so many African musicians have set up shop in Paris or New York.  “Show business in Africa is done poorly,” says Koite.  “I completely understand why someone African would want to live in Europe where you can do the gig with a good sound system and get royalties for the albums people buy after your concerts.  You can bring money and hope back to Africa without living there.  But for me it’s important to stay in my country.  I’m really proud and happy that I can bring Malian culture to the world and then come back home.  If I can inspire the young people – I want them to ask themselves ‘why does he go and come back?’– if they go on to do the same, we all win.  Mali wins.  Africa wins.”

Madison Becomes Hotbed of Politics and Performing Arts

It always happens over the long haul.  When the established social, political and artistic order goes stale, places on the peripheries of the centers of power, having more flexibility, become hotbeds of innovation.  So it is that when Japan displaced America in the automobile industry, Silicon Valley arose to replace Detroit as the country’s economic engine.  And as the 21st century starts to reveal its character, mid-size cities may become the country's new cauldrons of creativity.  Certainly, Madison is emerging at last from the shadow of that great nearby 20^th century city where I was born and raised, Chicago.  Definitively, the cow town with a university in “Wisc – where??” that I was somewhat embarassed about when I moved here four decades ago is gone.

Madison dominates the news cycle as the national leader in the new struggle for workers' rights, which is a whole damn lot to crow about.  But since this is an arts blog, what I want to point out is the synergistic growth of our local arts organizations.  We aren't Chicago, or New York, yet.  But in particular, it’s worth noting that Madison Opera’s Threepenny Opera (Overture’s Isthmus Playhouse, Feb. 4-13) was so innovative and brilliant it sold out consistently.  The company had to add extra performances.  And I happen to know we’re about to be socked with another piece of local performing arts wizardry.  In three weeks (on March 19-20, in Overture’s Capitol Theater), Madison Ballet performs a luscious production of Midsummer Night’s Dream, choreographed by Peter Anastos, noted ballet historian and founder of that famous troupe of men on pointe, Les Ballets Trocadero de Monte Carlo. 

As a balletomane and a dance reviewer, I couldn’t be more excited.  When Madison Ballet was just a pre-professional studio company it put on Midsummer twice, in the old Civic Center, in 2002 and 2004.  The production looked lovely on artistic director W. Earle Smith’s student dancers.  It’s going to absolutely sparkle on Smith’s professional company, which wraps up its fourth season with this show.  I don’t say that lightly.  I’ve been watching Madison Ballet’s progress carefully, and writing about it regularly.  In the innovative spirit that’s enveloping our city, Smith’s managed to transcend the economic straitjacket of the times.  Despite the very short seasons dictated by shrunken funds, he’s built a strong, cohesive company with a recognizable, Balanchine-based style.  The upcoming production of Midsummer should put Madison Ballet on the national map.  Watch this space for further updates, and my review.

                                                                                                               Susan Kepecs

Madison Ballet Romances the Audience, Sometimes, in its Annual Valentine's Day Show

by Susan Kepecs

Madison Ballet’s “Evening of Romance” in Overture’s Capitol Theater last Saturday (Feb. 12) – a repertory show featuring four new works by artistic director W. Earle Smith – was notable for how much this four year old professional company’s grown lately.  The hard work of training together over time has paid off handsomely.  Technical unity and group rapport were in evidence throughout.  Madison Ballet’s become a smooth, well-trained unit that can turn out nearly flawless performances, which bodes very well for the company’s future.

That said, “Evening of Romance,” like most repertory shows, was a mixed bag.  The first piece, “Rhythm, Where Are You?” was a suite of ensemble dances, duets, trios and quartets, performed before a giant video screen showing footage (restored and compiled by Timothy Tomano) of Dizzy Gillespie, Cab Calloway, Cole Porter and other greats from the era of big band swing.  The movement onstage wasn’t ballet, but it was definitely rooted in ballet technique.  It echoed rather than replicated the dance steps of the ‘30s and ‘40s, a strategy that worked.  The big group numbers were colorful, and there were highlights: Jacob Brooks danced a good old-fashioned jazzy spat with Michelle Tucker, who’s starting to shine in her second season with the company.  A balletic solo with a touch of soft shoe (in pointe shoes) by veteran company member Jennifer Tierney was flirty and joyful.

