Music & Dance Intelligence
David Dorfman: Dance to the Music
Dance review by Bess J.M. Hochstein
Photos: above, Kate Enman; below, Cherylynn Tsushima
Prophets of Funk, an evening-length work performed by David Dorfman Dance this week at Jacob’s Pillow, begins with the choreographer strutting his stuff diagonally across the stage on a path of light. He’s no longer a young man, and he’s taken on some pounds along with the years, but he’s still got the moves – he can get down and funky, loose and slinky, with the best of them. Before long, Raja Kelly, standing in for Sly Stone, aka Sylvester Stewart, frontman of Sly and the Family Stone, enters, with just as funky and slinky a groove as Dorfman’s.
The diagonal light turns out to be a sort of memory lane, and for its first half, Prophets of Funk, Dorfman seems to be a joy ride, fueled by the infectious music of Sly and the Family Stone. No need to analyze, just sit back and enjoy the full-throttle non-stop, exuberant dancing: high-kicking, hip-swiveling, pelvis-thrusting, hand-standing, cartwheeling, back-flipping, floor-slidng, head bobbing, toe-tapping fun. The music, hippie costumes, frequently flashed peace signs, and video backdrop of vintage concert footage and psychedelia are a blast from the past, as are bygone dance elements like the bump and the pony, but watch carefully and you’ll see some time shifting, as later-era dance influences from disco, hip-hop, and the fly-girl idiom creep into the choreography.
After a while the dance takes a detour into darker territory – how could it not, when Sly and the Family Stone—which, as Dorfman points out in his program notes, was the first racially and gender-integrated bands in U.S. history—put out songs like Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey. Dorfman takes this opportunity to address issues of power and domination, subtle and overt, while moving more into the realm of dance theater. In addition to dancing full-out, company members are also called upon to perform monologues, pantomime, and even sing.
But in the end the troupe rides out of the darkness with a finale that brings the audience to its feet, and is surely one of the cleverest ways to guarantee a standing ovation. The work finishes on a high note, with more than half the audience out on the stage, heeding Sly’s call to Dance to the Music. The performance transforms into a dance party, and since it’s an audience of all ages, shapes, and backgrounds on the stage, dancing amidst the performers, it becomes obvious that, like Sly and the Family Stone, Dorfman really does love Everyday People. Is it a coincidence that just this week Sly Stone released a new album? Perhaps Dorfman’s riding the zeitgeist, or maybe even helping to drive it.
David Dorfman Dance in the Doris Duke Theatre
Now through August 21
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival
Becket, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 08/19/11 at 07:58 AM • Permalink
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet: Articulate Company
Dance review by Bess J.M. Hochstein
Photos: Rosalie O’Connor
A well-composed program of work by three European choreographers, in performance by Aspen Santa Fe Ballet this week at Jacob’s Pillow, shows off the many skills of this company’s ten talented dancers: speed, strength, grace, presence, agility, and humor. Although the three dances that comprise the program skip around in time, from Spanish choreographer Cayetano Soto’s Uneven, commissioned by ASFB in 2010; to the great Czech choreographer Jiří Kylián’s 1983 work, Stamping Ground; to Finnish choreographer Jorma Elo’s Red Sweet, commissioned by ASFB in 2008, the viewer can spot a few through lines in both the big picture and the details that tie these works together.
The big picture is evident: largely asymmetric movement; daring lifts and swirls; fast-paced precision and keen articulation; and bold, contemporary choreography performed by self-possessed, classically trained dancers. As for the details, all three dances include quirky movements, such as intermittent tremors in the extremities; improbable holds in the partnering and lifts; extreme, unefforted extensions; and surprising moves (such one-handed handstands or cartwheels more expected in a hip-hop performance) that somehow seem right at home.
The evening begins with Uneven, and even before the dance begins we see that it is just that; a corner of white fabric spills off the stage and into the audience. The curtain opens, revealing that the fabric forms a diagonal swath across the stage; the opposite corner has been lifted to create a triangular frame for cellist Kimberly Patterson, dressed in black, who plays the live part of a score by David Lang, accompanied by recorded music and voice. The dancers wear black-and-white leotards. Thanks to evocative lighting and a subtle fog effect, the dancers emerge from the back curtain as if materializing.
Like the set and costumes, there are no gray areas in this dance; solo, coupled, or in small groups, the dancers snap from one off-center pose to the next in a disjointed manner, limbs articulating from their hip, knee, shoulder and elbow joints. Transitions happen in a blink, as the dancers pop into angular position after position. They hit their marks, stop-and-go style – for the women, often while being lifted and whirled by the male dancers. This is the dance equivalent of atonal music – which is not to say it’s inharmonious; just complex and unpredictable, going off in unexpected directions.
Stamping Ground provides comedy to balance the seriousness of Uneven. The audience gasps when what seemed like a black-curtain background is revealed to be hanging strips of a shiny, mylar-ish material, through which the dancers make dramatic and often funny entrances and exits. The work begins in silence, with a series of solos in which the dancers perform low-to-the-ground animal-like movements – here a chicken, with that characteristic sharp jutting of the head or chest; there a monkey, elongated arms trailing as the dancer travels in deep squats and lunges, popping up every so often to look over their shoulders. Periodic stomps, thuds, and body slaps provide the soundscape as one dancer after the other takes a solo, sometimes chasing the previous beast off the stage.
Ensemble work begins along with the percussive score by Carlos Chavez, a fly-by series of witty and wonderful vignettes among groupings of dancers: two men holding a woman suspended to a tick-tock section of music as her legs match the beat like a pendulum; what looks like a game of leap frog that results in a chain of collapse; one man breaking free of two others, who fall flat on their backs, limbs stiffly splayed, later to be pulled quickly, in their rigid forms, offstage through the shiny strips by unseen hands.
The dancers bounce off the floor with no apparent muscle effort, as if the stage were a trampoline, or as if they were being jerked upward by marionette strings. Every interaction between and among dancers touches off an unexpected, laugh-inducing, reaction. They move like cartoon characters, maintaining mock-serious facial expressions. It’s a delightful work by a rightfully legendary choreographer, masterfully performed.
The evening ends with Red Sweet, which manages to combine the best of the two preceding works. Full of humor and grace in asymmetry, the work is characterized by angular positions, innovative partnering, and sophisticated patterning that matches the balletic score of string music by Vivaldi and Biber with lush cannons and cascades of movement. While the structure is traditional, the forms created by the dancers’ bodies are anything but, and therein lies the humor. It’s the perfect culmination for an evening of surprising choreography performed by well trained dancers willing to give it their all.
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet at the Ted Shawn Theatre
Now through August 21
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival
Becket, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 08/18/11 at 10:55 AM • Permalink
David Neumann and Jodi Melnick Join Forces at Jacob’s Pillow
Dance review by Bess J.M. Hochstein
Photos: above, Julieta Cervantes; below, Cherylynn Tsushima
Is it downtown week at Jacob’s Pillow? In the Ted Shawn Theatre, Trisha Brown, enduring icon of the Judson Church dance days, marks her company’s 40th anniversary in a program that travels through the decades. Concurrently, two of-the-moment NYC-based choreographers present a joint program in the Doris Duke. It’s an insightful pairing, as it can easily be argued were it not for Brown neither Jodi Melnick nor David Neumann would be there.
The argument is clearly defensible in the case of Melnick, who worked with Brown as an assistant director and has danced with Brown’s equally iconic and influential peers, Twyla Tharp and Sara Rudner. Even without this knowledge, you can see Brown’s imprint all over Melnick’s precise, elegant, cerebral choreography for Fanfare: loose limbs seemingly initiating movement phrases; arms and legs swinging from shoulders and hips – not flung, but rotated with intention; spine held straight but not stiff. The movement, asymmetric and off-balance, is imbued with meaning that’s difficult to discern.
Melnick performs alone until near the end, on a starkly high-drama set (by renowned artist Burt Barr) with a pair of shiny, double-sided oscillating fans that reflect focused light and cast large, animated shadows on a white projection that resembles two walls forming a corner on the theater’s back curtain. Melnick also casts shadows as she determindely walks to a spot on the stage, executes a phrase, then walks to another spot where another movement sequence spills from her lithe body, all the while exhibiting remarkable stage presence and tremendous concentration with an impassive but soft face. As she casts her gaze out along her extended limbs, or a pointed finger, or off to the wings, the audience is practically compelled to follow her eyes.
There’s a jolt when the noise of a steam radiator hisses on, and Melnick, facing the audience, feet planted, repeats an almost-pedestrian sequence with, arms in constant, nervous motion while her gaze travels sideways, upward, along the sweep of her hand. The noise repeats, too, subtly altered each time. It goes on and on, and we get the feeling Melnick is waiting and looking for someone, until after an uncomfortably long time Dennis O’Connor appears from the wings. The projections disappear and the mood shifts. His arrival seems to ground her, emotionally and literally; they dance together, eventually ending up on the floor, adjacent but not touching, repeating an intriguing folding-and-unfolding sequence in unison as the light fades.
Neumann provides comic relief from Melnick’s solemnity with Tough the Tough, a work of slapstick existentialism, in which Neumann is cast by an unseen, omniscient narrator as an everyman named Steve, Steven, or at one point Stefan - a stand-in for all mankind. You can practically hear the narrator whispering “Poor schmuck” under his breath as Neumann preens, scratches, runs and paces, riffles through his jacket, carries, trips over, and sets up a bunch of folding chairs, and performs other pointless actions in response to the voice from above. Lo and behold: one segment in the middle could have been ripped right out of Trisha Brown’s playbook.
The comic tone is maintained in Hit the Deck (Studies and Accidents), which opens with a woman (Carol Wong) balanced sideways on a folding chair. Impassively, she rights herself and strides to the piano at the rear of the stage, takes her seat (on another of those folding chairs), and begins to play only snippets of classical compositions as four dancers strive to make their moves. She’s like an uncooperative accompanist in the rehearsal studio.
