The Fruits of Our Labor — Step Afrika!’s awe-inspiring and soul-stirring world premiere dance spectacular — was particularly conceived to coincide with, and reply to, the 250th anniversary of a nation that was largely constructed on the labor of enslaved individuals. As such, that title is doing numerous actually deep work. For one factor, the idiom’s implication that “exhausting work might be rewarded” evokes the fable that America is a “land of alternative” for every person. For an additional factor, the pronoun “our” could be learn as each “Individuals usually” and “Black Individuals particularly,” a double that means that was deliberate, as Step Afrika! Founder C. Brian Williams, who got here up with the title, confirmed for me. Each antecedents of “our” are profoundly at play within the 80-minute present now on stage at Enviornment. And the efficiency accommodates precisely the reality, ardour, and resistance to tyranny that was absent from the latest vainglorious semiquincentennial celebration.
For those who’ve by no means seen DC-based Step Afrika!, now could be your likelihood. Its distinctive, globally famend work is constructed on stepping — a propulsive, percussive dance type that turns performers’ whole-body stomps, claps, slaps, and shoutouts into enthralling storytelling. (The present firm members, all extraordinary, are Kwadjo Bediako, Nya Christian, Jerod Coleman, Ariel Dykes, Terrence Johnson, Conrad R. Kelly II, Jayden King, Jemeema S. Montrose, Keondre Pascal, Keanu Powell, Ericka Nonetheless, Joseph Vasquez, Pelham Warner Jr., and Robert Warnsley, with Agyei Keita Edwards.)
Jakari Sherman and Conrad R. Kelly II, impressed by South African choreographer Vusi Mdoyi, direct The Fruits of Our Labor with astounding energy. It begins in a somber, dimly lit area unusually devoid of shade. The four-sided Fichandler Stage is hung with mournful charcoal-gray flaglike banners and strips of singed material suspended like shredded shrouds (set design by Colleen Doty). One of many sq. Fichandler’s 4 seating sections has been transformed right into a multi-tiered stage, the place the present begins explosively as ensemble members in black quasi-military garb and cartoon-like white gloves step madly to pounding drums and electrifying white mild (costumes by Cierra Coan, lighting by Yannick Godts). It’s a shocker of an opener — definitely a distinction to the corporate’s annual festive and lighthearted vacation extravaganzas (operating at Enviornment this 12 months from December 4 to 23).
The Fruits of Our Labor incorporates a number of solemn texts, starting with an excerpt from a well-known sermon, “The Eagle Stirrith Her Nest,” by African American Baptist minister C. L. Franklin (Aretha’s father). It attracts on a passage within the Ebook of Deuteronomy within the Hebrew Bible wherein an eagle, symbolizing God, cares for humanity as for her eaglets. Whereas the parable about God’s loving care is intoned in a pulpit voice and firm members step in humbled dependence on God, the stark white picture of the USA’ iconic bald eagle seems projected beneath their toes. The irony is obtrusive: God the biblical eagle could be trusted to take care; the nation, not a lot.
Compelling sound, motion, and light-weight imagery compounds in energy. Lyrical strains of “Oh, say are you able to see?” … a trio dancing barefoot, modern-dance fashion, on drumheads … outbursts of brutal, relentless drumming … brusque phalanxes of athleticism and synchronized salutes … uncooked Hendrix-style wailing guitar … the Pledge of Allegiance as shout-and-response … clusters of flag stars spilled like afterthoughts in mild upon the ground.
Colour creeps in right here and there, notably in U.S. flags worn as costume equipment (an internet content material warning assures, “An American flag is used as a dancing prop, however is just not desecrated on stage”).
What states of being are these performers representing? Who’re we to see in them? What’s their collective story? What of their obvious bottled rage and outrage may we acknowledge and acknowledge? What to make of the revolutionary solidarity that the ensemble resembles? Much less a refrain than a cadre. Much less an act than a pact.
Who’re they? And who, in spite of everything, are “we”?
About halfway by the present, a girl within the firm enters and, for the primary time, engages us, the viewers, personably (versus presentationally). The present is like “an album,” she tells us, which feels fairly apt. Within the ensuing interval, she introduces us one after the other to the corporate, by identify and hometown: Mr. This, Miss That, every getting into to our applause. It’s a sensible dramatic pivot that basically alters our presumed relationship to the present.
A subsequent highpoint is a scene that touches on the fifteenth Modification (1870), which protects the fitting of Americans (although not ladies) to vote no matter race, shade, or earlier situation of servitude. Upon the tiered stage sit 4 scribes with outsized quill pens scritching out sounds on drumheads as if on parchment. It’s a beautiful percussive background for a choreographed passage that features the ensemble intoning poignantly, “We don’t know what to do.” The scene additionally references the now-imperiled Voting Rights Act of 1965, making The Fruits of Our Labor uncontrovertibly extra patriotic than any latest spectacle of presidential vainness.
In counterpoint to these spectacles, the present additionally references Frederick Douglass’s well-known 1852 speech wherein he stated, “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. It’s possible you’ll rejoice, I need to mourn.” The phrases slowly grow to be seen, inscribed upon the tiered set, when delicately illumined by the solid’s blacklight flashlights.
An much more beautiful piece of stagecraft mimes ensemble members shot lifeless, their corpses then specified by casket-like mild rectangles throughout the ground. Within the viewers there have been gasps.
The complicated that means within the titular pronoun “our” will get a shock decision in a scene that facilities on the self-evident fact that “WE is essentially the most highly effective phrase within the Structure.” And additional, “WE have the duty to attempt to enhance this nice nation of ours.”
The present ends with the type of clap-along infectious pleasure and enthusiasm now we have come to anticipate from Step Afrika! Solely by now the pronoun “our” intentionally contains all of us — instilled by Step Afrika!’s embodied eloquence, which at all times surpasses phrases.
Operating Time: Roughly 80 minutes with no intermission.
The Fruits of Our Labor performs by November 1, 2026, within the Fichandler Stage at Enviornment Stage on the Mead Heart for American Theater, 1101 Sixth St SW, Washington, DC. Buy tickets (beginning at $47) on-line; by cellphone at 202-488-3300, Tuesday by Sunday, 12-6 PM; or in particular person on the field workplace, Tuesday by Sunday, two hours earlier than the present begins on efficiency days. Tickets may additionally be out there at TodayTix.
Enviornment Stage’s many financial savings packages embody “pay your age” tickets for these aged 35 and beneath; army, first responder, and educator reductions; pupil reductions; and “Southwest Nights” for these dwelling and dealing within the District’s Southwest neighborhood. To be taught extra, go to arenastage.org/savings-programs.
View The Fruits of Our Labor program right here.
The Fruits of Our Labor
By Step Afrika!
Directed and choreographed by Jakari Sherman with Conrad R. Kelly II and Vusi Mdoyi
CAST
Kwadjo Bediako, Nya Christian, Jerod Coleman, Ariel Dykes, Terrence Johnson, Conrad R. Kelly II, Jayden King, Jemeema S. Montrose, Keondre Pascal, Keanu Powell, Ericka Nonetheless, Joseph Vasquez, Pelham Warner Jr., and Robert Warnsley, with Agyei Keita Edwards
