Modern dance meets jazz with SCD + The Barker Project

What do you get when you cross a modern dance troupe led by a Cuban-American with a fusion band led by an African American? No one is exactly sure. 

But the collaboration between Leymis Bolaños Wilmott's Sarasota Contemporary Dance and bassist Johnnie Barker's 10-piece band, The Barker Project, promises to be a flavorful Afro-Cuban gumbo with room for improvisation in dance as well as music. 

Let's start at the beginning. Sarasota Contemporary Dance is known for its innovative performances and for leaving it all on the stage. The Barker Project has its roots in jazz, but also incorporates funk, rock, blues and gospel in its music.

As do most jazz bands, The Barker Project lets its musicians improvise in their solos, a tradition that exists in other genres but not with the same level of generosity in the jazz world.

Dance is choreographed and the movements are communicated visually in real life and through videos. But what if you gave dancers the opportunity to freestyle while being accompanied by a band skilled in this kind of performing? What indeed? That's what audiences at "SCD + The Barker Project" will find out.

We're not saying this is the first time dancers and musicians have gotten together for a cross-disciplinary jam of sorts. It happens all the time. There is a long history of making it up as you go along in the tap world and having "challenges" between two dancers. 

SCD has some experienced tappers among its ranks and Bolaños Wilmott plans to let them shine in this program. The Barker Project's drummer, Dr. Rande Sanderbeck, has also worked with hoofers in the past, Barker notes.

But this is the first time that Bolaños Wilmott and Barker, a Tampa Bay native who is a graduate of Berklee College of Music, have brought their troupes together on the same stage. Even on a Zoom call, their excitement is contagious.

Image courtesy of Sorcha Augustine

Bolaños Wilmott said she was so excited during the previous day's full rehearsal for SCD + The Barker Project that she dictated her "notes" to a couple of apprentices to give the dancers about their performances instead of writing them down herself. 

"I couldn't stop smiling. I was thinking, 'This is what was in my head during the first meeting with Johnnie,'" she said. 

But how does collaboration really work? It starts with an exchange of ideas. During their first meeting, Barker asked Bolaños Wilmott what choreographers had influenced her. Then he went back and studied their work by watching videos. 

Their second meeting was dedicated to music, with Bolaños Wilmott talking about her Cuban heritage, Barker expressing admiration for trumpeter Miles Davis and other jazz greats and both professing their love for Earth Wind & Fire and Chaka Khan.

After they agreed on a set list, Barker set to work creating his own arrangements, in some cases, adding elements that might be found in a New Orleans Second Line. 

"Even within a composition that might sound familiar, there's a little twist," says Bolaños Wilmott. "He's making it more about the now."

Within each arrangement, about 10% of the time is set aside so that dancers and musicians will have the opportunity to improvise. (As contradictory as it may sound, you have to plan to improvise.) For a dancer, that might involve using an unexpected prop.

After receiving Barker's arrangements, Bolaños Wilmott began choreographing along with Jessica Obiedzinski, a company member who is also a choreographer. If it all sounds easy, it's not. It's time-consuming and repetitive. 

The end result is a program that playfully skips across genres. The show runs the gamut from Earth Wind & Fire's "In the Stone" to Ricky Martin's "Pégate" to Miles Davis' "Tutu," a tribute to the South African archbishop who was an anti-apartheid crusader. 

Audiences will also see dancers and hear musicians presenting new interpretations to Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "I Say A Little Prayer," made famous by Dionne Warwick, Leonard Cohen's ethereal "Hallelujah" and "I Feel For You," originally recorded by Prince but later made into a hiphop megahit by Chaka Khan, Grandmaster Melle Mel and Stevie Wonder.

"It's really such a fun show, not one that we've done before," Barker says. "We're not staying in one genre and we've got a group of 10 musicians and nine dancers."

What could go wrong? Not much, given the preparation that has gone into the show. But if something does, this gang will be ready to roll with it.