On the other hand, the evening commenced with a Philadanco! offering that was risk-averse in every way, exemplified by the dancers’ numerous rotations that fell into a hazy middle ground between flat-footed promenades and turns on relevé. However, Juel D. Lane’s “Heirborne (my mama ain’t never touched the sky, but she gave me wings)” was impressively athletic even if it was not otherwise revolutionary. The octet of performers moved in tidy unison blocks to a mélange of thumping musical compositions and remixes by various artists including RAHBI, Bruce Rayburn, and Leo Ra Soul. Likewise, Lane blended contemporary, African, ballet, and hip hop styles.  

I liked when the dancers fist-bumped their own knees. And I’m always content to watch people luxuriate in arabesque, which Lane had his cast doing often—with neat sideways back cranks at the end. These touches helped counter the fact that this dance, which premiered last December on the troupe’s home turf in Philadelphia, was replete with the murky lighting, spotlit solos in silence, throbbing tunes and jet plane noises plaguing the contemporary genre of late. The worst trap it fell into, however, was that its first-person title invoked a seemingly personal and meaningful idea that was unaddressed by all the darkly lit (by Nick Kolin), anonymous group dancing. The capable performers displayed their personalities only in the curtain call, when they bowed one at a time with spontaneous boogies. 

At the end of the night, Kahn took contemporary fads to the extreme. “Vertical Road” opened with whooshing sounds on a dark stage, as if the setting were a wind tunnel. In between bouts of tortured floorwork, Boston Ballet star principal Jeffrey Cirio brushed dust off the shoulders of a statuesque woman in toga-like drapery. A wedge of dancers in the same ivory garb came to life with a powdery eruption. Kahn’s stagecraft is often elaborate and powerful, and this talcum-flying prologue was cool (though why no dust blew off the cast throughout all the windstorms is a mystery). The production team included Kimie Nakano (costumes), Jesper Kongshaug (lighting), and the Ruth Little (dramaturg).  

This introduction seemed to evoke the terracotta armies of antiquity, or other ancient peoples, in the vein of Baye & Asa’s “Cortege” for the Martha Graham Dance Company, which had coincidentally closed the first program of the FFDF. However, this possible plotline lost steam as the piece gave over to teams of dancers pulsing in unison in the darkness for what seemed to be an eternity. The score, by Nitin Sawhney, was essentially a metronome with slight varying in instrumentation. Cirio appeared to die a few times, and he and others often flopped on the ground like fish out of water. The glimpses of Kahn’s Kathak influences and signature crown hands were welcome. Less so tired trends like silent screams, hive mind conjuring, and squat squads. 

Kahn deployed alien encounter imagery for the dance’s labored ending. Cirio touched palms with the statuesque woman, who was now silhouetted behind a membrane backlit by a sallow orb. The corps reentered after her, trailing their hands across the barrier in a slow march. Cirio mid-fived each one in turn as they made their interminable procession. In the last moments, the piece made a stab at religiosity, as a smoke machine (which was distractingly audible long before its billows became visual) produced cloudy whorls, and at the touch of Cirio’s hand the scrim fell. On Kahn’s website, “Vertical Road” is described as “a meditation on the journey from gravity to grace. It explores humanity’s earthly nature, rituals, and the consequences of our actions.” Oh, just that. Unfortunately, those grandiose themes did not register; and the choreography was thin and repetitive.