By Casaundra Freeman

DETROIT,Mich.–Letter to My Nephew, the first dance concert at the Michigan Opera Theatre (MOT) since the passing of Artistic Director Emeritus, David Dichera, is provocative and engaging.

The MOT fully admits that this work is unlike anything they have presented in the past. The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company piece opens with a street brawl and fights its way through the 70 minute undercurrent of struggle that is the through line for this bold piece. It seeks to connect the audience to a variety of cultural issues from drug abuse and sex work to war and disability.

With each theme building upon the other, The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane company confronts the audience with aspects of American life they might otherwise look away from out of discomfort or convenience.

Bill T. Jones joins the audience before the curtain to explain a bit of the importance behind the company’s latest piece as well as the focus on making the piece site specific for every city to which the company travels. The Detroit iteration features a virtually constant and projected backdrop of the former Michigan Central Train Depot  as the dancers with mesmerizing form fluidly work their way through each piece. In keeping with the theme of site specificity, the dancers are soon moving about to Cajmere’s “It’s Time for the Percolator” a staple song in Detroit’s long history of house and techno music (although the song originated in Chicago). Ironically, despite being a dance concert, the dancers stuck with their choreographed contemporary dance routines, rather than “Jitting” the Detroit-centric dance that almost always accompanies Cajmere’s catchy tune.

The majority of the dancers are costumed in street wear. Cargo pants, hoodies, athletic pants and sneakers, with some bare footed dancers all have a dominant presence throughout the show. In stark contrast to the generally dark costumes of the company dancers, the principal dancer clad in an all-white hooded sweat suit with red socks moves effortlessly around the stage nimbly and confidently, shifting from elegant fight choreography to catwalking in what can only be assumed to be nightclubs where ballroom and performance culture reign supreme.

Letter to my Nephew also refuses to allow its viewers to settle in comfortably to watch the show. Peppered throughout the evening are jolting introductions to the upcoming piece, whether it’s a pulsating and unforgiving bass line that springs forth out of nowhere or a startling flash of light, the audience is always aware of an ongoing and underlying struggle. This struggle, whether for visibility or purity, importance or peace, will give you the sense that the life of Lance T. Briggs, the nephew of Bill T. Jones, whose life the evening’s work was based on, was tumultuous at best. Through supplemental reading you’re able to learn of the specifics of Brigg’s life, from a childhood drug addict who lost an opportunity to study with the San Francisco Ballet School to his current life as a paraplegic afflicted with Advanced HIV (formerly known as AIDS).

Hope emerges from the struggle, as the audience in the final moments of the show comes face to face via video with Briggs himself, almost gleeful as he delivers a spoken word piece as gritty and profanity laced as the entire evening primes you for. This new and innovative piece of art given to us through the medium of dance makes its audience to deal with comfort and its consequences, the people we interact with and love and all of the struggles that make us human in a sometimes inhumane world.

Mr. Dichera, a longtime champion of new works and an unrelenting supporter of leading African American artists must be looking down on his beloved theatre’s dance concert opener, smiling as gleefully as Briggs with the conversations “Letter to My Nephew” stirs up amongst the MOT’s patrons.