Big discrepancies in the bodies of his performers add humor to the exaggerated stop-and-go choreography. The comedy is further heightened by what seems to be a recalcitrant stagehand, a rotund figure (Timothy Fallon) who wants to get in on the action. First he drops a chair with a huge clatter, drawing attention and upsetting the dancers’ flow. Later he practically jumps into the piano, strumming its strings like a harp and joining in on the keyboard. There are antics requiring split-second timing with chairs tossed on and off the stage – but not too much; it’s not overdone. Finally there’s an extended pas de deux between ostrich-like Kennis Hawkis—whose hair-bun exaggerates her long-and-lean physique—and Will Rawls before Fallon returns, emphatically plants himself mid-stage rear of the stage, and begins to sing like an angel. Petite Natalie Agee executes an equally angelic solo, concluding with a nod of appreciation toward Fallon.
The evening ends with July, a lulling duet between Melnick and Neumann commissioned by the Pillow, which elicits a gasp from the audience when a scrim is removed to reveal a most striking backdrop: barn door open, evergreens behind the theater illuminated in the night’s darkness. In this world premiere of coupling and clever weight transference, we see that despite their differences in style and demeanor – Melnick’s sobriety and Newmann’s silliness—the two don’t have to look hard to find common ground: keen intelligence plus an eccentric movement vocabulary born in the Judson Church days which is strung together in a successful collaboration that’s both somber and warm. But for the bucolic setting, it would look perfectly at home in a downtown performance space, either today or in the 1960s.
Jodi Melnick and David Neumann/Advanced Beginner Group
August 10 - 14 @ the Doris Duke Theatre
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Becket, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 08/12/11 at 12:02 PM • Permalink
Trisha Brown Dance Company Marks 40-Year Anniversary at Jacob’s Pillow
Dance review by Bess J.M. Hochstein
Photo: Julieta Cervantes
Trisha Brown is the Eileen Fisher of the dance world. Like Fisher’s clothing, Brown’s dances are loose, comfortable, fluid, and seemingly simple and unstructured while actually finely and smartly constructed with shrewd attention to detail. Like Fisher in the design world, Brown has a style all her own that has nonetheless inspired the work of scores of choreographers who have followed in her quick, unpredictable footsteps. And, like Fisher, Brown’s work is timeless; while her dancers may now be more highly trained and her patterns and structures more complex, her basic movement vocabulary remains consistent and stands up through the decades.
Set and Reset (1983; photo: Karli Cadel), the finale of a four-work program that stretches from 1973 to the present, is a case in point. No matter how many times you’ve seen it, it’s always a joy to watch. One of Brown’s many collaborations with Robert Rauschenberg, who designed the set (two triangles and a rectangle suspended above the stage, serving as screens for projected vintage black & white films, plus black and white curtains hanging in the wings), costumes (sheer, loose and flowing, with a faint pattern reminiscent of blueprints), and had a hand in the lighting, the piece flows so naturally to Laurie Anderson’s original score that it’s impossible to imagine one without the other.
Throughout this work we notice distinct, foundational elements that recur in the two more recent works of the program—the opener, Les Yeux et l’âme (2011), and Foray Forêt (1990): fluid motion; abstract composition; movement that seems to initiate from the arms or hands; the illusion of weightlessness and effortlessness despite rapid, nonstop, precise dancing; looseness in the joints that allows the arms and legs to swing freely; bodies held in asymmetry, mostly with a straight spine; arms held at right angles, legs too; interesting and amusing things happening at the edges of the stage; clever weight transference between dancers; humor; and a key section in which the dancers line up center stage, from front to back, and lunge, fold, twirl, walk, fall, lean, melt out of line and merge back in again, like a wave unfurling and re-forming, a set piece with tremendous visual appeal.
Les Yeux et l’âme (The Eyes and the soul; photo: Deen van Meer), a lyrical dance that Brown created for a production of the Rameau opera Pygmalion, conducted by William Christie, incorporates these common elements in a more formal framework and more traditionally graceful composition. This dance has more traditional partnering and interactions between the dancing partners and among the couples dancing as an ensemble. It’s a satisfying work of structure and wit.
Foray Forêt (photo: Karli Cadel) is set to marching band music that fades in so gradually after the dancers have begun moving to silence that you might mistake the score for noise bleeding in from outside the theater, until it wells up loud, then seems to march around the room itself. At first the dancers appear to be moving in isolation from each other, but then patterns begin to emerge in the way forms and movements overlap or echo, and a careful viewer will note repeated phrases. The gold-accented costumes by Rauschenberg (in their final collaboration) are nearly as eccentric as the movement. The final segment, with one dancer, now in a loose dress, accompanies by fleeting appearance by the ensemble’s arms, feet, and other isolated body parts peeking out from the wings, makes for an indelible dance image, and also leaves one questioning whether there is a narrative through-story.
The third work on the program, Spanish Dance (1973; photo: Karli Cadel), arrived like a post-intermission interlude, and a reminder of Brown’s earlier, simpler explorations of accumulation. In this case it’s bodies, rather than movements, that accumulate. Five dancers stand spaced evenly along a line in front of the curtain, facing the wing. When the music begins—Bob Dylan’s rendition of Early Morning Rain, written by Gordon Lightfoot—the last dancer begins to move, at first swaying her hips and pumping her legs in place in time to the score, then snaking her arms upward like a flamenco dancer and rhythmically shuffling forward until she bumps up against the second dancer, and sets her in motion, remaining snug against her. In the end, all five dancers are piled up, chugging along, and despite the snaking arms one can’t help thinking of a train, even without the song’s lyrics: “You can’t jump a jet plane/Like you can a freight train.” It’s a quick blast from the past, when highly trained dancers (such as those that comprise Brown’s company today) were not necessary to present a work on stage, and neither was a stage, for that matter.
Fads and trends may come and go, but Trisha Brown’s work never goes out of fashion. It may get more complex as the decades go by, but whatever the vintage, it’s clean, clear, comfortable, and easy on the eyes. It’s not for everyone, but like Eileen Fisher, Brown sticks to her knitting; she has devoted fans who know they can turn, and return, to Brown for dance that’s delightful, smart, quirky, joyful, light as air, full of surprises, and always a pleasure to watch.
Trisha Brown Dance Company 40th Anniversary Celebration
August 10 - 14, in The Ted Shawn Theatre
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Becket, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 08/11/11 at 11:32 AM • Permalink
Hudson Music Fest: It’s Not Only Rock ‘n’ Roll, But You’ll Like It
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by Betsy Miller
Organizers of music festivals tend to follow the Woodstock model—one outdoor site, many acts scheduled over the course of several days. This weekend, impresarios in the city of Hudson will test a different construct: 10 restaurants, 2 performance venues, 5 tents, 1 radio station, and 4 miles of sidewalk will be the site of the first annual Hudson Music Fest. Beginning at noon on Friday and continuing through Sunday, the entire town will showcase music, from the lone guitarist strumming on a street corner to a 7-piece band on a spot-lit stage.
“Last year we had a creative economy workshop in town and about 50 people participated,” says photographer Chad Weckler, who, with Midhudsonmedia.com‘s Rob Johanson co-founded the Fest. “Out of that came the discussions about the music festival.” The co-founders sent out an open call and over one hundred musicians responded, including The Last Conspirators (psychedelic punk), Jugstompers (jug band), Mamalama (anglo-European and medieval), Zumbi Zumbi (calypso and Brazillian), and the songwriting team, The Compact.
With the exception of Helsinki, Basilica and American Glory, who are booking their own acts, the musicians are playing for free in exchange for the exposure and the chance to win a prize for Most Promising. The judge: Henry Hirsch, Lenny Kravitz’s longtime producer and owner of Hudson’s Waterfront Studios, whose staff will scout each of the performances, will select one act to record, mix, and master a single, all by Sunday afternoon. “It’s a 5 or 6 hour free recording session,” says Weckler. “That’ll help the artist, for sure,” as will Weckler’s follow-up interview with the recipient, broadcast during his show on local radio station WGXC.
Highlights of the fest include a free CD release party on Friday at 10 p.m. at Club Helsinki for the rock/blues duo Chris & Lolly, right. Chris plays bass, drums, piano and 6- and 12-string steel guitar; Lolly has been described as “Amy Winehouse without the drama”—a distinctive voice that doesn’t need a mic. For a $5 cover charge, The Basilica, which is quickly establishing itself as a showcase for cutting edge art, will offer up Nautical Almanac and Bunnybrains, two groups known for “bleeps, bloops, oddball noise” and psych/noise/punk. All weekend in a tent at 5th and Warren, American Glory BBQ Restaurant will be serving up Mississippi blues along with 20 ice cold microbrews. On Sunday, Jazz aficionados will find the Hudson Jazzworks workshop at the Hudson Opera House and the sounds of gospel at Henry Hudson Riverfront Park.
Ten of the town’s restaurants are expected to feature music from classical to gypsy, acoustic guitar to reggae. Weckler is hoping to get street-corners players to “echo a tune up-and down Warren Street.” So far, they’ve signed 70 acts, 100 musicians, 30 venues, and 100 scheduled performances. “We’ve made a real effort to cover the spectrum,” he says. And this is just their first year.
The 1st Annual Hudson Music Fest
Hudson, NY
August 12 – 14
Mostly free. Check listings for venues w/ admission fees
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 08/06/11 at 02:18 PM • Permalink
Jonah Bokaer: School at Jacob’s Pillow Alum Returns with Two U.S. Premieres
Dance review by Bess J.M. Hochstein
Photos of Why Patterns by Artworks ©Daniel Arsham/Snarkitecture
Much has been made of the fact that Jonah Bokaer was, at age 18, the youngest dancer to join the Merce Cunningham Dance Company; that he takes an interdisciplinary approach to dance, collaborating with visual artists and architects to create his work; and that he is something of an international art world darling, having had his work produced across North America, Asia, and Europe. What greater cred could a hot, young global art star ask for than to be the current choreographer for Robert Wilson’s operas?
So when RECESS, the first of two U.S. premieres that comprise Bokaer’s current program at the Pillow, begins with stone-faced Bokaer deliberately rolling a scroll of thick, white, photographic paper across the stage with focused flicks of his toes, picking up a corner and folding it to form a perpendicular overlap, with a 45 degree angle in white and a right angle of negative space, which he variously walks and lies along, creating shapes with his limbs that echo those of the paper, a viewer might think: “Yeah, I get it. Cold intellectual exercise.” That impression remains as Bokaer impassively folds, unfolds, and refolds the paper, until it is back to its original form, a bit crinkled from wear. Then things get interesting.
