Thomas Adès—Composing and Performing with Friends

Polaris. Photo: Andrew Lang

Thomas Adès: Concentric Paths—Movements in Music featured four choreographers who set dances to pre-existing works by the British composer, produced by Sadler's Wells London and at City Center as part of the White Light Festival. The highlight—the composer played piano or conducted for all four works, with the Orchestra of St. Luke's and the Calder Quartet. Two veteran dancemakers were included—the ubiquitous Wayne McGregor, and Karole Armitage. But the revelations were the dances by Crystal Pite, who created a giant 264-limbed organism, and Alexander Whitley, whose velvety, muscular style captivated. These four dances and their requisite personnel—prime among them the composer, hard at work—make this scale of presentation a rarity. 

Pite's Polaris was easily the most popular piece on the bill, deploying 66 black-clad NYU students in mesmerizing shapes and formations, through which energy rippled and parted, like "the wave" done by fans in a baseball stadium, or magnetic filings being drawn to and fro. It is set to the pseudonymic 2010 composition by Adès, which includes a wondrous, yearning piano line, shades of a Bach symphony, and fractured notes coalescing into harmonic, organized order in the finale as the crowd looked up in anticipation, as if greeting ET's ship. 

In one scene, the dancers look like praying mantises, crouching low to the floor, elbows up; the insect evocation recurred in roiling swarms and mind-hive behavior. Kudos to lighting designer Tom Visser, who created an atmosphere of eerie moonlight and darkness, and Jay Gower Taylor's plowed-field-textured backdrop augmenting the alienscape feel. Pite's fluid and incredibly well-drilled piece would not be out of place on So You Think You Can Dance, or in an Olympics opening show, and it was a welcome addition on a highbrow slate.

The Grit in the Oyster. Photo: Andrew Lang

Alexander Whitley is a British choreographer who has spent time with the Royal and the Birmingham Royal Ballets, but whose work is rarely seen in New York. For The Grit in the Oyster, he chose Adès' 2000 Piano Quintet, which the composer played onstage with the Calder Quartet. Dancing were Natalie Allen, Wayne Parsons, and in particular the pliant and warm Antonette Dayrit, who led off and finished with an absorbing solo passage. Whitley's style is informed by ballet, but it's performed barefoot. At no point does any movement appear to be catalyzed simply for its own sake; the impetus arises unbidden and is carried through the dancers' bodies and limbs organically. It comes across as unaffected, muscular, and feline in its elegance and innate physicality. He frequently integrates floor work, building upon it with deeply planted lunges and triangular braced limbs; lifts include diamond- or scissor-shaped leg formations. The music begins with a dark piano line, and grows as all five instruments join in—fractured violin lines, warm cellos, darting rhythms, plucked and sawed strings. 

It's in contrast to McGregor's phrasing in Outlier (2010), which feels abound with random starts and stops. His ballet looks effortful and self-conscious, decorated with mannerisms and oddities. Adès' Concentric Paths violin concerto (2005) shocks from time to time with a seismic "boom" chord, threaded with keening or tumbling melodic lines. The dancers of McGregor's company wring the most out of his inside-out, hyperextended vocabulary but apart from its impressive athleticism, it fails to move.

The fourth work stands apart for its literary derivation: Armitage's Life Story (1999) which uses the same-titled composition by Adès and poem by Tennessee Williams. Ruka Hatua-Saar and Emily Wagner take the stage in front of Adès on piano and soprano Anna Dennis. The narrative ponders the aftermath of a feverish romantic encounter, apparent in the dancers' brisk flirtations and forthright exchanged gazes. Armitage injects wit and sassiness into the duet, which mirrors the character of the aria—vaulting octaves with free abandon in dialogue with the piano part, and in turn, in dialogue with the dancers. 

