Last May, Brazilian tapper and choreographer Leonardo Sandoval and American musician and composer Gregory Richardson performed at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Dorrance Dance’s exhilarating “SOUNDspace.” Richardson, Dorrance’s musical director, made his arco double-bass solo dance; Sandoval made his bodyslapping monologue into music, with himself as the instrument. This weekend, in a Celebrity Series presentation, the pair are back with their own company, Music from the Sole, and watching the exuberant, Carnival-themed work they’re bringing to New England Conservatory’s Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theatre, “I Didn’t Come to Stay,” you can hardly tell the music from the dance. The piece runs about an hour; Thursday’s almost full house clearly wished it had stayed longer.
Sandoval met Richardson when he applied to the school at Jacob’s Pillow in 2014, studied there with Michelle Dorrance, and was invited to join Dorrance Dance. Bonding over a shared love of 1970s Tropicália, they created Music from the Sole as a tap-dance and live-music company that celebrates tap’s roots in the African diaspora. “I Didn’t Come to Stay,” a Works & Process at the Guggenheim commission, was developed in part at a Jacob’s Pillow residency in April 2021; it premiered at the Guggenheim in April 2022 and was presented on the Pillow’s outdoor Leir Stage that summer. The title is taken from Maya Angelou’s memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” which begins, “What you looking at me for?/ I didn’t come to stay.” Sandoval has explained that, as an immigrant, you’re always resetting and restarting, and you don’t know how long you will stay.
Kathy Kaufmann’s lighting design for the rear-wall scrim features an orb and an obtuse triangle, suggesting the sun and moon and perhaps a Rio de Janeiro beach; they change color throughout the show. The tapping area is flanked by band members Noé Kains (keyboard) and Josh Davis (trap set) stage left and Richardson (guitar, electric bass), Jennifer Vincent (cello, double bass), and Magela Herrera (flute) stage right.
The show starts with voices chanting in the Plimpton Shattuck lobby; then the 13 performers enter in a Carnival parade, weaving through the audience singing and banging on drums and percussion that includes tambourine and insistent agogô bells, their party clothes a riot of bright hues. Once the band members have taken their places, the tapping kicks in, complex, tightly choreographed, attentive to the rhythmic nuances of the music, but with personal touches. It’s the dancing of a community that can make room for individuals. From time to time the performers’ shadows are projected against the rear scrim.
Orlando Hernández sets the tone early with an a cappella solo that goes from sashaying and shuffling to double and triple time; he’s a locomotive slowing down and speeding up. At the opposite end of the spectrum but equally mesmerizing, the quartet of Ana Tomioshi, Naomi Funaki, Roxy King, and Lucas Santana sway back and forth in slow motion to ghostly percussion. The band members turn handclapping into a kind of tap, and Vincent even joins the dancers; later, Herrera plays her flute while making a circuit of the stage.
One segment finds the performers in silhouette against a blazing orange background. When the lights come up, Tomioshi, Santana, Sandoval, and Gisele Silva are shoeless. To Herrera’s flute, they strut and shimmy and wag their butts; it’s all suggestive of house and passinho, or Brazilian street funk. The band members sing as Sandoval and Silva duet in a whirling mating dance, earth and sky and wind and water; when the music stops, Sandoval turns bodyslapping into another form of tap. And when the other dancers return in tap shoes, Sandoval and Silva join them, tapping even in their bare feet.
Another highlight begins with Funaki soloing to Richardson’s bluesy electric bass, raindrop pitter-pattering one moment, gliding and traveling the next. Following a too-brief catlike solo from Sandoval, Gerson Lanza joins Funaki for a speed duel. He’s tap as jackhammer, all while his upper body radiates casual; she’s tap as pure liquid. They’re equally astonishing, even if at the end he’s the one who doffs his hat in tribute.
The party ends as it began, the performers sambaing back out into the lobby, this time throwing streamers into the audience. I was reminded of the streamers that people on departing passenger ships used to throw to their friends and families on the dock, a symbol of connection and perhaps a promise to return. Music from the Sole may not have come to stay, but it should come back soon.
I DIDN’T COME TO STAY
Choreography by Leonardo Sandoval, with improvisation by the dancers. Music by Gregory Richardson, with the band members. Performed by Music from the Sole. Presented by the Celebrity Series of Boston. At: New England Conservatory’s Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theatre, Jan. 11. Remaining performances: Jan. 12-13. Tickets $95. 617-482-2595, www.celebrityseries.org
Jeffrey Gantz can be reached at jeffreymgantz@gmail.com.
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