What looked like a shadow-shaped black blotch on the paper is actually a cut-out, through which Bokaer slips and scoots under the paper to the end of the stage. He grabs the free edge of the paper and runs across the stage, the paper ripping and forming wings as he goes. Is paper to Bokaer what jersey was to Martha Graham? He crumples the paper into a tent-shaped pile on the stage, and steps away. When the pile of paper begins to move, seemingly of its own accord, with a heartbeat rhythm, we find the warm, humorous heart in Bokaer’s work.
RECESS includes a few more surprises of crumpled mounds of paper becoming animate while Bokaer impassively continues rolling out, folding, and otherwise interacting with the paper. It’s like a funny magic puppet show. The noise of the paper is the soundscape.
The foot-rolling-a-tubular-object motif recurs in the second piece, Why Patterns, which begins before the intermission with stagehands assembling a large square on the stage, formed from a perimeter of clear tubes of ping pong balls, to the tune of James Brown’s Sex Machine, while overhead lights create a flickering grid of squares within the square.
As expected, ping pong balls scatter and fly in this piece—tossed in one at a time or flowing in a deluge from the wings; dropped from on high en masse or slowly streamed down from the rafters; poured or flung out of the tubes; set in motion by the four dancers, who alternate between ignoring the little white spheres and
determinedly moving them. They sweep them into corners, using their feet to roll the tubes like push brooms. They play soccer, using tubes held upright as goal posts. The play another game of tossing balls through the spaces formed by one another’s limbs in relation to their bodies or the floor. And at one point they frantically toss all the balls out of the square, in a race against a musical cue in the soundscape, which consists of the composition Why Patterns by Morton Feldman, with additional scoring by Alexis Georgopoulos.
Like RECESS, Why Patterns is a witty exploration of interactions between dancers and simple material in space, in which props and set design are one and the same, and of the beauty of geometry. The properties of the materials ensure that no performance of either piece will ever be the same. The Doris Duke Theater’s black box format is a bit problematic in terms of sight lines for both of these works, which feature a lot of floorwork – less so for the site-specific RECESS, where most of the magic happens in the middle ground.
The element of chance in these dances points back to Bokaer’s experience with Cunningham, as does his stop-and-go phrasing and abstract, angular, blank-faced, off-kilter movement vocabulary, though Why Patterns does have a few sections of unison and natural movement. Also Cunninghamesque is his collaboration with equally celebrated artists working in different media—in this case Daniel Arsham (an undercover performer in RECESS) of the design firm Snarkitecture and the fashion designer Richard Chai. But while Bokaer is following in the footsteps of giants, his humor is all his own. In what should be a long career ahead, we can only hope he cultivates this unique blend of intellectual inquiry and playfulness.
Jonah Bokaer in the Doris Duke Theatre
Now through August 7
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival
Becket, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 08/05/11 at 08:25 AM • Permalink
3e Étage (3rd Floor): First Rate, Seriously Playful Dance
Review by Bess J.M. Hochstein
Photo: Steve Murez
At the end of La Valse Infernale, a satisfying, virtuoso snippet of traditional ballet choreographed by Raul Zeummes—with long-limbed, bun-headed ballerinas spinning and posing on point and men bounding skyward—that builds into a frenzy of leaps, jumps, arabesques and whiplash-fast pirouettes, a viewer could be forgiven for wondering, “Where’s the ‘neo’ in this self-described neo-classical dance company, making its U.S. debut at the Pillow?” Except for some novel lighting and hand gestures, the piece seemed to be well mired in the classical tradition of its parent company, the Paris Opera Ballet, which is the oldest dance troupe in the Western world. And so the audience settles in for an evening of fine, classical ballet.
But then again, there was that quick flash of a fellow with a cane and a long purple jacket in an oversized hat at the rear of the stage before the dancing began – what was that about? And hey, what’s going on in the aisle? Is that an usher making strange bleating noises? She’s wearing the usher uniform – white button-down shirt, black slacks – but her face is covered in white pancake makeup, she’s holding some mechanism that’s beeping like a Geiger counter, she sure walks strange, and now she’s wrestling a guy in the audience for a shiny red valise, climbing onto the stage, and opening it… And that guy with the cane just came in from the wings, limping heavily, inspiring fear in our fake usher and snatching a banana from her hands…
Soon after this bit of theater the second dance begins: For Hands, by Richard Siegal, a brilliant quartet of contemporary ballet, all intricate, asymmetric, grounded angular coupling with interlocked bent elbows and knees, and a striking, repeated move in which the male slides his partner along the floor and folds her into him while she holds a jaunty pose, both feet firmly planted. Oh, wait, there’s that guy in the hat again…
It turns out he is the “The Trickster,” portrayed with authoritative presence on opening night by choreographer and company director Samuel Murez, and we are off and running on a terpsichorean adventure full of surprises and delights, not to mention superlative dancing, inventive choreography, evocative lighting and soundscapes, and enthralling stagecraft. Casting off his cane and limp, The Trickster performs a languid, acrobatic solo and then reveals himself as part magician, part master of ceremonies, all ringmaster, and somewhat malevolent in Épiphénomènes (photos above and below, by Cherylnn Tsushima), as he orchestrates a love match between Jack and Jill, danced by Ludmilla Pagliero and Takeru Coste, then tears her heart out, beckoning two gravediggers to drag the corpses to the side of the stage.
Another pair of dancers—Lydie Variehes and Alexandre Carniato— appears in the same squares of light where Jack and Jill began their story and it seems as if The Trickster is going to have his way with another hapless couple. But The Trickster limps off and these two self-destruct on their own, in Murez’s powerful duet, Chaconne, composed of bold coupling and unfurling, drawing each other close and pushing each other away.
The evening is a delectable, diverse smorgasbord of styles and creative choreography, including me2, Murez’s loose-limbed, masterful dance performed in whiteface to the English/French poem Me Too by Raymond Federman; Processes of Intimacy, Murez’s faux peek behind-the-scenes at the rehearsal process for a balletic duet, set to a stylized recording of Murez’s stage directions to which Pagliero and Coste (in photo, above, by Cherylnn Tsushima) start and stop; the solo Les Bourgeois, excerpted from the ballet Brel by Ben van Cauwenbergh, surely the equivalent of Twyla Tharp’s Nine Sinatra Songs, in which Francois Alu performs a boozy, woozy solo reminiscent of Baryshnikov’s turn in One for My Baby (And One More for the Road); the captivating quintet Excerpt from Limb’s Theorem by William Forsythe; and Trois, by Zeummes, a hysterical trio with brio in which three male dancers try to outdo each other with superhuman leaps, jumps, and spins, clownishly pandering to the audience for the loudest applause. The piece only works so well because, like all company members, the dancers are so darn good: strong, precise, charismatic, and steeped in technique.
The dances cleverly flow into each other thanks to somewhat creepy but witty interstitial appearances by the white-faced, wild-haired grave-diggers and long-fingered, hunch-backed mime-like dancers, who end the program with the energetic, full-company romp me9, which brings down the house. It seemed as if the audience would not stop applauding, and the company, made up of powerful young performers who are not just technically skilled dancers but also talented actors, returned the love, staying in character as they took their bows and continued to morph, regroup, and bow at the edge of the stage, again and again.
Photo: Steve Murez
3e Étage (3rd Floor): Soloists & Dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet
Now through August 7
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Ted Shawn Theatre
Becket, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 08/04/11 at 02:22 PM • Permalink
Big Dance Theater’s U.S. Debut of Supernatural Wife: Big Fun, Big Ideas
Dance review by Bess J.M. Hochstein
Photos: Cherylynn Tsushima
One thing you should know before seeing Supernatural Wife, Big Dance Theater’s take on Euripides’ sort-of tragedy Alkestis – and you should see it—is that dance is probably the least element of this enchanting and intelligent multimedia performance. You don’t have to be familiar with Alkestis (or Alcestis, depending on the translation), because the tale is well told, in a straightforward, lively, and inventive manner.
The work does include arresting movement, consistent body consciousness on the part of the performers, stylized nods to Greek folk dance, and many instances of attention-grabbing stillness – the corpse of Alkestis apparently suspended like a plank on the backs of two folding chairs; Hercules seeming to walk on the body of Alkestis thanks to two cleverly placed blocks; Hercules in Hades lifting the stiff-bodied Alkestis as if she is hog-tied, her flexed feet anchored to his neck – but overall, the dramatic and fun storytelling supersedes the choreography.
That’s not a bad thing. It’s a great story – after all, it has been around for nearly two thousand years – and it raises interesting questions about self sacrifice, white lies, and whether someone can be dead and not dead at the same time (think Schrödinger’s cat, a classic example of quantum mechanics).
Sounds heavy, but this production is light and filled with non-stop action and laugh-out-loud humor, with a sort of Vaudevillian air. Alkestis’ husband Admetos is played by Molly Hickok in drag; we see her transform into him on stage with help from a mini red velvet curtain behind which she magically obtains a crown, and then a mustache, both with eyebrows raised, letting the audience know she is in on the joke. The curtain is used for several other instances of stage magic, becoming the boat that ferries Alkestis across the river Styx, and her funeral shroud. Hades arrives to take Alkestis, who has chosen death to save her husband’s life, with a handcart, and repeatedly, impatiently questions her as she performs her farewell dance, “Are you done yet?” Hercules makes his entrance rolled onto the stage, banging away on a flashing drum set, using a cymbal as a dumbbell as he recounts his latest manly adventures. He reveals himself as a cocky, carousing frat boy before setting off on his heroic quest to wrestle Alkestis from Hades.
The six performers in Supernatural Wife are all multitalented; compelling dancers, they sing like angels, posture like rock stars, slip in and out of character in an instant, and rapidly manipulate props, set elements, and electronics without a glitch. The score, men, by David Lang (who was in attendance on Thursday night, thanks no doubt to his presence in the Berkshires for the Bang on a Can Festival), worked perfectly with the performance, and the videos projected on an oval screen above the stage added further dimension.
