![]() Savage still retains a healthy respect for the traditions he has stepped away from, and doesn’t hesitate to use the technique in training his dancers. Louis Black Repertory Dance Company (a now-defunct arm of the St. During his performing career he danced in several civic and regional ballet companies, including the Ruth Page Ballet Chicago and the St. Louis, Savage started in modern dance at the Katherine Dunham Dance Company. And when they’re onstage and really going, suddenly we go from 12 performers to 23.”ĭANCING to live onstage music is just one of the ways Savage has parted from his more “classical” dance background. “Musicians count differently, they signal changes differently. “We’re learning how to dance in musicians’ terms,” she says. ![]() “The band keeps you so much more on your toes,” agrees dancer Susannah Blumenstock. Maybe my clarinet player woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, so he’s going to play a little angry, which is going to cause the dancers to dance a certain way, which is going to cause my piano player to look at them strange. “It’s really jazz, all the same spontaneity, the improv, the energy,” says Shelby. Obviously they haven’t been listening to Savage’s musical collaborator, Marcus Shelby, a 31-year-old bass player and jazz composer whose original works and smooth classical covers of the jazz greats–Ellington, Monk, Parker, Mingus–snagged him and his orchestra the Best Local Jazz Group award from the readers of the San Francisco Bay Guardian.ĭuring the rehearsal Shelby is impassive as he plucks his strings and watches the dancers respond, but get him in the chair and start him talking about the relationship that develops among the performers, and his face relaxes into a small but satisfied smile. The tempo’s too fast.’ And I say, ‘Naw, this is jazz music, baby. “Then people come in here and they hear Mingus and they go, ‘What? This ain’t jazz. They only use pop music,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Every other jazz class, they get Ricky Martin, Backstreet Boys, whoever’s hot. It is this exposure to classical jazz that makes them a rarity in the jazz dance world, says the 41-year-old Savage. After years of training with Savage, the company of young dancers moves with confidence, almost bravado, to the bold, sultry music of 40 or 50 years ago. 23 and 24 at Spreckels–don’t need much more direction than that. ![]() “Higher!” he hollers, jerking his chin toward the ceiling. From time to time he shouts, not commands but call-outs, the kind that erupt in a concert when the groove is on. He’ll be getting up in a few minutes to demonstrate a jeté or to push someone’s hip into place, but for now he’s seated. His hands clap, his legs bounce as he tracks the shifting groups of dancers from his seat at the edge of the dance floor. Meanwhile, choreographer Reginald Ray-Savage is sitting down for the first run-through of the day, but that doesn’t mean he’s sitting still. The dancers swing, strut, pose in catty clusters, and explode in exuberant pas de deux and cross-the-floor chases, while along one wall, the musicians–who perform onstage with the dancers at their shows–let loose on some Ellington jam. But upstairs at the Shawl-Anderson Dance Studio, the dancers of the Savage Jazz Dance Company are just launching a rehearsal that feels like a sweaty Saturday night. IT’S A SUNNY, sleepy Sunday afternoon in Berkeley, a time when most College Avenue denizens are still recovering from brunch. The Savage Jazz Dance Company thrives on spontaneity and live music ![]()
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