But the video screen was set so high on the back wall my field of vision was split between the dancers and the film.  And despite the dancers’ smooth performance, the choreography was repetitive and uniformly jivey.  Some virtuoso airborne steps added to this mix would have broken the monotony and knit screen and stage together in interesting ways while providing visual and rhythmic counterpoint to the overarching dips and jitterbug language of swing. 

The second piece, “Rain,” a solo for company veteran Genevieve Custer-Weeks with composer / pianist Michael Massey playing a concert grand live onstage, was billed as a dance “inspired by the childlike joy of skipping through puddles on a rainy afternoon.”  But the long dark pink dance dress Custer-Weeks wore, with its unfortunate empire waist, was more frumpy than youthful, and “Rain” was as wistful as it was joyful.  Repeatedly, Custer-Weeks pushed away from the piano, danced a combination, and then returned to stand still, facing the instrument rather than the audience, as if lost in nostalgia.  The dance itself was a repetitive series of pique arabesques and chaine turns that crossed the stage on the diagonal or in an arc.  On any other dancer this work would have looked dull, but Custer-Weeks found freedom in its simple patterns, pushing through the notes with elastic musicality and revealing nuances that made an otherwise unmemorable piece mesmerizing.

“Palladio,” the only pure neoclassical work on the program, was a complex short ballet with a very traditional structure.  The presto movement opened with four women (Megan Horton, Molly Luksik, Madelaine Boyce and Yu Suzuki) in white tutus, moving in and out of unison against dark blue backlight.  A staccato series of releves on pointe in échappé, fourth, and fifth position, adorned with bent-elbowed, expressive wristed, Balanchine-style port de bras, was broken by a lyrical solo from Tierney.  Swift shifts between Tierney and the corps followed, all involving very fast petit allegro footwork.

In the adagio pas de deux that followed, Tierney, seemingly weightless, was ably partnered by Bryan Cunningham.  This pair has been dancing together since the company went pro, and their confidence in each other was palpable.  Tierney floated into lifted pas de chats, then landed on pointe in arabesque or folded back dreamily over Cunningham’s arm.  The corps joined Tierney and Cunningham for the third, allegretti movement, which mirrored the relentless petit allegro of the first.

I have profound respect for “Palladio,” both as a piece of choreography and as it was danced.  Petit allegro is the hardest element of the ballet vocabulary, and this long, difficult piece required endless endurance.  Madison Ballet couldn’t have carried off a work like this even a year ago, but it looked quite beautiful Saturday night.  Still, it’s grand allegro, with its sweeping leaps, that usually draws gasps from the audience.  I would have liked to see “Palladio” balanced by a second, freer work in the classical canon; I often wonder why Smith, whose masterful grand allegro combinations are the highlight of his company classes, so rarely lets this side of himself loose in his stage choreography.

“Expressions,” a suite of dances to tunes from Madison jazz diva Jan Wheaton’s eponymous 2005 album, with Wheaton and her trio live onstage, was originally choreographed for the company’s 2009 Evening of Romance show – the one that was cancelled in the economic aftermath of the Crash of ’08.  I saw a studio performance of this work two Februaries ago, and I’ve been dying to see it onstage ever since.  I wasn’t disappointed.  “Expressions” was the program’s high point.

Wheaton was a treat, jiving and flaunting a feather boa while emceeing the show, introducing her trio – Matan Rubenstein on piano, John Christensen on bass and Rodrigo Villanueva on drums – and the dancers for each ballet-based, jazzy piece. 