Other inventive staging elements included the use of two small monitors with videos of children to represent Alcestis and Admetos’ son and daughter, and a large monitor rolled in on a wheelchair to stand in for Admetos’ damning father. With the addition of a one-man chorus, often seated at a control table, providing stage directions and commentary into a microphone—several others appear across the stage at opportune moments so performers can amplify specific lines of the text, deftly excerpted from a translation by poet Anne Carson—and sequences of high-energy dancing in the center of the round stageprint, the production has enough going on to feel at times like a three-ring circus taking place all at once in one ring. It warrants a second viewing to catch the many details that quickly fly by.
Big Dance Theater’s co-directors Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar were the first recipients of the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award, and Supernatural Wife demonstrates again that the honor was justified. Let’s hope the relationship between the Pillow and Big Dance Theater remains strong so we can continue to see new, exciting work from this intelligent, boundary-crossing company. This Big Dance Theater production was big fun, and full of big ideas that will leave you with a big, lasting impression.
Photo: Christopher Duggan
Big Dance Theater in the Doris Duke Theatre
Now through Sunday, July 31
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Becket, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/29/11 at 07:09 AM • Permalink
LDP/Laboratory Dance Project Makes a Winning Pillow Debut
Dance review by Bess J.M. Hochstein
Without a doubt, LDP/Laboratory Dance Project, an all-male, contemporary troupe based in Soeul, is the most winning company to perform at Jacob’s Pillow thus far this summer, a season that has already seen more than its share of superb performances. Forget any impression you may have of Korean dance. LDP presents work that is universal in style, a little bit street, very smart, totally unpredictable, extremely likeable, and fun.
By the end of Are You Happy to See Me?, the first piece in a three-work program (photos left and below by Christopher Duggan), the audience was thrilled, producing a thunderous round of applause, and could hardly wait for the intermission to end to see more. This high-energy dance began and ended with Dongkyu Kim alone on the floor in a square of light, illuminated from above at the front, right corner of the stage, trying to get up, which lent the piece the feeling of a dream. Most of the action took place center stage, in a rectangle of light under a suspended metallic structure, where six stone-faced dancers wearing long blue sarongs shifted from controlled, unison movements initiated by hand and arm gestures into aggressive, full body interactions.
The dancers mostly moved in a grid within the rectangle of light, though at times they stepped out of the box, at one point falling flat on the floor to form a larger rectangle. As the piece progressed and the dancers became more interactive, the grid devolved into a freer flowing spatial plan. There was sudden, unwarranted violence, most of it directed at one hapless victim, who, over a long sequence was shaken, spun, and tossed around by the other ensemble members. Wild-haired sprite Kihun Kim initiated the violence with one unexpected kick, and became a malevolent whirling dervish during the piece, which benefited from dramatic lighting and an evocative, electronic soundscape punctuated with snippets of Je Ne Regrette Rien.
The duet Modern Feeling injected a dose of humor into the evening. The light comes up to find Jinyook Ryu sprawled in an armchair, in street clothes, soon to be joined by Insoo Lee (also the choreographer), taking the adjacent chair and placing his hand on Ryu’s leg, which shudders under his touch. Lee repeats the gesture with different touches, until Ryu’s shudder transfers into Lee’s arm, and the piece is off and running.
In the ensuing romp, by turn playful and combative, the two engage in clever partnering, embracing and spinning apart with inventive lifts and holds; a mock martial arts showdown that slips from hi-speed to slo-mo sparring and grappling; entrancing segments of weight transference; and a powerful moment of stillness stage front, facing the audience, that culminates in a literal slap in the face.
The evening ends with No Comment, LDP’s signature work, created by Chang Ho Shin, who also performs. Like the other pieces, this dance immediately draws the viewer in with striking imagery and lighting design. In darkness, we hear the unmistakable noise of flesh rhythmically slapping flesh; the light gradually rises to reveal one dancer, hand under his shirt, slapping his chest, as another repeatedly struggles to his feet, rising as if pulled by a marionette’s string only to collapse down to the floor. In the background, one man strides onto the stage and another dashes out of the wings in pursuit, tackles him, and drags him back.
This is an intensely physical, rhythm driven-dance with smart structure that makes the most of the dancers’ uniform ability to remain loose-limbed and controlled at the same time. The choreography is engaging and never predictable, and the dancers attack every move with total commitment, especially during two acrobatic segments – one involving a long sequence of dancers taking a few steps on their hands as they cartwheel then collapse to the floor, and another of showboating, break-dance style flips, spins, and handsprings in rapid sequence. No Comment has a few false endings, repeated reprises that allow the audience to appreciate a full-throttle unison sequence that eventually finds its way off the stage and into the aisles before the eruption of a well deserved standing ovation.
LDP is the first Korean contemporary company in the Pillow’s 79-year history to enjoy a weeklong engagement on the Ted Shawn stage. At a glance it may have seemed to be risky programming, but by the end of the evening it was easy to see why Ella Baff took the chance and booked LDP in the larger theater for its Pillow debut. The audience left exhilarated. “That was awesome!,” one young viewer exclaimed, and just about everyone seemed to be thinking the same thing. LDP proves that dance can be both smart and fun, humorous without being dopey, crowd-pleasing without pandering, and enjoyable on the surface without lacking depth.
LDP/Laboratory Dance Project in the Ted Shawn Theatre
Now through July 31
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Becket, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/28/11 at 12:00 PM • Permalink
Jazz on Three Summer Days, a Chat with Vita Muir
photograph by Wendy Carlson for Litchfield Magazine
Summer 2011 marks the 16th anniversary of the Litchfield Jazz Festival, of which jazz DJ Dave Hershorin of New Orleans WWOZ radio says, “It’s what other jazz festivals wish they could be.” Litchfield Magazine recently named LJF founder Vita Muir one of the 50 most influential people in the county. RI’s Betsy Miller recently spoke with her:
Betsy Miller: How did you start this festival?
Vita Muir: I used to have a chamber music series in my living room. Then I brought classical music to jails and hospitals and finally realized that the audience for this music was literally dying out. So I made the transition to jazz. I wanted to choose a form that I felt would go into the future. Once we decided to go in that direction, I felt re-invigorated and couldn’t wait to get started.
RI: So, how did you get yourself up to speed?
VM: Everything I do is a research project. I hooked up with lots of people who could mentor me. I traveled to New Orleans and met a guy who took me around. I talked with Ken Woods on Long Island Jazz Radio. I got people to send me CDs of musicians they thought I should hear. Then I made myself two rules. First, I wouldn’t book anyone I hadn’t heard live at least three times. And, second, I’d always mix edgy new jazz with the more traditional true blue variety. Our first festival featured Rufus Reed and a new kid named Diana Krall.
RI: In sixteen years, I’m sure you’ve booked some great acts. Does someone else do that work now?
VM: No way. I love to curate the Festival. It’s my favorite part of the job. I do a lot of “dog work” just so I get the pleasure of deciding what acts to show. And we’ve had some great ones: Ahmad Jamal, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Marion McPartland. Last year our headliner was Dave Brubeck.
RI: Who’s in the line up for this year?
VM: The Vijay Iyer Trio will be playing some cutting edge music. The Bronx Horns play Latin Jazz and salsa. Then we have the Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio. He plays the Hammond B3 organ and has been around for years. Now, his early stuff is being sampled in rap, dance and house groove pieces. We also have Trombone Shorty. He was nominated for a Grammy this year and has been in four episodes of Treme, the HBO series about New Orleans.
Also, we are very fortunate to have received the last Jazz Masters Grant from the NEA. That allowed us to bring the Jimmy Heath (above in photo by Steven Sussman) Big Band and the Roy Haynes Fountain of Youth Band to the Festival. Both those guys are in their 80s and have a huge jazz history between them.
RI: The jazz camp for young musicians that is a companion to the festival is a unique opportunity for students interested in jazz—the one truly American art form—to work with masters. How did that come about?
VM: My passion is changing children’s lives though the arts. The Jazz Camp cranks out 400 kids each summer who are interested in pursuing this art form. We distribute $106.000 in scholarships and expose them to some of the greatest people in jazz. Many of our performers this year will either teach classes or participate in clinics held during the weekend
RI: Tell us about your artist-in-residence Matt Wilson.
VM: Matt has appeared here 17 times in 16 years. He’s an extraordinary drummer who has played with everyone from Wynton Marsalis to Dewey Redman and Cedar Walton. He teaches at the camp and will be acting as M.C. in the “Artists Talks” Tent. He’ll also be part of the Dena DeRose Trio and lead his own Quartet plus Strings.
RI: What is your background?
VM: I studied writing and science in school. I documented the medical results of the Apollo program before I came here.
RI: Do you have a wish list of performers?
VM: I would like to hire a young man named Ambrose Akinmusire. He won the Monk competition this year. I’d like to have Billy Hart, a drummer who is up there in years. Donny McCaslin, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and Benny Green.
RI: What about jazz from other countries?
VM: I’m listening to lots of Brazilian performers. We have a Cuban teacher at the camp, and I’m always interested in African jazz. But they already have to be stateside before we can get them here.
RI: Any other projects?
VM: We’re trying to get money together for a compilation CD. We’ve got 16 years of material. And I am starting a new research project on the effects of music on autism. I also have a Poetry Project and we’re trying to build a fund for future jazz campers so that they can go on in perpetuity. It’s all part of supporting jazz and children.
The 16th Annual Litchfield Jazz Festival
Kent School
Kent, Ct.
August 5 - 7
3-day VIP pass/$350; 1-day VIP pass/$150.00
Tickets/$22 - $83
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 07/25/11 at 07:16 AM • Permalink
Lar Lubovitch Lets Loose at Jacob’s Pillow
Dance review by Bess J.M. Hochstein
Photo: Todd Rosenberg
Lar Lubovitch is a master of shape in space. In his work, form and flow take precedence over narrative or message, and his dances are a joy to watch. In the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company’s appearance at Jacob’s Pillow, now through July 24, audiences can see the consistency of his craft and the integrity of his vision in four works that range a three-decade span.