Partita 2—Music, Dance, and Absence

Photo: Anne Van Aerschot

Eventually, we all deal with the fragmentation and mutability of memory. Certain events appear clearly in the mind’s eye; others might shift and realign with different narratives. Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Boris Charmatz play with this idea in their engaging work in Lincoln Center's White Light Festival, Partita 2, at John Jay Theater, with Amandine Beyer on violin heroically playing Bach’s composition twice. The work's structure is simple and bold. In the pitch dark, Beyer first plays the five movements; De Keersmaeker and Charmatz then move to Bach’s absent rhythms; and finally the music and dance are performed together. Michel François designed the scenic scheme—a portal of light that moved left to right with the passing of time, and stage air lit by accompanying silvery, phasing moonlight.

The music, by itself, offers a solid dose of sheer pleasure. Our hungry eyes are forced to rest, adjusting only enough to identify the shapes of surrounding viewers, but better off kept closed. And yet I was cognizant that I should be paying strict attention to the music’s rhythms and melodic lines to prepare for viewing the dancers, and noting whether—or how—their movements adhered or departed from Bach’s scoring. But that felt like trying to describe the molecular structure of ice cream while eating it. As well, watching the dance without music was certainly plenty of information by itself. The duo offers its own tensions and felicities—De Keersmaeker, an icon in the dance world, is known for her disciplined choreography that mixes and enchains the seemingly pedestrian with great skill. Her delicacy and cat-lightness contrasted with Charmatz’s large frame and athlete’s bearing. Both sported sneakers; she in a black dress and top, he in a rugby-style shirt (they both shed a layer as the show progressed). In the second, unaccompanied part, their footfalls and shoe squeaks mixed with some verbal yips and chanting. I felt Bach’s beats, but without his crystalline melodies, it could’ve been any music.

Photo: Anne Van Aerschot

In the third, complete section, Beyer took a spot at center upstage, and De Keersmaeker advanced and retreated in a short line perpendicular to us, darting furtively around Beyer at the apex, touching her blouse hem, and then running downstage to peer at us. Charmatz chose a circular path around the stage, bolting a quarter arc and then coiling, bolting and coiling. These beginning movements did not seem familiar to me after seeing part 2, but soon memory and performance converged. Yes, I recalled when he picked her up and she walked on the wall, and later when he strode in a small circle and she, lying on the floor, placed her shoe soles against his in a funny cartoon mirror way. I still can’t say for sure whether the first couple of sections were the same movements. But the dance performances felt entirely different in silence versus with music. I appreciated the distinctive qualities of both, but mostly the rewards of the complete package, with its gorgeous dimensionality and spirit of collaboration.

L'Allegro—Will there ever be another?

Spencer Ramirez, right. Photo: Kevin Yatarola

Can a dance like Mark Morris' L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato ever be made again? 

It seems unlikely, at least in the foreseeable future. In 1988, Morris was a young artist-in-residence at La Monnaie in Belgium when he made it. He was bursting with ideas, entrusted with the necessary resources including, most importantly, time, space, and dancers, but also musicians and production staff. It took the providential merging of talent and resources to allow L'Allegro's creation. It might even have helped that Morris was not welcomed warmly in Belgium during his three-year stint, persuading him to focus on his work. 

There are still companies in residence at opera and theater houses in Europe, where it's possible to develop full-length, opera house scale work. Ex-pat William Forsythe, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, and Sasha Waltz have attained such positions, and places such as Sadler's Wells (London) offer strong support. But who knows when another American-based choreographer with Morris' potential will be given the keys to the castle? Even if the talent exists in the US, which it certainly must, the way choreographers make it here (if they do) is full of obstacles. The ones that have survived long enough to decide to make it an occupation receive very little support, both financially and institutionally. It's a tired old story with no happy ending in sight. 

