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The Dartmouth
July 2, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Theater, dance and history meld in ‘Fondly Do We Hope'

04.07.10.arts.dance_Doug Gonzalez
04.07.10.arts.dance_Doug Gonzalez

Yet "Fondly Do We Hope ... Fervently Do We Pray," which began its three-night run at the Hopkins Center on Tuesday evening, argues that the legacy of the war and, more importantly, Lincoln's own legacy has not yet passed out of our national consciousness, nor will it. The performance, commisioned in 2009 by the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Ill., melds theater, dance, live music and excerpts from historic speeches to produce a cogent piece about the lasting effect that Lincoln has had on the United States.

The performance begins with a short biography of Lincoln, while excerpts from his speeches are interspersed throughout the rest of the work. But as the narrator cautions, we often risk understanding Lincoln's life merely as a series of dates, and speeches are just words when separated from the outcomes they inspire. In a video about the development of the dance, Jones said he wanted to give the piece an earnest feel but show how insufficient words alone can be.

Jones adds music, dance, set design and acting to the words, giving them power and leverage. Modern and period music are mixed, underscoring the connections present across time in Lincoln's story. Much of the diverse score is played live by a band composed of Jerome Begin, Christopher Antonio William Lancaster and George Lewis Jr.

A cylinder of retractable white gauze made by set designer Bjorn Amelan, which serves at times as a projection screen, is the performance's dominant set piece. The quotations, lyrics and images projected showcase the parallels between modern society and Lincoln's. One video, for example, depicts a train as a nod to the ghost stories surrounding Lincoln's death train (in which a phantom train is said to travel the same route on the anniversary of his assassination each year) as if to question where exactly this train, a symbol of Lincoln's legacy, is headed.

Throughout the piece, the narrator points to the dancers as they assume the identities of several fictionalized representations of Americans. One plays a woman, born in 1939, who agrees that slavery was wrong but misses a time when "the world all made sense." Another plays a black man, born to a poor family in Florida, who becomes successful but feels disillusioned with Lincoln's vision of "a government of the people, by the people and for the people." Eventually these conflicting opinions devolve into a cacophonous debate about states' rights, equality and immigration, with dissenting opinions being voiced by the dancers on stage.

With this performance, Jones maintains that Lincoln will remain relevant for generations to come the piece's final unnamed American, over 100 years old and born in 2009, speaks about Lincoln's "big questions" and "unfinished work." But this individual from the future really tells us that the issues at stake in Lincoln's day will be with us for many years. For Jones, Lincoln will stay an inspiration for those working against racism and injustice.

The performance marks the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company's fifth appearance at the Hopkins Center. Jones, an Obie, Tony and MacArthur Genius' grant winner, is in residence at Dartmouth as the Spring term Montgomery Fellow.


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