Review: Tap-Dancing Soul in Spirit-World Limbo


tap dancer Michela Marino Lerman He is an outstanding jazz musician. In recent years it has made room for himself not always welcoming to hoofers or female performers in jazz clubs. Shows performed by his band Love Movement At the Whitney Museum in 2019 they were truly acts of love, parties were overflowing with good vibes and brilliance. But for her Joyce Theater debut, she’s trying something new: a 90-minute theatrical narrative, “Once Called Now.”

A New Orleans tale set in the spirit world just before Mardi Gras. Lerman is Kahina, a woman whose ancestors mediated to give him another chance at life. Under the guidance of Orisha Ogun (poet Orlando Watson) and a Tarot card high priestess (vocalist Shenel Johns), she must learn to stop self-doubt and instill love into her soul. Then, when his heart is weighed by the feather of Ma’at, he can awaken and live.

Lerman designed the show and directed it with Dana Greenfield. He wrote the delicious New Orleans-style music with bassist Russell Hall leading a booming eight-piece band. Accompanying her on stage are Elementz Krewe: four well-chosen master tap dancers: earth (Roxanne King), fire (Melissa Almaguer), air (Tommy Wasiuta) and water (Orlando Hernández).

Since Lerman is an introverted, all-musical artist, it’s a smart choice to give Kahina internal monologues voiced by someone else: actor and playwright Anna Deavere Smith. But these recorded monologues, full of self-help stereotypes, exacerbate the show’s problems rather than solve them.

The story of Kahina’s journey—learning not to look back from Orpheus, discovering that materialism is shallow—is mainly conveyed by Watson’s narration. His nimble, sharp-spoken poetry also extends to contemporary commentary on America’s divided state, technological distractions, and toxic masculinity, albeit intriguingly tangential.

Tap dance (mostly suppressed by the group) slips between narrative pieces and does little to advance the story. In standard tap style, he oscillates between group cohesion and opportunities for solo improvisation—all high-end stuff that feels almost unnecessary in a narrative context. King and Almaguer take distinctive solo numbers, and a late duet by Wasiuta and Hernández to a delightful jazz waltz is the show’s long-winded breath of dance freedom of air and water embodied in sound and movement.

Lerman himself seems more narrowed down. His inner monologues are raging – “Stop telling me I’m not good enough!” “I won’t take this anymore!” – but when the spectacle around him calms down, you can hear the great eloquence and strength of his feet despite the theme of self-confidence.

Finally, he says, touchingly, in a small voice, “Just remember/Find your centre.” At this point, “Once Upon a Time” reached its second rank carnival energy. But Lerman’s strongest artistic voice did not materialize in this show.

Michela Marino Lerman, ‘It Was Once Called Now’

at the Joyce Theater on Sunday; joyce.org



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