The dancers – women in short black fringed dresses and fishnet tights, men in black jazz pants and shirts – sat at nightclub tables set around the bare stage.  The choreography was similar to that of “Rhythm, Where Are You?,” though the dances in “Expressions” were better and more ballety.  My one complaint is that “Expressions” would have looked fresher if “Rhythm” hadn’t been on the same bill.

I liked everything about “Expressions.”  Custer-Weeks was jazzy, stretchy, free and spontaneous in her solo to “Can’t Help Lovin’ that Man of Mine.”  Cunningham and Phillip Ollenburg, who’s new this year, served up a spunky, high-energy contest of skill in the ballet-jazz idiom to “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” each challenging the other to do bigger, better cabrioles, kick-leaps and pirouettes.  The lush “Don’t Explain” gave Yu Suzuki, Anna Counts and Juliana Lehman a chance to flaunt their classical chops, albeit with jazz attitude. Custer-Weeks, Megan Horton, Rachel Butler and Molly Luksik strutted their stuff in “Stormy Weather,” shimmying hips and whipping off flirty, foot-flicking turns.  And Tierney’s “One Note Samba,” a showcase for her natural coquettish, creampuffy style, was the program’s piece de resistance.

The finale was a festival of jazzy ballet, the company pirouetting, jumping and kicking in unison, with groups of dancers emerging to show off contrasting strings of steps. “That was really fun,” Wheaton said, “let’s do it one more time!”  And they did. 

A Little Sunday Night Mambo Jazz

As usual, I was at the Cardinal Bar Sunday night to catch the Tony Castañeda Latin Jazz Sextet.  But where were you, my still-hip fellow first-wave boomers?  The Cardinal may be best-known as a disco dance club, but on Sundays it draws a small, mellow, devoted crowd of jazz club regulars.  The scene is comfortably intimate, but on a night like this the Cardinal should be packed with like-minded folks.  If you’re looking for a little mambo jazz and a dance or two you’re missing out on a very fine thing. 

       I thought about this when I wrote my previous post – the one on Gaelic Storm.  That band started out playing Sunday night pub gigs, too.  They hit the jackpot with James Cameron’s epic ship flick Titanic, and now they’re a huge box-office deal.  The TCLJS has yet to find its Titanic, but take it from this old jazz writer – it’s as good as any big-name Latin jazz band out there.  If you listen closely to WORT’s Saturday afternoon Latin music show “La Junta” when Cardinal owner Ricardo Gonzalez is spinning discs you’ll hear cuts from Castañeda’s two albums, Mambo o Muerte and Viva el Cardinal, flowing right into the mix with tunes by Cal Tjader, Mongo Santamaria and Tito Puente.

       Yes, I know Monday morning’s just a shot away, but Castañeda’s gig is early, with two live sets, at 8:30 and 10.  DJ Ken Horn plays Cuban son and salsa in between (and afterwards).  And it’s worth the effort – I swear, the three hours I spend at the Cardinal on Sunday nights are what keeps me young.  I’m always home before midnight, anyway, which is this old boomer’s bedtime. 

      Readers, this is one Sunday night ship that shouldn’t sink.  Please get out and support this Madison institution.  If you go, please drop a comment on my blog and let me know how you liked it – and if you don’t go, let me know why not!

                                                                                                         Susan Kepecs

                                                                                                              

Union Theater’s World Stage Series Gets Set for St. Paddy’s

                                                              photo by Kevin Gilbert

by Susan Kepecs

Here’s your chance to get warmed up for St. Patrick’s Day – Gaelic Storm, at the pinnacle of pan-Celtic pop, whips up a tornado at the Wisconsin Union Theater on Sat., Feb. 19.  Once a humble bar band playing weekend gigs at O’Brien’s Irish Pub in Santa Monica, CA., Gaelic Storm catapulted to international success by serving up traditional Irish dance tunes as the Titanic went down in James Cameron’s eponymous 1997 movie.  The whirlwind band has blown away Milwaukee’s Irish Fest a time or ten and rocked the rafters at the Majestic, the Stoughton Opera House, and other venues in the vicinity, but this is its first appearance ever on the Union Theater stage.

