"SoLo In TiME" The live theater experience can be a crapshoot, even in New York, the live theater capital of the world. Home of Broadway, the American Musical, Cabaret, Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, you still have to narrow the event down to something you believe will deliver. From that perspective Savion Glover's "SoLo in TIME" presented at the Joyce Theater and fusing tap with Flamenco was a "sure thing." He's a consistently great performer and his selections for his supporting players, with whom he selflessly shares the stage, are reliably excellent. So it is, at the absolute worst, a wonderful performance that you can expect. With every combination of performers one sets up, one runs the risk of the unexpected, and the Sunday afternoon performance I saw began in the realm of the unexpected and catapulted to superlatives that can only begin with spectacular. The event proceeded most stimulatingly and provocatively through the first "act" with more than wonderful performances by all; impressive, stunning, delightful, skillful and moving, with Savion clearly in the exciting driver's seat. After intermission, the excellence continued through Hip-Hop, Flamenco duet, 'Do-Wop' tribute and then came one of those rare and devastatingly spectacular moments in theater for which you wait your entire life hoping you have the good fortune to experience. In "The Guitar" Savion and guitarist Arturo Martinez engaged in what can only be described as a lifetime tour de force exchange. More than a conversation, a heated exchange between feet and fingers, dance and guitar, percussion and percussion, passion on passion, with an intellectual connection underneath. That I was in the he presence of genius had been established in earlier parts of the show, but here we were in a different realm. The audience was transported to a new world - a world beyond dance, guitar, or even sound. The exchange between the two instruments pushed the observer into a fourth dimension. Savion spoke and Martinez responded, then initiated. Savion simmered, waiting to hear, then responded, and Martinez acceded only to open to fervor and passion. Glover responded, respectfully but decidedly but also with the reserved anticipation revealing his sense that Martinez had more to say. Martinez "spoke" and Savion answered. Martinez responded with a tapestry of super-musical response that invited Glover in and then began the celebration. And celebration it was. The two merged in a frenzy of brilliance, mutual passion, glorious invention adjoining that simply tranced the observer for the next 10 minutes during which time I can easily have believed I saw heaven. |
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