When the house lights dimmed and a quintet of performers emerged from the darkness and marched to the stage from the back of the room, you knew this was going to be creatively unique, even by the often adventurous standards for the Apollo Salon Series.
The retinue of dancers wore white hazmat suits with headlights beaming as though they were speleologists on their way underground. That was in fact their destination in the production of “Salt City—A Techno Choreopoem,” written by jessica Care moore and directed and choreographed by Aku Kadogo.
Some hints about what was to transpire were revealed in the program, where it was noted that the story was centered on Detroit in 3071. At the core of this Afro-futuristic, nonstop musical is a brown girl named Salt (Mikaela “Miki” Evans) who time-travels, futilely seeking her tribe and reclamation of family history. Her pursuit occurs amid a swirl of dancers and speakers, all now stripped of their suits and colorfully adorned. Later, the sparkle of their attire will match the lights from a spinning globe.
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With changing images, a screen on the back wall continuously highlights the flow, none more illuminating than a bright pile of salt, symbolic of the salt mines below Detroit.
All told, this is a dazzling display of dance, poetic lyrics, and the shifting tempos of techno-music, much of it in the capable hands of tech-masters from Motown. Things unfold in rapid precision, the dancers in sync with the pulsing sounds and the words helping to keep you in touch with the mythological, anthropological, political narrative. There’s no easy distillation of Salt’s odyssey, and the multiple meanings of her cohorts—Ainghku (Chris Woolfolk), Erzulie (Axelle “Ebony” Munezero), Musa (James Abbott), Cosmic Mother (Ta’Rajee Omar), and La (Halimah Consuelo)—but there are literal occasions when some current social and cultural issues, such as gentrification and reparations, are spot on, particularly in the “Not for Sale” segment, rendered in chorus-like recitative.
“Salt City” surges with a relentless beat, and the discography—from “Transformation A” by Jeff Mills to “Salt City Mix” by Nick Speed—provides a sizzling tapestry of techno as it gives sonic inspiration to a troupe of tireless dancers. There is every reason to keep the tour rolling as it speeds from city to city. The sold-out weekend at the Apollo should put the rest of the nation on notice that Afro-futurism is on the way.
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