Cool, Way Cool . . . And Showing Us The Power of Dance

David Dorfman’s Prophets of Funk is an evening- long dance party, all to the joyful music of Sly and the Family Stone. As the audience filed in, a Pillow intern invited people on stage to learn a funky line dance, parts of which were seen later (in much more impressive form) in the dances. Dorfman led off in a solo that moved diagonally down the stage. Dressed in over-the-top hippie gear — floppy hat, plaid blazer, platform shoes — he grooved with high kicks, shimmies and hustles down the stage. It was not entirely clear, at first, whether he was supposed to look cool or a little ridiculous, especially when Raja Kelly entered in full Sly Stone regalia (fringed, beaded vest, studded orange pants and full afro), flashing peace signs and soaking up applause. If Dorfman was cool, Kelly was way cool. The dance opened swiftly with inventive lifts and leaps, tireless and athletic, yet effortless-seeming motion. Couples formed, but quickly one partner was replaced by another, and another — serial partner swapping. Kyle Abraham announced a series of new steps: the preacher man, the stomping grapes, the tomahawk chop (in a knowing wink to his audience, he said in an aside “I learned that from Erick Hawkins”). The “take me to the picket line” was a reminder that Dorfman isn’t just a feel-good dance purveyor. He’s an activist, and radical to the core, and this piece was one in a series of dances documenting movements on the left including the Weather Underground and abolitionist John Brown. Dorfman’s company, evenly divided between men and women, black and white, looks great, especially the women: long elegant Meghan Bowden, in striped bell-bottoms, tiny Renuka Hines in tiny fuschia hot pants, and Whitney Tucker in a gigantic blonde afro wig. It’s Tucker who, eventually, pushed the piece from a simple party to something a little darker and more reflective. “I was 15 when I met him” she intones, and speaks of prophets and grief. The party continued but she seemed to lose her way. Eventually the wig came off, and she got her groove back, just in time for the last rousing choruses of “Dance to the Music” and “Every Day People” — two phrases that seem to sum up the meaning of this celebration of the power of dancing for all of us. At the end, once again, the dancers pulled audience members onto the stage to dance — as if to say, as Dorfman wrote in the program notes, “in the face of the funk of life, there is hope.” For information on events at Jacob’s Pillow in Bechett, MA, call 413-243-0745, or go to www.jacobspillow.org.