“It’s after the end of the world. Don’t we know that yet?”
The choreographer Angie Pittman said those words onstage Saturday, paraphrasing the Afrofuturist jazz musician Sun Ra. Pittman was performing their solo “Black Life Chord Changes” at BAM Fisher Hillman Studio in Brooklyn on a double bill with “Joan,” a Kyle Marshall quartet inspired by Joan of Arc, in its New York premiere. The end of the world and a martyred saint might sound bleak, but the program — part of Pioneer East Collective’s Out Front! Festival — was instead a thrilling combination of different approaches to resisting oppression through creativity.
Pittman’s partially improvised work is split into contrasting halves, “Day” and “Night.” The first part, like many of the choreographer’s earlier pieces, feels internally focused. In silence to start, Pittman seems to be searching, moving with the hesitation of thought as they raise their arms to the sky or lift a heel and drop it with a thump. Gradually, fragments of song and growls escape from their mouth, accumulating into the spiritual “I’ll Never Turn Back No More.” Now when their heel drops, its thump is accompanied by an unexplained metallic crash.
When gospel harmonizing begins, it’s a recording by the group Ther’Up.Y, but Cody Jensen’s sound design is so vivid that I turned to look for the singers. To this music, Pittman travels back and forth along a strip of purple neon at the front of the stage (the equally excellent lighting design is by Tuce Yasak). Pittman rolls their hips and undulates, still searching.
For “Night,” the choreographer dons a cape. (“Costuming,” Pittman later say, “is important for the revolution.”) In this half, they speak — both quoting Audre Lorde about the dark, ancient places of possibility and telling us about their favorite vampire (Wesley Snipes in “Blade”).
Where “Day” is somewhat obscure, “Night” is clear as day. Pittman explicates ideas in the manner of a TED Talk. As their tone shifts between their own quiet, wry voice and a broader Black vernacular one, the code-shifting gears grind a little; they play this for comedy, though it doesn’t always sound under control. The mix of topics (vampires and Black feminism) can seem a little random, but everything is eventually revealed to hold together in an artful argument that culminates in a stake to the oppressor’s heart.
Most effective are simple theatrical touches, like the way Pittman moves in and out of the shadows. With a spray from an aerosol canister, they reveal planes of light that wouldn’t otherwise be visible. The crash accompanying the heel drop in “Day” turns out to be a sample of clanking labor in the work song “I Be So Glad When the Sun Goes Down.” Pittman says that they want us to feel that sound in our bodies, and by the end of “Black Life Chord Changes,” we do.
Marshall’s “Joan” is also about the fight against oppression, but his means are wonderfully old fashioned. Set to Julius Eastman’s 1981 composition “Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc,” a dense and intense work for 10 sawing cellos, the dance is very much a dance. Four superb performers, Justin Daniels, Taína Lyons, Kellye Smith and Syd Worthy, move almost ceaselessly, crossing and recrossing the stage in impassioned runs and leaps. Daniels springs with such height he looks like he might hit the ceiling.
Though inspired by the saint, this work is more about resistance to slavery and colonial rule. Costuming, hair and makeup by Edo Tastic give the dancers a tribal aesthetic, with white marks on their faces like helmet chin straps. Worthy, as the Joan figure, is distinguished by a white circle around one eye. She leads through a gestural language, gathering her suffering, sometimes crawling troops with a raised fist.
“Joan” is part of a trio of works set to compositions by Eastman, whose music has seen a revival of interest in recent years. If “Joan” is representative, it’s a promising project. Although the succession of solos in the musically responsive choreography can feel rote in spots, the cumulative impact is strong. When Worthy orders her troops off the stage, she does so with an authority that anyone would follow.