Notes on the Nov 21 performance at the Koch Theater in Lincoln Center's White Light Festival:

Photo: Kevin Yatarola

• The choice of music was mad ambition and pure inspiration; the libretto's varying moods guide the dance's dynamics
• Morris' dance invention—about 100 minutes worth—remains fresh after repeated viewings of L'Allegro (separated by a number of years), which made its US premiere at BAM in 1990. 
• His grounded dancers seem to be inflated with helium in leaps and relevés. 
• Slaps to the face become yet another step; such humorous scenes also serve to break up the sheer beauty of the dance.
• Example: the picture above, when lifted dancers look like they're flying. The lifters repeat the movement without their cargo, to brilliant and emotional effect.
• He manages and arranges traffic superbly. Rounds, lines, Greek keys, looping arcs. And always entrances and exits.
• In one lovely scene, two dancers mirror movements, separated by a scrim. Streams of dancers walk, pulsing to the beat, one hand parallel to the ground leading the way, like water flowing over a rock.
• His depictions of nature delight—dancers become trees, shrubs, dogs, horses. 
• His no-nonsense ways of moving people and how they relate to one another have both broad appeal and ingenuity. 
• Grace is in the details and humor. 
• Performances by Sam Black, Maile Okamura, Dallas McMurray, Michelle Yard, Noah Vinson, and Spencer Ramirez particularly resonate.

• Handel's ebullient music, with libretto by Charles Jennens and James Harris after poems by Milton, was performed by the MMDG Music Ensemble, conducted with crystalline clarity by Nicholas McGegan, with lovely solos by Dominique Labelle, Yulia Van Doren, John McVeigh and Douglas Williams. Musicians performed in the pit, while the entire stage is occupied by the dance.
• The set design, by Adrianne Lobel, uses horizontal and vertical panels that expand or contract the space in countless ways. Graphic elements suggest urbanity.
• James Ingalls' aromatic lighting augments each scene's mood.
• The graceful costumes, by Christine van Loon, shift from mineral to floral hues between the first and second acts.

As the years pass and few dances match L'Allegro's achievements, and we see that even remounting it takes great resources, it's all the more important to appreciate it when it comes around, as we were able to this past week.

Music—a cool stream of water amid hermetic dioramas

The Hilliard Ensemble, showing versatility as movers. Photo: Mario Del Curto

In I went to the house but did not enter, Heiner Goebbel's music-theater work in the White Light Festival, originally produced by Théâtre Vidy de Lausanne, the four singers of the Hilliard Ensemble appear trapped—nearly static figures frozen in three hermetically sealed diorama-like settings. In the first act, to a faint dripping sound, the members of the renowned Hilliard Ensemble—David James, Rogers Covey-Crump, Steven Harrold and Gordon Jones—are dressed in trench coats. They pack up the furnishings of a stuffy parlor, dismantling the curtains and vacuuming the rug before rolling it up, in advance of singing Goebbel's musical setting of TS Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. They then do it all in reverse, replacing the furnishings at a glacial pace. The vocal section evokes liturgical songs—repeating tones in close intervals, with one line shifting a half-step. It's glorious sound amid mundanity, tedium, and the implications of a life-changing event, whether it be simply changing locations or the possibility of death—or the reverse. 

The changes of the elaborate sets in the Rose Theater proved to be the most action-packed sequences, performed by the stagehands in near darkness with the curtain raised. The second setting is the front of a house, complete with clay tiled roof, gutters, a dumpster out back, and venetian or vertical blinds that open to reveal the house's occupants in three apartments, plus a workshop hidden behind a garage door. The men alternate sung lines by Maurice Blanchot about life and death as birds chirp and airplanes and police sirens pass by. A stark, leafless tree's shadow is cast on the house. Again, the banal is elevated to the universal through song.

Before the next set change, the singers gather around a bicycle like spies exchanging information and sing a lovely song setting of Kafka text, with the refrain of "I don't know" in close, shaded harmonies, ending with a big verbal wink: "It's a wonder we don't burst into song." Touché.

