Four stars 

Gregory Hancock Dance Theatre; Arthur M. Glick Jewish Community Center

Simcha is foremost a costuming and music selection tour de force for showing the geographic and epochal events following the final exile of the Jewish people from their homeland 2,000 years ago. Gregory Hancock paints in broad swaths the places to which Jews dispersed and the resulting influences on Jewish culture by place of residence. Over time and through place, clothing, music and movement merged into new amalgamations to create dynamic new art forms that Hancock’s choreography aptly depicts. Poetry, music, dance and clothing are inherent to Judaic life and spirituality; they are inseparable. GHDT dancers captured the essence of the struggles for survival, the simple daily joys because Judaism is above all an optimistic way of life and the ultimate triumph over adversities (and adversaries) for the return to the State of Israel. The most poignant sections of the hour-long program are the split settings showing events in Nazi Germany and in the United States following the election of Hitler as chancellor of Germany in 1933. It’s probably one of the best sociological commentaries witnessed by this reviewer. Through Dec. 16; 317-846-2441.