The rain cleared up just in time for Friday's performance of Dances at the Lake, the festival of movement that returned for the 21st year featuring dance companies and schools of different styles at the Lyndale Park Rose Garden by Lake Harriet.
Duniya Drum & Dance opened the space with a drum call on the warm summer evening accompanied with a slight breeze and a somewhat ominously hazy setting sun. Meanwhile audience members gathered east of the rows of flowers for the first of a two-day show.
The evening's menu featured dance traditions from around the world, with two West African dance groups, a flamenco company, a classical Indian dance troupe, plus tap, ballet, modern and contemporary dances.
Performers donned candelabra head pieces in the Middle Eastern dance by Jawaahir Dance Company. In the program's final number, Sansei Yonsei Kai Japanese Dance Group led the audience in a participatory group dance set to the Pokémon theme song and accompanied by the thundering taiko drum beats.
Founded by the Christopher Watson Dance Company, the annual Dances at the Lake, modeled after a similar event in Duluth, is now produced by the Ray Terrill Dance Group and funded by the Raymond D. Terrill Charitable Fund.
Terrill, who wore a loose and light costume like the other dancers in his troupe, choreographed and danced in the lyrical "Flow," where he was held upside down. Terrill also acted as the emcee for the evening, and ran the sound, hurrying back and forth between the computer and the microphone.
There were significant technical difficulties with the sound, causing several of the companies to stop and restart.
At the start of Young Dance Ensemble's performance, four young people held their back bend positions while the sound system problems were sorted. It was an uncomfortably long period of nothing happening, and yet, it was remarkable to see the poise and concentration in the young dancers as they awaited their cue.
Technical woes aside, Friday's show had a number of bright spots. Fatawu Sayibu, artistic director and choreographer of Tiymba African Drum and Dance Company, was a marvel of jiggling limbs and polyrhythms in "'Kpanlogo," which was only performed Friday.
Co-artistic directors Amanda Sachs and Elena Hollenhorst, meanwhile, delivered a poignant excerpt from their longer work, "Searching for Giants," and the young performers from Keane Sense of Rhythm nailed their tap/step dance number choreographed by Davon Suttles, all done without accompaniment.