North Star (1978) has the distinction of being regarded as the first modern dance set to music by Philip Glass. (Yes, Lucinda Childs did the choreography for Einstein on the Beach, which debuted in 1976, but that was an opera.) Lubovitch’s choreography ebbs and flows with the spellbinding music, the dancers clustering together and spinning apart, moving like a single organism expanding and contracting with breath. Movement ripples through the dancers, like a wave – not repeated but transformed into different shapes – flowing smoothly, never still. While the dancers’ appearances are distinct, their individuality is subjugated to the gestalt of the dance.
The exception is a solo by Jenna Fakhoury, trapped in the cone of a spotlight on an otherwise dark stage. Feet rooted, she throws herself into a sequence of jagged, rhythmic movements that take over her entire body, which switch to smooth, sweeping full-body moves, guided by a similar change in the music. The brief, expansive solo by Reid Bartelme that follows, in which he quickly traverses the stage, serves as a contrast to her immobility, and it’s a relief when the ensemble reassembles and resumes its graceful ebb and flow.
Duet from Meadow, an excerpt of a work premiered at the American Ballet Theatre in 1999, showcases the prowess and presence of Lubovitch’s dancers. Set to Incipit Vita Nova by Gavin Bryars (another favorite composer of modern choreographers), it opens with Brian McGinnis holding Katarzyna Skarpetowska aloft, rigid, in a sort of asymmetric, upside-down tabletop position; he slowly lowers her as her shape gradually morphs and she touches down, only to be lifted again into another striking pose.
Here Lubovitch sculpts arresting shapes of the dancers’ bodies; the pace is gradual, but not plodding, so the audience has ample time to enjoy the gorgeous forms in transition. Despite the strength and flexibility required to execute the duet, neither dancer shows exertion, only calm self-possession. This brief piece ends as it began, with McGinnis holding Skarpetowska aloft. As he moves slowly in a circle, they are like a statue rotating on its pedestal.
The Legend of Ten (2010), set to Brahms’ Quintet for Piano and Strings in F Minor, Opus 34, features fast-flowing, clever formations of nine dancers spiraling and spinning off into three groups of three, and back together again. The tenth member of the company, Fakhoury, strides onto the stage, which seems to precipitate a sort of geometric crisis. The pace slows, and all the other dancers except for Bartelme leave the stage, marking the end of the music’s first movement. Dance 2, to Movement IV, begins with Fakhoury and Bartelme (in photo by Cherylynn Tsushima) moving slowly, crablike, across the front of the stage on their backs. They perform a series of sweeping, lover-like duets, interspersed with ensemble sequences that incorporate folk-dance-style conventions, with rhythmic stomping, fist-shaking, and high-kicking phrases, until, by the end, the couple is absorbed into the group and the spinning, spiraling, unfolding formations resume, under a new geometric balance and harmony that allows for one group of four.
The program ends with Coltrane’s Favorite Things (2010; photo, left, by Todd Rosenberg), a joyous romp with elements of swing dance as a series of high-spirited, fast-paced duos, trios, and quartets sweep onto the stage in sync with the music’s various solos. The scenic design—barn walls and doors exposed, littered with ladders, a mannequin, and other items, set back behind a semicircle of multicolored floor lights in front of which the dancers perform in crisp rehearsal-type costumes—lends the piece a feeling of a backstage party, which is reinforced by the dancers’ genuine-seeming smiles. They are loose-limbed on top, with non-stop, rapid-fire legwork moving them briskly across the floor, all to the rolling rhythms of the music. It was a crowd-pleasing end to an evening of beautifully crafted dances that undoubtedly pleased both longtime Lar Lubovitch lovers and new fans alike.
Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in the Ted Shawn Theatre
Now through July 24
Jacob’s Pillow, Becket, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/21/11 at 02:14 PM • Permalink
Zoe | Juniper Jumps to the Doris Duke Theatre
Dance review by Bess J.M. Hochstein
Photos: Christopher Duggan
Seattle-based zoe | juniper is a young multi-disciplinary visual and performing arts company headed by the husband and wife team of dancer/choreographer Zoe Scofield and photographer/video installation/sculptural performance artist Juniper Shuey. The company made its Jacob’s Pillow debut in 2006 on the Marcia and Seymour Simon Performance Space, popularly known as the Inside/Out stage, with there ain’t no easy way out. As has happened over the years for such choreographers as David Parsons and Azsure Barton, zoe | juniper made the leap from Inside/Out to inside the Doris Duke Theatre, taking time along the way to develop A Crack in Everything, in part during a Creative Residency Program at the Pillow in September.
Its creators say A Crack in Everything is based on The Oresteia, but a casual audience will see nothing of Aeschylus’ tragedy in the work, beyond the gold-flecked costumes which call to mind post-modern productions of ancient Greek literature. What the audience will encounter is a surreal, ambitious production in a multi-layered, shifting environment that starts out with the stage divided into several worlds – behind the scrim, in front of the scrim, and on the scrim, which serves as a screen for projections, reflections, shadowplay, as a canvas for an extended section of scrawling in red pen, and as a medium of interaction between realms.
Layers of this frontal scrim fly off the stage or up to hover above in a production that also makes dramatic use of bold lighting changes and an evocative, often jarring soundscape incorporating electronic noise, chimes, and German lieders. There is little pedestrian in the movement vocabulary, and, indeed, little human; the work boasts its own dance language that is gravity-bound, sometimes otherworldly, sometimes insectoid, at one point canine, and always uncomfortable looking. There’s a surprising, memorable bit with a red chord that looks like a laser beam. There’s even a creepy bug-like/alien creature who appears on stage and threateningly looms over the action. If you are looking for something new in dance, something that goes way beyond bodies moving across space and even beyond dance theater and performance art, this could be just the ticket.
zoe | juniper in the Doris Duke Theatre
Now through July 24
Jacob’s Pillow, Becket, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/20/11 at 11:12 PM • Permalink
Leon and Richard, Together Again
by Scott Baldinger
Bard president and American Symphony orchestra conductor Leon Botstein (above left, in 1975 at the age of 29) is also the numero uno champion of the 1940 opera Die Liebe der Danae, the gloriously coloristic but neglected work composed in Germany by Richard Strauss (above right, at about the same age, c. 1893).
Germany was not a great place to be in 1940. Due to his preeminence, Strauss was grudgingly tolerated by the Reich, and, consequently, viewed by its enemies as far too cozy with it. He also had a Jewish daughter-in-law and grandchildren to protect. The stress of his situation is reflected, I posit to Botstein in a telephone interview earlier this week, not in the brilliant score, but in the plot. Botstein, however, insists that the plot is “very simple….It’s about two men, one is King Midas and the other Jupiter, and a beautiful girl, Danae, whose father, King Pollus, is bankrupt and being pursued by creditors. The older of the two, Jupiter, covets the beautiful girl but he’s a god who has to take a human shape in order to court her….”
Botstein (right, in a more recent photograph) is being driven up the Taconic Parkway, and here the cell phone reception starts to go, as it always tends to at such pivotal moments. So the rest of the plot goes something like this: Jupiter pretends to Danae that he is King Midas. At the same time King Midas pretends to be someone else—his own messenger, a lowly minion clearly not paid well enough for Danae and her family’s needs. Danae falls for the real Midas pretending to be the poor one, but allows herself to get hornswoggled into marrying the faux Midas/god, who it turns out can’t actually be intimate with mortals under any circumstance, so he turns her into stone. Jupiter then feels remorse about this, turns her back into a human and lets her to run off with the real Midas, who then rains gold on her, allowing Danae to pay off her dad’s debts. Everyone is happy, except for Jupiter, who really just wants to be human.
See? Simple. What I do know is that Strauss’ score to Danae and Botstein’s pivotal 2001 recording of it for Telarc are marvelous; the grandly (perhaps a tad crazily) theatrical gist of the opera adds up to a cosmic comedy that, as Botstein says, “pokes fun at modern capitalism and the way in which greed gets in the way of our higher ambitions and desires”—a painfully relevant theme that will no doubt lend itself to a spectacular modern-dress mounting at Bard’s Fisher Center. The sets of the production that can be seen within Frank Gehry’s always mind-blowing theater are being designed by the noted architect Rafael Vinoly, who just completed a stretch of sleek eye candy for the college’s science and computer department.
“This is Strauss, abandoned by everyone, misunderstood and isolated, poking fun at myths and Wagnerian pretension, creating this bravura show of compositional elements that incorporate Wagner, Kurt Weill and the popular music of the time, but finally embracing a Mozartean universality,” Botstein says, once we reconnect. I reply that the mind games played on Danae by Jupiter and Midas remind me of the heartbreaking masquerades of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, just as the reception goes dead. Once again, we are victims of the gods; these days, they’re called Verizon and ATT.
Die Liebe der Danae
Bard Summerscape
July 29 - August 7.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 07/20/11 at 01:33 PM • Permalink
Louise Lecavalier: Daredevil Dancing at Jacob’s Pillow
Dance review by Bess J.M. Hochstein
Photos: Andre Cornellier
Louise Lecavalier is petite, more than 50 years old, sinewy and muscled, and a dare devil dancer with a stage presence that grabs your attention and never lets it go – not only when she is moving with complete physical abandon, but also in emotionally fraught stillness. Lecavalier is making her Jacob’s Pillow debut this week with two dances: Children, choreographed by Nigel Charnock, and A Few Minutes of Lock, reconstructed excerpts of work by choreographer Édouard Lock, leader of the seminal 1980s/90s Montreal-based dance company La La La Human Steps.
Children presents intense motion and emotion, driven by ideas. On a bare stage with spare, shifting, dramatic white lights, Lecavalier and Patrick Lamothe appear to portray a couple going through the fluctuating dynamics of a volatile relationship, repeatedly drawing the other closer then pushing the other away, relaxing into each other and stiffening, shifting roles between the one who collapses and the one who provides support. Moods shift with the soundtrack, which ranges from Lenonard Cohen to Miles Davis to Janis Joplin to Billie Holiday, transitions often marked by a recording of Maria Callas gratingly stuck on one note, accompanied by a strobe light. Simple props come into play: flashlights used to tease, taunt and illuminate; a camera flash; pillows that may or may not represent a newborn child; and wooden staffs that transform from weapons to toys. Late in the piece, when the two dancers dump a bottle of water on each other, it’s an act of simultaneous loving care and hostility.