The band’s seen some personnel shakeups over the years, though lead singer / accordionist Patrick Murphy (a native of Cork, he’s the only born Irishman in the bunch) and guitarist Steve Twigger, who’s English, have fronted the outfit since its start.  The rest of the current lineup includes fiddler Jesse Burns, who’s also English, drummer Ryan Lacey, who grew up in California but drank in Irish culture by the pint over a four-year resident stint, and bagpiper Pete Purvis, who hails from Canada. 

I had a chance to talk to Twigger about the band’s evolution the other day.  Here’s what I found out:

Q: What led to the classic Irish storytelling that goes on during your sets?

A: When I met Patrick, I was playing in rock bands and he’d been doing backroom pub gigs.  I was in a transitional period in my life.  He and I would party out at my house – we’d have 25-30 people just sitting around telling stories and passing the guitar around.  That’s a very old-fashioned way of entertaining yourselves.  There were copious amounts of beer that went along with it, of course.  And that’s the true story of how the band got started. 

Before that I’d been in bands that did showcase gigs every two weeks – we rehearsed four times a week to get ready for that, and I was sick of it.  I just wanted to play and have the music happen.  So we got up onstage [at O’Brien’s] unrehearsed and made it up as we went along.  We’d play the same music every week and the same people would come to hear it. We’d do the same song 200 times, but it was always different because of somebody’s reaction to it, or because of what had happened that day with one of us, or what was in the news. We reacted spontaneously to the people and events around us – the music was almost incidental.  It’s same process today.  Go put on the CD if you want to hear one of our songs exactly as you heard it last time.  We’re very organic – every live show is gonna be different.

Q:  How did your appearance in Titanic change the band’s trajectory?

A: We weren’t teenagers who’d just had their first beer – we’d already been around the block.  So we were very careful and conscious of what was happening.  After the movie the phone was ringing off the hook, but we’d set out to play music purely for the fun of it.  We turned down many offers because we didn’t want anything to take away that pure joy.  Those Sunday evenings at the pub were so magical – we refused to let anything ruin that.  When we signed the contract for the movie – it wasn’t a lot of money, by the way – we stood our ground and insisted that they had to fly us back to L.A. for our regular gigs.  That was where our purity came from.  So when we had the chance to hit the road we said “we’re only gonna do this if it scales up our sound.” 

And it has.  We’ve improved our craft over time, but we’re the same band.  Of course, we don’t do the Sunday night gigs any more – in fact we hardly ever do pubs now.  We pop into O’Brien’s or some other small venue every now and then and it’s fun – you’re right there, practically standing on people’s tables, but it’s mayhem. 

You miss some of that life and you don’t miss some of it.  But what’s gone is replaced by bigger and better elements – more great people, more energy, more stories.  And that all translates into our music.  We’ve seen it before.  The Rolling Stones are still out there touring in their 60s because it’s such a kick to be a catalyst to somebody else’s good time.

Q: Early on when you played Irish Fest in Milwaukee it was clear you were a party band.  You partied hard onstage.  How has that aspect of your show changed over the 16 years you’ve been doing this?

A: Behind the scenes there’s a lot of professionalism to what we do now.  Other bands that think of us as party guys are shocked to find out about our work ethic.  The comedians we all love practice their spontaneity, you know, and it’s the same with us.  I love it that people want to party with us all night, but we do work very hard.

Q: Given the personnel changes the band’s gone through, how do you maintain the high quality of your performances?

