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When choreographer Garth Fagan looks at an empty stage, he sees a blank canvas of sorts, waiting to be filled with the arch of a back, the curve of an arm, the beat of reggae or the soft strains of Brahms.
“I used to paint before I decided to stick to dance,” said Fagan, who won a Tony Award in 1998 for his work on the Broadway production of “The Lion King.” “I have to come up with lines, with textures, the dynamics of how I use space. I use a lot of periphery space. I’ve got to explore all that space.”
Fagan and his company of virtuoso dancers will bring their art to the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono at 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 28.
“[Audiences] should expect cutting-edge choreography as identified by critics all over the world, phenomenal dancers – we have four Bessie Award winners in the company – and a varied range of music,” Fagan said by phone from his studio in Rochester, N.Y. “We have jazz. We have classical. We have a very contemporary fusion of jazz and Jamaican music by the Jazz Jamaica All Stars.”
Next week’s performance promises to be a melange of seemingly disparate styles and rhythms that ultimately works. It will open with “Prelude (Discipline Is Freedom),” an informal introduction to the dancers and their unique language of movement. Among the other highlights will be “Touring Jubilee 1924 (Professional)” and “–ING,” which debuted to wide acclaim in November. His 2002 piece “Translation/
Transition” will feature the music of the Jazz Jamaica All Stars, whom Fagan first heard while touring with “The Lion King” in London.
“They’re a British group that has taken the traditional music forms – mento, reggae and ska – and re-created them in jazz forms, and it’s just a very fresh music,” he said.
It’s a fitting soundtrack for Fagan, a native of Jamaica who began his touring career with Ivy Baxter and her national dance company. His studies with Baxter, Pearl Primus and Lavinia Williams, both teachers from the Caribbean, influenced him as much as his work in the United States with such legends as Alvin Ailey and Martha Graham.
In the 34 years since he founded his company, he has drawn from these influences, expanded the limits of American dance and blurred the lines between modern, ballet and hip-hop.
“We deal with more contemporary issues,” Fagan said, with a soft Jamaican accent. “We need a different way of moving and different lines. For example, my dancers do a panche arabesque with the back completely down. It’s a different look. Different and more appropriate to contemporary women – they have jobs. Some are mommies. They’re not swans waiting for princes to come.”
That’s not to say he doesn’t appreciate traditional ballet. He loves it. And he has worked with some of the top ballet dancers in the country.
“When I work with them, they push themselves out of the norm,” said Fagan. “They enjoy it because they’re bright, talented dancers.”
Fagan’s choreography seamlessly combines angular movements, graceful turns and athletic leaps, and if the reviews are any indication, the dancers appear to thrive on it.
“The handsome, exotic, completely concentrated Fagan dancers move as if they were born speaking Fagan’s language, and they love the feel of it in their bodies,” Elizabeth Kendall wrote in Vogue.
Fagan, in turn, loves the thrill of a challenge. In “The Lion King,” the challenge was how to get dancers in puppets to move beautifully without hurting themselves. His idea of redefining the work of Brahms in “–ING” may be an even larger task.
“I love Brahms,” Fagan said. “He’s my favorite classical composer. If we don’t bring Brahms to the fore, young people are going to lose him. We’re already missing out on arts education in public schools.”
At first glance, the world of concert dance may seem an unlikely place to pitch Brahms to the masses – especially the young masses. But Fagan’s success with “The Lion King” has attracted a new crowd.
“A broad range of people go to Broadway shows as opposed to people who go to see concert dance,” Fagan said. “What has happened is that lots of people around the world saw ‘The Lion King’ and just wanted to get more.”
If that means more people outside the dance world are curious to see what Fagan can do – sans puppets and props and the Disney name – so much the better for his company.
“This is what I love,” Fagan said. “This is my favorite thing. Dancers and an open space, just carving space and manipulating space and enjoying time and music.”
Kristen Andresen can be reached at 990-8287 and kandresen@bangordailynews.net.
Garth Fagan Dance
When: 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 28
Where: Maine Center for the Arts, Orono
Tickets: $21-$26
Information: (800) MCA-TIXX or www.ume.maine.edu/~mca
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