Roderick George’s “The Missing Fruit (Part 1),” produced by kNoname Artist in collaboration with Pomegranate Arts, closes the program with a striking performance rich in meaning and composition. Set to an electronic score by slowdanger, which includes samples of Nina Simone’s “Strange Fruit,” the ensemble piece is mesmerizing in its many layers. Fabric billows when dancers sweep their legs up and around their bodies, and a dense fog, which hovers above them, lends a cinematic quality to the scene. Where the Gibney dancers favored order, the nine dancers in this piece move as if they are bursting with vitality. They seem to channel the music in their bodies, through their hips, and their limbs, which they stretch in expansive kicks and turns. At times, they seem to move in slow motion, undulating their bodies in perfect unison.
The piece, which made its world premiere through this festival, is a segment of a larger ballet in development, which “explores the Black experience within the American social system,” the program notes, adding that it addresses oppression, while also centering “resilience, joy,” and “Afrofuturistic creativity.”
“The Missing Fruit (Part 1)” is ambitious in scale, and its dancers—athletic, expressive, and keenly attuned to detail—bring George’s vision to life in a powerful burst. When two dancers, alone, take the stage in a rapid, acrobatic pas de deux, they are mesmerizing as they jump and twist around, chasing one another across the stage. It is so entrancing that the ending comes as an absolute shock. A flash of light, the sound of a gun, and a dancer now—George himself—on his back. Above his heart, a spot of red glitters, before the stage goes dark.
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