“Jungle Books”: A New Holiday Tradition?
'The Nutcracker,” the world’s most famous ballet, and quite a crowd-pleaser, has had a stranglehold on the Christmas/Chanukah season’s entertainment for years. But CityDance Ensemble’s “Jungle Books,” which had its world premiere in Washington, DC’s new Lansburgh Theatre in the Harman Center for the Arts, augurs a break. With jungle characters beautifully and wildly leaping, prancing and pouncing on stage, this imaginative show for the young and young at heart is likely to fill the appetite for something new and to join the cornucopia of holiday treats.
Rudyard Kipling’s classic tales from his literary masterpiece, The Jungle Book, come alive in a colorful adaptation of timeless stories with themes of morality and perseverance. The show breathes new life into the boy Mowgli, the bear Baloo, the tiger Shere Khan and other inhabitants of the Seeonee Hills of India where Kipling had lived with his family during part of his youth. Kipling’s stories, first serialized in magazines in 1893 and 1894, were published as a book in 1894. His early writing focused on war -- and his later tales about animals, their laws and collisions with man, are in fact war stories cloaked in fable. Mowgli’s story of dispossession and revenge reveals humans as the source of chaos, only equaled by the apes of the jungle. At the same time, Kipling recognized the human qualities of loyalty, friendship and love, virtues that serve Mowgli well.
CityDance Ensemble mixes original choreography, music, costumes and masks to create a performance full of surprises, nimble athleticism, humor and magic. The choreography was a collective endeavor: Meisha Bosma, former CityDance rehearsal director; Christopher K. Morgan, current rehearsal director; and Kyra Jean Green, a former company member and in-house choreographer. Joseph Nontanovan, artistic director of Culture Shock and a long-time partner of CityDance, choreographed the monkey section, Jason Hartley of the Washington Ballet set Mowgli's gymnastic-like solo, and CityDance artistic director Paul Emerson contributed his choreographic voice.
Alice Wylie as Kaa
Unrecognizable as his usual animated self, Emerson also narrated the plot in the role of formal-suited, nineteenth-century British author Rudyard Kipling. The plot follows Mowgli, danced by Jason Ignacio, from his village through the jungle. Along the way he encounters a pack of wolves that raise him as they dance with fingers splayed like claws. When a troop of mischievous monkeys kidnap Mowgli, the mesmerizing serpent Kaa (Alice Wylie), sensuously slithering and writhing, saves him. Later, Mowgli duels with the murderous tiger Shere Khan (danced by Ja’Malik) that has killed one of the wolves. Baloo the bear (Jerome Johnson), an affable, protective friend, accompanies Mowgli on his journey.
Throughout, the CityDance Ensemble showed its fine dancing skill and soul. Newcomer Ignacio, from the Philippines, appears boy-like and charismatic with his small stature and big grin as he gracefully performs spectacular diving somersaults and flips, cushioned by soft landings.
Composer Clifton Brockington created the score with musicians Matthew Jones and Saleem Wayne Waters; the trio performed live on drums, wind synthesizer and keyboard. Marija Djordjevic and Jenny Young designed the costumes and masks that molded the dancers into Kipling’s characters.
Emerson explains the genesis of “Jungle Books” this way: “It came from a six-month long exploration of the elements of a story for children that met a complex set of criteria for crafting a tale that was the best story, with the most room for versatility and original music, and which was at least somewhat familiar to the public. Everyone knows (the story) because of the Disney film, but the film was so far from the tale Kipling told that there was room for us to do a more classic children’s story -- with life, death, drama and humor rolled into one 60-minute show. That was ‘Jungle Books.’”
Another criterion was that the work would suit the talents of the many styles of contemporary dance represented in CityDance and “that we could take advantage of the varied skills of people like Jerome Johnson, Alice Wylie and Jason Ignacio at the same time….characters with, if you will, radically different character. That led us to animal stories, but ones that required a huge range of species.
“We wanted original music throughout, and to succeed in that, we also needed to be sure that the range of the story would allow for a range of music appropriate to a long program. We wanted to be sure that we found something familiar to audiences, which would be of invaluable help in marketing the show, but not so familiar that we could not surprise with our interpretation of the story. We wanted, also, something with a message.
“Finally, we wanted to do something with rich appeal as an ongoing show -- something that people would come to year after year as an ‘anti-Nutcracker.’”
Support for the show came from a DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities grant. Following a free "mini-premiere" last March at the Kennedy Center's Family Theatre as part of the Millennium Stage series, Washington Performing Arts Society (WPAS) became the presenter for the official premiere in December. The additional funding helped boost the production value. New sets and drops created in partnership with Washington, DC’s Ford’s Theatre transformed the stage into an Indian jungle.
Playing the role of monkeys in their debut dancing alongside the CityDance Ensemble were 14 students of CityDance Select, the company’s pre-professional program for serious dancers ages 12-19. The students study technique and performance, as well as dance history, multimedia arts, anatomy and other related fields.
As an added bonus of the show, children could partake of free face painting in the Lansburgh Theatre lobby before the show. Afterwards, they could have their photograph taken onstage with their favorite character.
For further information about CityDance Ensemble, see www.citydance.net.
* See www.judithhanna.com for other writing about dance.