A really breathtaking Giordano show at the Harris last night, with a great company at their very best. Brock Clawson's new work Give and Take opened the second act, and seeing the company work seamlessly through Brock's perfect balance of modern and jazz styles was pretty amazing. Coming from such a different world (music and record producing) it's been a long process for me to get a sense of the difference between these two styles, but I can't think of a better way to see the different expressions that those two words "jazz" and "modern" imply than to see Give and Take.

The work tells a vivid story, but like so many stories in choreography, you'd find it hard to summarize it in words. This is a definite thread in what dancers call "modern" --- there's a priority given to thoughtful development, and that often gets expressed, as it does in Give and Take, with interwoven patterns -- individuals and small groups that build a cumulative idea. The last section of the work takes that same story, and puts it into a much more clear jazz context, which in the case of Giordano Jazz Dance means that the entire ensemble is on stage together --- moving precisely together with such blistering focus that they can put a packed auditorium into a breathless daze.

Definitely check out the current line-up of a legendary jazz company. Brand New Day (Lindsay Leduc Brenner), Wings (Gus Giordano), A Ritual Dynamic (Jon Lehrer), The Man That Got Away (Sherry Zunker) and Pyrokinesis (Christopher Huggins) were without exception bright and strong. Any one of them was worth the trip, and put together you really saw a show. To see where you can see all of this, have a look at http://www.giordanodance.org/company.