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Rhythm in Shoes guests extend circle to all
Cityfolk billed the concert as Rhythm in Shoes with Dallas Chief Eagle.
The audience earned a mention as well.
The Dayton-based dance and music company and its Lakota Sioux guest artist did perform their specialties as advertised, but the highlight of a nearly sold-out concert Thursday, March 5, in Boll Theatre at the University of Dayton was the closing “dance” by performers and audience volunteers of many ages.
Each holding a hoop overhead, provided by the dignified Dallas Chief Eagle and his lively co-performer, Jasmine Pickner, they began a gentle procession that formed a circle, then proceeded into smaller inner rings.
The result illustrated the message the champion hoop dancer explained in words near the beginning of the concert: that everyone and everything on the earth is connected to it and each other.
The night included a traditional selection of Rhythm in Shoes tap and clog numbers, backed by the band on a raised platform behind. Students in the troupe’s training company joined the six professional dancers in two segments.
There were also vocal and music numbers, two of them thoughtful and melancholy during an otherwise mostly upbeat evening.
The guest Native American dancers took the stage intermittently to their own vocal and percussion accompanist.
Their dances, the numbers of hoops they used and the interlocking arrangements they created with them while prancing and spinning clockwise grew ever more complex. At one point, Pickner ended up on the ground, completely enveloped in a structure of hoops. They wore them like wings, covered their costumed bodies with them, and wore them on their heads.
Their tradition, refreshed with contemporary influences, is a subtle, but impressively seamless art. The amount of effort they seemed to expend remained the same — quite calm — as the level of their challenge increased.
He moved in stately fashion and dressed in dignified, if ornately detailed black and white traditional costume. Being of a younger generation, she wore red, pink and green, showed much more up and down movement, rapid spinning and even used hoops that were brightly decorated.
Rhythm in Shoes, Dallas Chief Eagle and Jasmine Pickner will perform again tonight, March 6, in Boll Theatre, but the show is sold out. It will culminate a week-long residency at the University of Dayton. For more information, call Cityfolk at (937) 223-3655.
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