A: I’ve often said that personnel change is an opportunity to go to the next level – it’s a shot in the arm.  All our players have been fantastic and each brought new strengths to the lineup.  I’m a very optimistic person and I like to move forward.  I find musicians all over the place, and the more we get our name out the easier it is.  The big change for us was when the first drummer left – he’s 67 and he’d been on the road for years and it was time for him to go home.  But I set about finding a new one – I went to all the drumming schools in the country and asked for their most talented grads and that’s how we found Ryan.

Q: Here’s a followup – how do changes in personnel influence the directions the band’s taken, from really traditional to the pan-Celtic pop-rock sound you seem to favor lately?

A: There’s always been some of both.  I’ve been with Gaelic Storm from the start, and my influence is wide.  I listen to more rock in general than Celtic.  My background was rock, I started playing in a rock band in 1976.  We were doing everything from Led Zeppelin to Rod Stewart back then.  So I’ve been an influence on what we play, and Ryan the drummer had a background in rock as well, though he played a lot of traditional music when he was living in Ireland.  We all bring our enjoyment of different forms of music to the table.  I think music in general has become more eclectic in the last 15 years – it’s less compartmentalized than it used to be.  There’s this wonderful cross-breeding now, and we’re just part of that.  It’s the convergence everybody’s been talking about for years – finally, here it is. 

Angelique Kidjo Invokes the Spirits

by Susan Kepecs

When I learned that “Bud Light Capitol Concerts” (aka Frank Productions / True Endeavors, in partnership with the Overture Center) was presenting Angelique Kidjo on Sat., Jan. 22, I asked a friend who’s a fan, like me, if she wanted to go.  “Meh,” she said, “I’ve seen Angelique tons of times.”  I was going come hell or high water; reluctantly, at the last minute, my friend agreed to come, too.  She was glad she did.  The show, which packed the Capitol Theater, proved once again that for the sake of your soul you can’t afford to miss the Queen from Benin when she’s in town.

Kidjo, backed by a tight four piece band, served up an energetic two hour set.  She looked a little heavier than last time she was here, at the Wisconsin Union Theater in 2008, and though she still has every bit of that powerhouse voice I thought she might be starting to show her age till she let loose with her signature dance steps about a third of the way through. Her material, from start to finish, was bright and fresh, and the event proved to be the gathering of the tribes that Kidjo shows always are.

Most of the diverse tunes were off her Grammy nominated 2010 Razor and Tie release, Oyo, an album dedicated to songs that inspired her childhood; the traditional “Atcha Houn,” which she described, strutting around the stage, as the first piece she ever sang onstage, at the age of six; the gentle “Lakutshona Llanga,” in homage to the late Miriam Makeba; compelling covers of James Brown’s “Cold Sweat” and Aretha Franklin’s “Baby I Love You.”  In memory of her father, who, she told the audience, used to play everything on the banjo from Beethoven to Sidney Bechet, Kidjo offered a remarkable rendition of the latter’s “Petite Fleur.”  

Oyo’s a satisfying recording, but Kidjo’s at her best live onstage, partly because her performance personality’s so strong but also for the celebratory rituals she does that take everybody in the house to a higher place.  I’ve seen people dance during encores twice in Overture Hall – once when the Neville Brothers, during their Mardi Gras bash in ’09, cast their spell on our lazy bones, and again a month later Afro-Cuban Allstars filled the big hall with aché. But Kidjo’s show this weekend was the first time I’ve ever seen the crowd get loose enough in the upscale Overture Center to stand and dance through most of the show. 

Some folks were boogieing in the aisles by the third tune, and by the time Kidjo invoked the spirit, as she always does, dancing through the theater laying hands on the audience and singing her anthem, “Afirika,” everybody was belting out the chorus and getting’ down. A jubilant bunch, including the hosts of WORT’s Pan-Africa show Alhaji Njai and DJ Linda, followed Kidjo back onto the stage, dancing like wildfire with her Senegalese sabar player, whose name I wish I’d written down. Those who didn't wrap up the show under the proscenium arch were rockin’ in their rows till the very last note.