The work’s title explicitly implies that adult couples often act like children, playing mind games with each other, a concept that’s reinforced when the soundtrack shifts to voices of children playing. And while there are a few fluid, playful segments in Children, this is rough territory. It’s not a pretty dance, but there are many moments of beauty, and the intensity of the dancing makes it engaging throughout.
A Few Minutes of Lock makes you wish for many minutes more, but it’s hard to imagine that the dancers could endure it. Lecavalier was Lock’s muse at La La La Human Steps, and given her commitment to the beyond-challenging material, we can see why. She gives herself over completely to this rapid, risky choreography, in which it looks like one false move by her or her partner, Keir Knight, could result in injury.
In these few fraugth minutes, set to instrumental music by Iggy Pop, she is repeatedly tossed, spinning horizontally in the air, and caught milliseconds before her head hits the floor. She is spun away and pulled back, not limp-bodied, but with an angular, gritty sharpness. Knight takes similar risks, as Lecavalier jumps in place over him while he sweeps his torso low to the ground, and it all happens so fast, with split-seond timing, that you can hardly trust your eyes. It’s a multiple gasp-inducing experience. When it’s over, the relief in Knight’s eyes is palpable. This is breathtaking dance that leaves both the performers and the audience breathless.
Photo: Massimo Chiarradia©
Louise Lecavalier in the Doris Duke Theatre
Now through July 16
Jacob’s Pillow, Becket, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/15/11 at 08:05 AM • Permalink
From Cuba to Becket: DanzAbierta’s U.S. Debut at Jacob’s Pillow
Dance review by Bess J.M. Hochstein
Photos by Carlos Furman
In DanzAbierta’s hour-long work, MalSon, the dancers wear gray and black and the sole scenic prop is a gray block, about the size of an super-deep mattress. All color comes from video intermittently projected on the back of the stage, and through the choreography, which is is vivid and firmly rooted in the modern vein.
The video segments create a profound contrast between the “real world” of interactions among the five dancers, whose life seems alternately passionate and bleak, and that of the “fantasy” world of the projections, where these same dancers wear jewel-toned clothes of brilliant red and green, and drive bright-hued, gleaming-chromed 1950s American cars, which are famously common in Havana, where DanzAbierta is based. And there’s the paradox; the video segments include scenes of real life in Cuba: skylines, seascapes, and bustling streets, plus a seemingly endless staircase that the video versions of the dancers climb and descend in calibrated rhythm. There’s also a claustrophobic elevator in which they thrash around, providing another contrast to the cool, controlled movements they present on stage, which occur in a sort of netherworld.
With this performance, the Cuban company’s first-ever U.S. appearance, the audience gets a rare treat: to experience a dance with no expectations. That’s not to say you wouldn’t expect to see some Latin social dance, and MalSon does offer up a bit of rumba and salsa, but it is stylized, a bit distant, and eventually gets deconstructed. In sync with the soundtrack of a skipping record, three dancers get stuck in a groove, leaving one of the two men to manipulate their limbs and move them around like Barbie dolls, while one dancer remains frozen across the stage. The three are eventually set in motion, robotically executing two hip-swaying dance steps—back to the audience, arms akimbo as if holding a partner—for an intentionally uncomfortably long time.
Some of the most striking moments of the dance involve that gray block. Set upright, it blends into a video of a seawall on which the real life Abel Berenguer performs a lilting duet with the projected image of Yaima Cruz, in a bright red dress, as the corporeal Cruz, drained of color, skulks below. Through the magic of perception, Berenguer and the filmic Cruz seem to jump into the sea together.
The block gets more play as the dance reaches its climax, manipulated to stand in for one of those ’50s cars – an object of desire and jealousy – and demarcating a ledge of a building from which one dancer appears to jump to her death. In many clever sequences it serves as a mobile wall which, when moved, hides dancers and then reveals them in unexpected configurations, and as a rotating platform that alternately lifts and deposits dancers in surprising, innovative ways.
MalSon does not rely on flashy moves to draw the viewer’s attention. There’s a narrative in the piece that is a bit mysterious or foreign, just out of reach, but with enough universal emotion—love, passion, hate, despair— to reel in the audience’s attention.
Part of that draw is the astute coordination of movement with sound and image, thanks to original music and video by X Alfonso, which shifts from rhythmically jarring to calm and ambient, often in a heartbeat. The images come fast and furious toward the end, when the block briefly becomes a life raft adrift on the ocean, and then resolves, with finality (spoiler alert), as a seawall, upon which the dancers sit in a line, backs to the audience, looking out over the water, their arms around each other. It’s a satisfying final image for a dance that opens the door into a world that seems to slip between the realistic and the fantastic.
DanzAbierta in the Ted Shawn Theatre
Now through July 17
Jacob’s Pillow, Becket, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/14/11 at 10:24 AM • Permalink
Todd Reynolds on the 10th Annual Bang on a Can Festival
The rock band Wilco, which hosted the recent Solid Sound festival, was not the first musical group to commandeer MASS MoCA. In 2002—just three years after the museum was founded – Bang on a Can, a group of musicians and composers dedicated to commissioning, performing, creating, presenting, and recording contemporary music, convened in North Adams to create a summer festival, presenting new music on stage and in the galleries.
Now celebrating its 10th anniversary through July 30, The Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival & Institute at MASS MoCA, fondly known as “Banglewood,” offers more than performances. Festival founders Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe designed the Institute component for up-and-coming musicians from across the globe who find themselves between the classical and contemporary worlds, in often-indefinable categories. They can participate in a broad range of workshops, such as improvisation, Balinese music, and the business of music. Composer “fellows” write music for the festival and have their work performed, and musicians get the chance to play in public alongside renowned faculty members such as Evan Ziporyn, Mark Stewart (Paul Simon’s musical director), and David Cossin (who performs with Sting), plus other leading lights in the contemporary music world.
Among those lights is composer/musician/violinist/
electronic music innovator Todd Reynolds (in photo by Kevin Kenneflick), who has been with Bang on a Can since shortly after its creation in 1987 and who has called North Adams home for the past six years. Reynolds, a classically trained violinist who veered into experimental music during college, has played with classical orchestras and chamber ensembles, performed as a soloist with Yo-Yo Ma and as an early member of the Silk Road Project, and worked with rock stars as part of his high-octane chamber ensemble, ETHEL.
After playing on scores of other composers’ recordings, Reynolds just released his own double CD, Outerborough, which NPR just named One of the Best Classical Albums of the Year (So Far).”
Reynolds is one of the few musicians to have participated in every Bang on a Can summer festival. On the occasion of Banglewood’s 10th anniversary, Rural Intelligence cultural correspondent Bess J.M. Hochstein spoke with Reynolds about the festival, his new release, his long and winding road in the music world, and musical robots.
Bess Hochstein: What’s a nice violinist like you doing all wired up? Did you start out as a traditional classical violinist?
Todd Reynolds: I started out playing and studying the violin at age 4 in Los Angeles, where I was born. I learned all the concertos and caprices that all the other boys and girls learned, and played them as if I’d be a normal classical dude until I went to college.
It was there [at The Eastman School of Music] that I started to realize that the lifeblood of classical music was not in the tradition, but in the evolution. I realized (finally) that people were writing ‘classical music’ today, and that that was how the tradition would continue to evolve. I set myself to learning music that was written in the present, and never looked back. This, of course, turned into setting my lens frame very wide, and I began studying jazz, rock and roll, world musics, everything that I could get my hands on.
Electronics and computer music came to me at that time as well, as did improvisation. I’d been a computer geek since I was in my teens, even selling computers at a Radio Shack just to be NEXT to them. Watching Jimi Hendrix and all the great guitarists led me to ask the question, “Why not on violin?” I just knew that someday everything would be able to be done inside a computer… I imagined that someday we’d have something as small as a laptop to do it with, and I was right, and boy, now my life is full of wonder and adventure as a result.
During my journey I’ve been Principal 2nd violinist of a major symphony orchestra (the Rochester Philharmonic), and studied with someone most maintain is one of the world’s most stunning violinists (Jascha Heifetz). I’ve passed through the Silk Road Project, and played as soloist with Yo-Yo Ma, sat concertmaster for Sir George Solti, and with my band ETHEL backed up Joe Jackson, Todd Rundgren and other rock luminaries.
BH: How would you describe your music?
TR: This is one of the hardest questions for any creative musician to answer, I’m afraid. Some have called it Quantum Ambient Electro-Acoustic Electronica. If I had to describe it, though, I’d have to say that it is an organic amalgam of all my experiences, tastes, learning, traveling, and straight out ‘loves.’
I don’t ‘try’ to write music; in fact, my most favorite times are when I’m on stage with electronics which allow me to orchestrate things in real time, and I start with a blank slate, silence, and compose right there on the spot for folks.
If there is one thing I hope people do hear in the music, it’s a language of hope, good spirit, joy, and possibility. It’s rarely dark, and when it is, there’s a bright spot in there somewhere.
BH: Were you a founding member of Bang on a Can? How did you get involved?
TR: I wouldn’t consider myself a founding member though I’ve been with the organization since its inception… I believed in the ideal and was so happy to be a part. When it came time to build the house band, now the All-Stars, I was off playing jazz, plus they wanted to form a non-traditional band (everyone has a violin!) which was weighted toward lower-pitched instruments. From that time forward I’ve been grateful to be the violinist on call for when they need one and am absolutely a devoted, committed member of the organization and the cause of celebrating music that ‘falls in the cracks between everything.’
BH: As part of the Bang on a Can faculty at MASS MoCA, what will you teach?
TR: The way the institute is organized, the faculty teaches by playing chamber music with the fellows. We sort of ‘coach from the inside,’ so it’s much more of a collegial representation than an embodiment of the teacher/student divide.
In addition, I teach some of what I do, which is improvisation/electronics/composition. The composition students are taught by Michael, David and Julie, each fellow writing a piece for an ensemble made up of fellows and performed on ‘composer concerts.’