The third set seems to be one corner of a rose-wallpapered hotel room, complete with an oversized bed, a thermostat, and a cheap tv. Beckett is the source for the text, phrases like pretzel nuggets popped into one's mouth—salty, crunchy, nearly meaningless. The men wander in the room; one turns on the thermostat, which hums. They gaze out the tall windows which let sharp light into the dark room. They set up a slide projector and screen, showing nostalgic images of family vacations. The final image gives hope: instead of a still image, it is a film of a stream which burbles and glitters—like music, a source of life amid the stasis of a man-made world.

Notebook Roundup: Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, Drawing Center

Fabulous Beast. Clockwise from top left: Eithne Ní Chatháin, Liam Ó Maonlaí, Emmanual Obeya, Ino Riga. Photo: Ros Kavanagh

Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, Rian

• From Ireland, NY debut in Lincoln Center's White Light Festival, performance at Lynch Theater (John Jay College), seen on Nov 10
• Directed and choreographed by Michael Keegan-Dolan who also just directed/choreographed Julius Caesar for English National Opera
• Title means "to trace or etch," after music director Liam Ó Maonlaí's album from 2005 (he is also a member of the band Hothouse Flowers)
• Eight dancers, half women, of widely varying nationality; all dance very differently
• Standouts: Louise Mochia, velvety and fluid; Emmanual Obeya, irrepressibly exuberant
• Four musicians playing an array of traditional instruments including uilleann pipes (like bagpipes) and a small harp
• Folk music and dance performance made up of a string of traditional songs ranging from melancholic instrumental, a cappella ballads, to rousing ensemble numbers, most featuring Ó Maonlaí, who demonstrated his certified rock-star cred 
• Akin structurally to the format of a flamenco performance, where the dance and music are equally important and either can take center stage
• Usually, the music would begin and the dancers filter on one by one to join in
• The repeating refrains in the music paralleled in the dancers' simple, repeating phrases done barefoot or in street shoes
• Movement is unmannered, not based on any sort of classical vocabulary; not ballet nor traditional Irish step dancing
• At times feels more related to some African forms that emanate from the torso, firmly grounded feet, with lyrical movement pulling the extremities diametrically
• The costumes—unique green patterned dresses and white shirts, trousers and suspenders—were held hostage in a container during Hurricane Sandy, released in time only for the last couple shows
• A wonderful performance that connected the performers and audience in a festive communal celebration

Guillermo Kuitca, Diario (3 Dec 2007-1 July 2008). Mixed media on canvas. Courtesy the artist and Sperone Westwater, New York

The Drawing Center in Soho 

• Reopened after renovation doubling exhibition space
• Main gallery: Guillermo Kuitca: Diarios—a series of canvases that the Argentinian stretched on a table and marked on over time
• The results are more time-based than formal, echoing journal-keeping
• Some compositions cohere better than others, at least in the context of a pristine gallery setting
• Back gallery: José Antonio Suárez Londoño's The Yearbooks, notebooks he has drawn in daily since 1997, resonates perfectly with Kuitca's "exploded journals"
• Fascinating minutiae and pockets of thought recorded
• New "Lab" exhibition space downstairs, connected by two different, nifty staircases
• Compact show of a variety of certificates of authenticity, a necessary evil in the art world
• Humorous, wry, ironic, or simply serious
• These shows run through Dec 9 at 35 Wooster St

Ephemera—Performance Notebook, Hurricane Sandy edition

Hurricane Sandy is on the way. City's shut down, and one of the odd benefits of the subway being halted is that the near-constant subterranean rumbling is also temporarily stopped. 

Georgina Pascoguin kicking out the jambs in Bachground with Ballet Next. Photos: Paul B. Goode

