Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE with Jason Moran and the Bandwagon (2015)

I had no idea what to expect going into this performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.  I won a free ticket (and meal) from school.  I think the best way to describe it is modern African-jazz fusion dance.  The show opened with a jazz set by Jason Moran and the Bandwagon. Jason Moran is the artistic director for jazz at the Kennedy Center.  He led his trio at the piano, accompanied by a bass guitar and a drum.  Moran sits in a chair instead of a bench and smoothly plays jazz rhythms and gorgeous melodies.  The bass player was very good but he was actually difficult to hear over the drums.  The drums were overpowering at times.  The drummer is excellent and really hammered away his solo, but his rhythms drowned out the melodies from the piano.

Now, I expected the trio to play with the dance troupe, but the second act is pure EVIDENCE. EVIDENCE dance troupe does modern African-style dance. The moves are not terribly intricate, but they are highly rhythmic.  There are lots of shoulder movements, lots of knees and head movements. The African beats are super catchy.  The dancers look like they're having so much fun on the stage. They dance repeated movements in waves.  I am very glad that I got to see this performance and was exposed to this style of dance.

Finally in the third act, the jazz trio did accompany the dance company and the fusion worked beautifully.  The most unique part was a dance to a speech by Martin Luther King that was incredibly powerful to watch.  King had a cadence to his voice that is actually a well defined rhythm that can be danced to.  This was a phenomenal piece of art.