A Buoyant ‘Soul’ Makes Its Premiere

Though it’s only August and there are loads of innings to be played before World Series fever strikes, Pat Taylor, artistic director-choreographer of Jazzantiqua, has hit a huge one out of the park with her company’s three-part jazz ballet premiere, “The Soul Never Dwells in a Dry Place.”

Poignancy, inventiveness and hard-core truths were infused in both music and dance, as the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre vibrated to an incomparable beat Saturday night, particularly in the trilogy’s second part, “The Ballad of Josh Gibson.” Set to music director Mark Shelby’s haunting score--Shelby also plucks a mean bass--”Ballad” is the story of the Negro League slugger who died in 1947, never having crossed the color line.

With text by Taylor, her mother Jeanne, and narrator Bruce Nelson, the choreographer has winningly created her own testosterone brigade, a team of men, including company great Charles Zacharie, who are all legs and arms, muscle and might. Guest artists Ronald Brown, Daryl Copeland, Siri Sat Nam, Marvin Tunney, Ronaldo Bowins and Ken Morris perform a series of novel lifts, calisthenics, kick-boxing moves and balletically inspired high jinks that include cigar chomping but, unlike real-life baseball, no crotch grabbing.

Also guesting is endlessly lanky Chester Whitmore, whose deliciously crisp tapping counterpoints a tormented “Bottom of the 9th” scenario, as Brown’s Gibson breaks down in defeat.

Part 3 of the trilogy, “Night Train,” pays homage to dance legends Alvin Ailey, Katherine Dunham and Lester Horton. Company members Valerie Hampton, Raquel Monroe, Maura Owens Townsend, Eva Marie Shivers, Daanee Touchstone and Taylor display a hip-swaying, primal ease to a taped African music track, surprising with unexpected leaps and tremendous elevations.

Shelby’s sextet resumes playing to Elaine Wang’s alluring solo. Surrounded by women as goddess-muses, their arms sometimes reaching, sometimes squared off Egyptian-style, this moody, moving segment examines the many facets of dance, from bumping and grinding to a “hallelujah” gospel rendering.

Evocative, graceful and bubbling with rich, jazzy textures, Shelby and Taylor are a collaborative force whose shared vision is a gift deserving of wider recognition. Their souls dwell, no doubt, in a fertile place.