BH: How would you describe your new two-CD release, Outerborough?
TR: It’s the inSide and the outSide of my experience. The first CD is all my own composition, and the second is music of my close and respected colleagues. It’s a view into both sides of a guy who’s a true composer/performer. I’ve interpreted so much music in my lifetime, that that bleeds over into my own expression. Listening to both CDs in the package gives one a glimpse into the sum total of that experience, or so I hope.
BH: You juggle many different projects. What can you tell us about Still Life with Microphone?
TR: This is what I call my solo show these days. It is still in process and when I perform with my video partner, Luke DuBois, with three screens of video and sometimes with the musical robots of LEMUR, this is what it’s called.
BH: The musical robots of LEMUR?
TR: Eric Singer of http://lemurbots.org (The League of Musical Urban Robots). I work with Eric and tour with him as well. We’re developing new things and taking our current work on the road whenever someone will have us. And someday, I hope to secure funding for Eric to build a specific set of robots for me.
BH: What about the new all-star string quartet you are playing with?
TR: I’m still sought to provide string quartets for people, so there is the Todd Reynolds String Quartet out there on some records and associated with certain projects like Meredith Monk and Kenny Werner. The band is, however, fluid, with a shifting cast of characters culled from the very best all-star new music chamber musicians in Manhattan, all of whom are as passionate about present-day music as I am.
BH: Do you ever still play traditional classical, unwired violin, in private or in public?
TR: Absolutely. My piano trio, Typical Music, where I’m joined by Bang on a Can All-Stars Ashley Bathgate (cello) and Vicky Chow (piano), just performed last week at Rockport Music Festival. We played a piece by Bang on a Can composer Evan Ziporyn in a concert celebrating his music, all of which is extraordinary.
After playing wired for so much of the time, it was brilliant to perform with the ‘sound system’ of Shalin Liu Performance Center, which is no sound system at all, save the unbelievable and tasty acoustics of that modern chamber music hall. It was a treat for all of us, and made me want to play more acoustic music again. Sometimes we forget that concert halls were the original Fender Twin Reverbs and Meyer Amplification Systems of their day.
BH: What kind of music do you listen to when you’re not playing or composing? Do you have a favorite genre for listening?
TR: I can’t generalize about that because my tastes run so wide. I actually spend my free time on YouTube researching or learning new software, finding documentation for new musical projects with whom I’d like to be familiar.
I’ll often visit the classics for inspiration - Aphex Twin, Zeppelin, Michael Jackson, King Crimson, Laurie Anderson, or more current projects and artists with whom I feel a kinship like The Books, Newspeak, Sxip Shirey, Owen Pallett. Lots of electronic music, studio-produced stuff is in there, but then again, I love Allison Krause with a passion, and Natalie MacMaster too.
BH: What can we expect to see from you during the three weeks of the Bang on a Can festival?
TR: Oh, tons! I’d have to check the schedule. To start, I’ll be performing a recital of my own on the 14th of July at 4:30. Lots of acoustic and digital love there. And John Adams’ Shaker Loops and his violin piano piece, Road Movies as well during the major John Adams tribute and the Marathon. I’ll be posting on my website and on Twitter daily as @digifiddler, do follow me! Facebook, too!
The 10th Annual Bang on a Can Festival at MASS MoCA
July 13 – 30
North Adams, MA
Highlights
Tribute to John Adams, Saturday, July 23
Festival composer recital: Monday, July 25
Bang on a Can Marathon, Saturday, July 30
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/11/11 at 05:17 PM • Permalink
Crystal Pite’s Kidd Pivot, Pillow Dance Award Recipient, Turns Heads
The Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award is no mere honor. In addition to the prestige of being recognized by one of the world’s leading dance organizations and a custom-designed glass sculpture by the prominent Berkshire-based artist Tom Patti, the award includes a check for $25,000, one of the largest cash awards in the dance industry. It can be a lifeline for a struggling company.
Established in 2007 by an anonymous gift, the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award has honored such established dance-world luminaries (and Pillow favorites) as Bill T. Jones, Alonzo King, Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar of Big Dance Theater, and the late Merce Cunningham. This year’s recipient is Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite, who performs with her troupe, Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM, at the Pillow through Sunday, July 10 in her 2009 piece, Dark Matters, about which The New York Times just advised its readers “…you should rush off to the Berkshires to see it.”
In addition to forming Kidd Pivot in 2001 and building the company’s repertoire, Pite has choreographed for top companies in Europe and America, including Cullberg Ballet, Ballett Frankfurt, and Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. Kidd Pivot is currently based in Germany, where Pite danced with William Forsythe’s Frankfurt Ballet for several years, after beginning her career with Ballet British Columbia, with whom she made her choreographic debut in 1990 and first appeared at the Pillow in 1993.
Rural Intelligence cultural correspondent Bess J.M. Hochstein spoke with the Pillow’s Ella Baff to find out more about Crystal Pite and the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award.
Bess Hochstein: Did you see Crystal Pite dance with Forsythe’s Frankfurt Ballet? If so, when, and did anything about her as a performer stand out?
Ella Baff: I can’t recall when I saw her exactly, but she always stands out even among the greatest dancers. She has everything: intensity, focus, generosity, blazing technical ability, mystery, virtuosity, but with a modesty that is in service of the work, not the ego.
BH: What first drew you to Pite’s work as a choreographer?
EB: It always looks original, made of its own cloth, not “derived” from anything. She has a deep imagination that draws the viewer in, step by step. She builds a “world” on stage that we feel we can enter. She places the highest demands on the dancers, who are superior artists and live up to what she asks of them. You never know what will happen next when you see a performance of Kidd Pivot and that tells us something truly original is happening on stage.
BH: Do you see the impact of William Forsythe in her work – if so, in what ways? Would you consider him mentor to Pite?
EB: I think Crystal considers William to be a mentor. Anyone who has worked with him seems to feel this way. He is brilliant and he broke new ground in the evolution of ballet and contemporary dance. I would say that their work is completely different from one another, but might be compared in terms of intensity and intelligence, and that it requires the most disciplined accomplished dancers of great mental and physical stamina to dance their work.
BH: Pite was visibly moved when she received the award, and noted it came at a critical time for her personally and professionally. Do you have know what she was talking about?
EB: Crystal has been working very hard, steadily developing her unique way of moving, her creative projects, and keeping a company together. I think she feels that receiving a big honor from Jacob’s Pillow is an acknowledgement of what she has been working for, and it is an encouragement to continue.
BH: The four earlier Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award recipients have longer careers and a larger body of work. Why did this year’s award go to someone with such a relatively brief career and with such a concise repertoire?
EB: The donors who support the Award are exceptional people. They are primarily interested in a pure idea of the Award benefiting deserving artists. Sometimes that will mean someone established, and many times, artists who are less established, in hope that the Award will advance their creative development and career. There are no strings attached to the Award, so the artists can use the money however they wish. The Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award is a true gift.
BH: All of the previous recipients are U.S.-based. Does this year’s award signal a more global perspective going forward?
EB: I don’t know; we have no rules really. The Award is about exceptional choreographers.
BH: How are the recipients chosen? Is it your decision or is there a committee or panel?
EB: There is no official panel or committee. I confer with staff, colleagues, and the donors of the Award.
BH: When you invite a company to the Pillow, is it with a specific program or work in mind or do they choose what to present? Why is Kidd Pivot bringing Dark Matters, and not Pite’s most recent work, The You Show?
EB: It is with a specific program in mind. I saw Dark Matters and knew I wanted to bring it. I have not seen The You Show yet.
I like to present premieres at the Pillow, which means that what arrives on stage is not only a surprise for the audience but for me! I may see a rehearsal at a time that I need to make a decision for the next season, and I need to just take the risk or not. Jacob’s Pillow is a place where we feel it’s important to present not only the classics and companies that people know but new companies and new work so we can expand our ideas about what dance is from all over the world.
BH: This week the Pillow has Tangueros del Sur in the Ted Shawn Theatre, while the award recipient is in the much-smaller Doris Duke. Is tango that much more of a guaranteed crowd-pleaser? Would it have been risky in some way to have Kidd Pivot in the Ted Shawn, despite Pite’s having received this prestigious award?
EB: Tango is popular, but it was an aesthetic decision. I think Kidd Pivot belongs in the more intimate Duke Theatre, and the tango show, with all the dancers and musicians, needs a more formal setting.
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/05/11 at 12:39 PM • Permalink
Mark Morris Directs Milhaud’s Operas-Minutes at Tanglewood
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Berkshire audiences are long-accustomed to seeing Mark Morris Dance Group at both Jacob’s Pillow (since 1982) and at Tanglewood (since 2003). This year—MMDG’s 30th anniversary—the company bookends the season, with its pre-BSO-arrival Tanglewood performances last week and its season-closing appearance at Jacob’s Pillow August 24 - 28.
In addition to his prominence as a choreographer, Morris has also directed operas for the past 20 years. This Sunday, July 10, he directs the Tanglewood Music Center Vocal and Instrumental Fellows in a fully staged production of Darius Milhaud’s 3 Operas-Minutes.
You can be forgiven if you’re unfamiliar with this work, or with the French/Jewish composer Milhaud, who was a member of Le Groupe des Six before he migrated to America upon the outbreak of World War II, where he was most famous for being Dave Brubeck’s music teacher.
Morris’ relationship with the Boston Symphony Orchestra began by way of his collaborations with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. When asked how he began performing at Tanglewood, Morris replied, “We were asked by Ellen Highstein to work at Tanglewood, and we only go where we’re invited.”
Cultural correspondent Bess J.M. Hochstein asked Highstein, director of the Tanglewoood Music Center (TMC) to give us the details.
Bess Hochstein: What inspired you to invite Mark Morris to perform at Tanglewood?
Ellen Highstein: Mark is an exceptional musician, who happens to work in choreography, stage direction, and other areas. Having seen his dance work, I felt that the TMC fellows would get an enormous amount from working with him and his company and discovering his musical ideas.
This isn’t his Tanglewood directing debut—he had already directed our performance, without dancers, just our singers, of Stravinsky’s Renard in 2009 at Tanglewood on Parade.
