Collier, Collaborators Deliver Dazzling ‘Memoirs’

By Bobby Reed I Jun. 14, 2023

Isaiah Collier leads his band, The Chosen Few, through a program of reimagined standards to accompany the South Chicago Dance Theatre during the world premiere of Memoirs of Jazz in the Alley.
(Photo: Andy Argyrakis)
South Chicago Dance Theatre dancers perform June 10 during the world premiere of Memoirs of Jazz in the Alley at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre.
(Photo: Andy Argyrakis)

Audiences today hunger for interdisciplinary art. That notion was vividly illustrated by the crowd’s response to the June 10 world premiere of Memoirs of Jazz in the Alley at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre.

Conceptualized by director and choreographer Kia S. Smith, the ambitious production featured the South Chicago Dance Theatre troupe, audio recordings, sonic collages, video projections and stellar stagecraft. The live score consisted of arrangements and newly composed music from acclaimed saxophonist Isaiah Collier, leading a nonet version of his band The Chosen Few.

This dazzling theatrical work of historical fiction was inspired by an online gallery of photographs chronicling a sociocultural scene fostered in Chicago by Smith’s late father — the jazz musician, educator and community-minded mentor Jimmy Ellis.

Collier, whose album Cosmic Transitions (Division 81) received a five-star review in the June 2021 issue of DownBeat, has collaborated with dancers before. The 2019 Hyde Park Jazz Festival in Chicago presented the debut of his original work The Story of 400 Years, featuring 14 musicians, four dancers and choreography by Kennedy Banks.

While that 2019 production featured original music, Memoirs leans heavily on material that Smith selected and then recruited Collier to arrange. Along with the fiery live music emanating from the orchestra pit, the show’s sonic landscape included “synthesized segments constructed by Smith,” according to the program notes.

The tunes included the standards “Bye Bye Blues,” “Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise” and “It Never Entered My Mind,” as well as “Gbogbo Omo Ibile (Going Home).” That track appears on reissues of Solomon Ilori’s 1963 Blue Note album, African High Life, and its inclusion in this show prompted Collier to acquire a talking drum.

A key highlight of the show was the rumbling, tumbling rendition of “A Night In Tunisia,” serving as the propulsive, timeless soundtrack to a segment showcasing three pairs of dancers, all executing precise movements with stop-on-a-dime precision.

The production featured 22 dancers, five of whom were soloists. Gifted actor and dancer Trey Alexander served as a mesmerizing soloist, as well as the show’s costume designer, responsible for colorful clothing that resembled summer outfits (and even pajamas), augmented by footwear that looked more like socks than traditional ballet slippers.

Scenic designer Rasean Davonté Johnson’s video projections — of images such as the moon and a gilded picture frame — were an evocative element that gracefully complemented the performances.

The show’s nonlinear narrative — free of spoken dialogue — took the audience on an emotional rollercoaster ride, punctuated by both brutality and buoyant whimsy. Lead character the Lady in Red (portrayed by the consistently compelling Kim Davis) endures numerous forms of abuse, including sexual assault, which was conveyed through unforgettable choreography and acting. (One particularly harrowing scene prompted an audience member to shout, “Do something!”)

The horror of those scenes was counterbalanced by dance numbers imbued with joy. The choreography repeatedly nodded to the tireless Lindy Hop dancers of the Harlem Renaissance, and Smith seemed to draw from many pop-culture sources, including hip-hop dance videos and Hollywood musicals.

The sheer physicality of the two-act performance was astonishing. In a few seconds, the versatile SCDT dancers could transform from human marionettes sprawled flat onstage to swiftly soaring, airborne athletes. At one point, Taylor Yocum balanced on her right foot, lifted her left knee close to her chin, and clasped both hands beneath her left foot before continuing her fluid strides forward. It was a blink-and-you-miss-it move that reflected the levels of strength, stamina and limberness required to be in a company like SCDT.

An intriguing motif in Smith’s choreography was the placing of a hand on another dancer’s head, jaw or chin. One memorable segment featured 14 dancers spread across the stage in a row, each one with a right arm extended to support the chin of the person next to them. Another recurring gesture was the sudden, dramatic backbend. (This jaw-dropping move conjured images of Neo in the famous bullet-time scene from the 1999 film The Matrix.)

Overall, Memoirs of Jazz in the Alley demonstrated that a 2023 production combining multiple disciplines can emphatically feel “of the moment.” Our screen-addicted society might have a collectively short attention span, but one byproduct of the incessant bombardment of our senses by electronic devices is that multimedia works now feel wholly natural. In fact, they feel like home.

Collier, who studied at the Brubeck Institute, is keenly aware of the history of interdisciplinary art. During a June 7 interview with DownBeat, he cited the work of bassist Charles Mingus and pianist Cecil Taylor — two jazz giants who combined music and dance — before emphasizing he wants to create art that speaks to the current day.

“I’m more interested in this time and place in history,” Collier said. “But the fact of the matter is, this is how the flourishing of the Harlem Renaissance became a thing: the conversation between the different artistic mediums. And if we’re not having these type of conversations [nowadays], how are we really creating something new?”

He added, “Yes, we want to talk about innovation and pushing the music forward. But to me, it never [would] exist if you didn’t have the original conversation and context. You can only show how far you came along by showing how far you went back.”

Two upcoming events at the Auditorium Theatre will highlight artistic terrain that undoubtedly has informed individual works by Smith and Collier. Forthcoming shows include the dance piece Sugar Hill (based on Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s Nutcracker Suite), to be staged on Dec. 19–30, and Film Scores LIVE! — a multimedia production featuring trumpeter Terence Blanchard and his band the E-Collective, plus guest vocalists, the Chicago Philharmonic and projected images from Spike Lee’s films — on Jan. 13, 2024. DB