Ballet Next at the Joyce

• The post-big company phase in the careers of ex-principals Michele Wiles (ABT) and Charles Askegard (NYCB)
• Caught one of two bills
• A duet (Stravinsky Divertimento) by NYCB soloist Georgina Pascoguin and Askegard, who choreographed it. He partners well; she excels in character roles for NYCB, but here, with no specific narrative, looked mainly fierce
• Brian Reeder's Picnic for six dancers is based on a film about some girls who go missing
• Victorian style cotton frocks and black tights/toe shoes an effective metaphor for a stifling era, but they also disguise the body and its lines
• Michele Wiles the mysterious central figure, proving she has lost none of her pinpoint balance or turning ability
• Mauro Bigonzetti's BachGround (ouch) shows his effective dramatic lighting and flair for visually bold imagery
• The six dancers, wearing black skirt-backed shorts, sit on chairs upstage and frantically pivot them 180º to demarcate solos and duets
• Muscular movements with Bigonzetti's trademark neurotic gesture arms/hands
• Live music in the Askegard and Bigonzetti a nice touch
• This ambitious week run that showed some range could have benefitted from more rehearsal

Pina Bausch's "...como el musguito..." at BAM

• Her continuous involvement of viewers through the dancers' entering and exiting via the side stage-house steps, and up the side aisles, is overlooked as a means of establishing audience connections. 
• The dancers can appear larger-than-life onstage—glamorous, handsome, beautiful, hair silken or musculature perfect, but when they move among us, they become one of us. 
• Come to think of it, nearly every time it was a woman using this pathway
• The women reminded me of the Wilis from Giselle (or a similar massing of forlorn women, from Swan Lake or La Bayadere, etc.) as they drifted onstage in their evening gowns, heads hanging down, barefoot, like some sort of sorority of sad souls
• It became perhaps a bit too easy to see everything through the filter that Pina was ill while creating this, even if she was unaware of the illness  

Ensemble Basiani of Tblisi, Georgia at Church of St. Mary the Virgin

• Transcending Time all-traditional program part of the White Light Festival
• Traditional folk songs and hymns, all-male, a cappella, choir of the Georgian patriarchate from Tblisi
• Powerfully visceral experience as a viewer
• Ranged from fog-horn like, loud, demonstrative singing to soft, delicate lullaby volume
• Georgian-style yodeling ("krimanchuli") hit some high notes, but otherwise the range seemed to be contained to a middle octave
• They wore knee-length, military-feel navy blue coats with pewter decorations and black boots
• There's no subsititute for the authenticity of a choir like this, singing traditional songs in their native tongue

Stay safe and dry. See you on the other side of the hurricane, when the trains resume their rumbling.

Akram Khan's Vertical Road: The Dark and the Light

Photo: Richard Haughton

"The eight dancers in Akram Khan’s Vertical Road seem to react reflexively to the powerful beat underlying Nitin Sawhney’s textured, atmospheric score. It’s not immediately clear why their movements are so engaging, but soon enough, the reason becomes evident—the pulsations echo the tempo of our beating hearts."

From an article for Playbill on Akram Khan's Vertical Road in Lincoln Center's White Light Festival.

Perfect Match: Venue + Content, 11/12/10

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White Light Festival and MOMA's Ab Ex show

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/museums/perfect-match-venue-content/944/

Adolph Gottlieb, "Blast"

This week I experienced two events that pointed up how a venue can be as integral as content to the complete success of a show. (And, once more, how lucky we are to live in this town!) One was a concert by the Tallis Scholars at the renovated Alice Tully Hall, part of Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival (through Nov 18); the other was MoMA‘s mammoth exhibition, Abstract Expressionist New York: The Big Picture.

The Abstract Expressionist exhibition (through April 25, 2011) pointed up how closely related the genre is to MOMA, even though the museum was opened in the 1920s. This show, curated by a team from MoMA led by Ann Temkin and dating primarily between 1940—60, comprises more than 250 works drawn solely from the museum’s inventory. That fact alone boggles the mind—so many of the works are paragons, key building blocks in the history of modern art. While much of the work is textbook familiar, certain revelations emerged. Adolph Gottlieb’s contributions came across as perfectly structured and witty. Joan Mitchell’s shines, finally juxtaposed with her far better known (mostly) male counterparts. And the size of many of the walls in MoMA’s galleries? Tailor-made for Pollock’s iconic horizontal paintings, such as One: Number 31, 1950.