BH: The Milhaud Operas-Minutes seem somewhat obscure; it’s difficult to find a recording of them. What is it about this material that you thought would be appropriate for Mark Morris to direct?
EH: The Milhaud operas had been done at the TMC in its early years—in the ’50s, I think. They seemed like a perfect fit for us: a small orchestra, interesting and charming music, lots of roles for the singers, and consistent with TMC’s early years of opera—that is, doing lesser-known works that deserve a hearing. Mark is a great fan of Milhaud’s music—we commissioned his dance to La Creation du Monde (called Cargo, debuted in 2005; Susana Millman photo) for that reason—and I knew that he’d be perfect for this collaboration.
BH: Will this program be fully or semi-staged?
EH: Fully staged. The production is being designed (set and costumes) by a multi-talented member of his dance company, Maile Okamura (in photo, courtesy MMDG).
BH: The Milhaud works are pretty short. What else is on the program, and why? Is Mark Morris also directing the other material?
EH: The operas are indeed tiny. Between each will be duets by Monteverdi and Carissimi, and an aria by Handel—baroque works that also have classical themes, as do the operas, and will serve as entr’actes and provide musical contrasts. Mark is directing the whole evening, which will be performed without intermission.
BH: Please tell me a bit about the interaction between Mark Morris and the TMC fellows. Do they enjoy working together? Do sparks fly?
EH: They love working together. Only positive sparks fly—that is, the fellows are inspired by Mark’s work, and they find him enormously engaging; he finds them open and interested and incredibly able.
It’s interesting as well that many of the musicians he’s worked with at the TMC have become members of the MMDG family, and appear in their regular home and touring season shows. Three of the four singers from this year’s Renard, for example, will be singing the work at Mostly Mozart at Lincoln Center later in August—the fourth wasn’t available, so MMDG is hiring the TMC singer who did that part in 2009—and five TMC fellows will be performing the Schumann Piano Quintet (his dance work V, photo by Sharon Bradford) at Jacob’s Pillow at the end of August.
The Tanglewood Music Center Vocal and Instrumental Fellows perform in a one-night-only program directed by Mark Morris
At the Tanglewood Theatre, July 10 @ 8 p.m.
Lenox, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/04/11 at 12:25 PM • Permalink
U.S. Debut of Carte Blanche at Jacob’s Pillow: Frosty Moves from Norway
Dance review by Bess J.M. Hochstein
Ella Baff is a dance-world star-maker. Each year she travels the globe, reaching out to artists unknown in the United States, extending invitations for them to perform at Jacob’s Pillow. Each spring, in the Festival calendar, she presents the results of her search to her audience, extending an invitation for them to see something new. These two constituencies figuratively join hands at the Pillow, and Baff earns her audience’s trust every season by introducing them to stellar dance troupes, such as Norway’s Carte Blanche, which makes its U.S. debut this week through Sunday, July 3, in a spectacular program of two transfixing works by choreographer Sharon Eyal of Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company.
The evening opens with Killer Pig, set on the company’s six women, who first appear clustered in a cool cone of light on an otherwise dark stage. The dancers look powdered into a glowing whiteness, uniformly white hair pulled back from their taut faces. They wear odd, softly shimmering white costumes with v-neck, sportsbra tops and loose, high-cut bottoms open in the front like a bikini to reveal the dancers’ six-pack abs, as well as similarly well defined calves and thighs.
Those muscles come into play in a work that demands strength, speed, precision, and extreme flexibility, as these otherworldly amazons rhythmically, rapidly snap in and out of moves, performing standing splits, low-down lunges, fast shimmies and hip thrusts, moving in rapid-fire tip-toe steps throughout most of the piece. The driving beat of the electronic score drives the choppy movement, and the lack of narrative allows the audience to concentrate on the disjointed, transfixing choreography. Formidable presences, the dancers project a frosty demeanor, in part due to their mechanized motion, but also because their faces remain blank— but not in that neutral dancer way; they present an aggressive, superior attitude in their audience-directed stares.
The second piece, Love, draws from a similar movement vocabulary and staccato style; indeed, a sequence by Jennifer Dubreuil Houthemann involving standing splits on both legs, followed by a standing backbend, all held for just an instant, seemed to come straight from Killer Pig. But this piece, which also includes the troupe’s six men, has a bit more warmth, if only because the stagefloor is lit red, the dancers’ black costumes reveal a hint of lace at the hem of their black short-shorts, and there is more personal interaction among the dancers, whose faces are held in a somewhat softer, though still fixed, blank expression. The movement is not all disjointed abstraction – in a striking section striking, one after the other the dancers adopt a fist-pumping, hip-swiveling rock & roll-ish phrase until they’re all doing it in unison, like rabid fans at concert when the band plays its chart-topping anthem. Yet still, this gesture that signifies joy in the real world is intentionally robbed of its emotion in Love by its lock-step execution.
Both pieces share a sense that even as the dancers spin off from the group and perform different movement sequences—solo, in pairs, in trios, or in varying subsets—they are all part of one organism or perpetual motion machine, linked by the pounding beat and destined to regroup in unison or in counterpoint. But the mood of Love shifts at the end toward humanity and individuality; the men leave the stage and the women perform solos that highlight signature sequences they have danced throughout the piece but that may have been lost in the crowd. There’s a sweetness in the way each finishes her solo and all turn slowly to watch the next one take her place in the spotlight.
Amidst the nonstop, layered swirl of movement, Eyal creates distinct brilliant moments: the surprisingly touching end to Love, set to the haunting tune From a Shell by Lisa Germano, seemingly set on endless repeat; the calm in the fury, as when the women of Killer Pig break out of their fast-paced rhythm to stride toward the audience in smooth, ultraslow unison; uncomfortable sequences, as when a dancer plants herself at the edge of the stage and ferociously, mechanistically swivels her shoulders and hips in opposite directions for just the right amount of time too long, or when a dancer bounces into a split and continues to bounce there, her torso rotating from side to side.
Eyal’s sharp, demanding choreography pushes the dancers of Carte Blanche to the limit, and without exception they demonstrat the prowess and mettle to meet the challenge. In Carte Blanche Baff has once again fixed us up with something bold, new, and exotic. The audience’s enthusiastic response ensures it won’t be a one-night stand.
Carte Blanche at Jacob’s Pillow
In the Ted Shawn Theatre
Wednesday, June 29 - Sunday, July 3
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 06/30/11 at 06:18 AM • Permalink
This Week at Jacob’s Pillow: Jane Comfort and Company
Dance preview by Bess J.M. Hochstein
“Dance theater,” like its cousin “performance art,” can be a weighted term. Purists of either discipline – dance or theater – tend to view it as a bastardization of both. In the hands of a smart, engaged choreographer/director such as Jane Comfort, who has been choreographing since 1978 and has created 45 pieces for her own company since 1982, the resulting work can be revelatory, inspiring doubters of this interdisciplinary form to take another look.
Part of the reason Comfort’s work succeeds can be attributed to the accomplished, charismatic company she has assembled. Not just fine dancers, her performers are also, variously, singers, musicians, actors, writers, and composers, giving Comfort an overflowing palette from which to create her work.
Comfort’s program at Jacob’s Pillow this week, in the Doris Duke Theater from Wednesday through Sunday, includes her latest work, Beauty, which tackles the evolving ideal of beauty—and society’s pressure on women to conform to it—with humor, through dance, personal anecdotes, and flashy fashion. Talking about Beauty via email in between rehearsals at the Pillow, Comfort addressed the question of why the media bombards women with unattainable ideals of beauty, and why these messages have persisted and even intensified despite women’s political and economic gains.
“I guess it’s capitalism,” says Comfort. “More and more products and (surgical) procedures are invented, so there need to be customers for them. If every woman kept her lipstick until it ran out, Revlon and a lot of beauty businesses would go out of business. So create the need, the insecurity, and sell the product. You’ve heard of labiaplasty, right?”
Beauty employs the iconic Barbie doll, which Comfort never owned in her youth, as a foundation and touchstone. Expect laugh-out-loud segments—including a Barbie beauty contest—and lots of plastic, from body parts to smiles and personalities, plus contrasts between Barbie’s hobbled movements and the full, expressive movement vocabulary of a flesh-and-blood dancer.
Despite the humor, Comfort hopes the piece will deliver a serious message: “I want people to think, Oh my God… And maybe keep using their old lipstick. And resist the notion that they have to look the way the media is telling them to look. Which frankly looks more and more slutty each year. Slutty is not the same thing as a woman empowered by her sexuality.”
Beauty also includes an intimate encounter between Barbie and Ken, which earned the performance a “mature content” warning from the Pillow. “In my book, it’s not ‘mature content,’ notes Comfort, “but Barbie and Ken have sex as only their limbs allow. It’s hilarious. Frankly, any moms who are giving their three year olds Barbies shouldn’t have any complaints, because what is going on with the doll play is probably much racier than our show.”
Also on the program is the Bessie Award-winning Underground River, which was commissioned by and partially developed at the Pillow in 1998, and debuted in Manhattan at PS 122 before its first full-fledged Pillow production in 1999. In Underground River, the dancers manipulate puppets and other design elements by Basil Twist and sing a capella songs by Toshi Reagon as they portray the inner fantasy life of a girl who appears to be unconscious to those attempting to bring her back to the real world. “It is one of our favorite works and has been performed all over the world, even in Brazil, translated into Portuguese,” says Comfort. “We wanted to share it again with Pillow audiences.”
A frequent criticism of dance theater is that message too often supersedes movement. Comfort admits that message is primary in her work, but she does not believe it is at the expense of movement. “The movement style shifts to suit the world of the piece,” she says. “So over the years, I have become educated in many movement styles, from roller skating to puppetry to capoeira.”
As audiences are likely to see in both Beauty and Underground River, Comfort bristles against a hard-and-fast definition of the term “dance theater.”
“I just make the works,” she says. “The writers name the genre. I do wish that my work were also on a straight theater circuit, but there is a great divide between dance and theater, with little interest between the two.”
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 06/29/11 at 01:55 PM • Permalink
