I..... saw.....Forsythe....
I am still seeing. I am marked.
Sometimes a thing is so beautiful it's hard to look at. That's how it was with "Quintett". The last piece on the program, I had so far "kept up" with what was on view. The three works before intermission were astounding, graceful, hard-edged when necessary, sometines audible, always beautiful.
And then there was "Quintett". Some works of art reach all the way through and touch my spine. Afterward I didn't really want to talk, certainly not about that. How can words dare to aptly express, except to utter thanks?
Earlier this week Sally wrote a comment sharing with us her "audition" for Forsythe. It was the underbelly of the experience. At the end she talked about her level of bravery at the time, and that it wasn't enough.
I can safely say, and from deep experience alongside her, that Sally's heart is one of the bravest I know. That she stood in the seats last night, with "Quintett" just quietly gone, crying, was the bravest act I could imagine in that moment. Vulnerability and feeling deeply are fierce qualities. These shape us to be the artists that we are.
Sometimes Sally's dancing is so beautiful it hurts. It's different from what I saw last night, but similar in that she is so utterly herself. That's the bottom line to me. Is the person dancing authentically them?
Each Forsythe dancer operates from this angle. They struck me foremost as humans, then dancers. That is the correct hierarchy as far as I'm concerned. There was no façade, just graceful inquiry and then an outpouring of sharing.
I am inspired, but it's far away, not needing or wanting to take a specific shape just yet. I don't need to run to Frankfurt to learn how to dance like this. I am so thankful to have seen, to still see, and to get to dance today myself.
Running to Frankfurt — yes! I was on my way, when my wife took my keys, my credit cards and my shoes. She then reminded me that I had responsibilities, was physically unfit, and had no dance training. However, I saw it, I remember it, I was incredibly moved and it has renewed my faith in the power of the human imagination.
Comment by Robert Hammel — 3/17/2007 @ 12:28 pm
Ms. Freeh, enjoy your authenticity in your performance as well, as that is why I enjoy the Sewell ballet as well. Having danced with you and Sally I agree with your comment on “human, then dancer”. Some articles and blogs in Europe use, as
I have heard in dialogue as well, (Andrew Boivin-Canada) the term interpreter for our American “dancer”. This echos Tere O’Connor’s use of contributor for the dancer. What I am grasping st here is a deeper more meaningful term for dancer. And the notion of “making it our own”. Ms. Caspersen’s comment in the Master class to articulate the movement, and let the body respond naturally to the initiation, I felt that as audience. Mr. Zabala’s class, in breath and patnering, precipitated my felt, breathy, following in “NNNN”.
In Forsythe the interpreters were masters of their bodies in the choreography. The space, hmmm…”chamber” works, I am struck with a reflection of the space we go to see dance and theater. Brilliant transformation of the stage. Spare, and the dancers made it provocative when neccesary. Their gazes, pointed, or focussed. Engaging each other, or away. The partnering, such efficiency, as good as we have come to expect from learned German engineering. Yes, “Quintet”. As good a dance as only a few can be. I trust the audience to accept this as merely rushed brevity. More to come.
Comment by Robert Haarman — 3/17/2007 @ 2:50 pm
Love Never Found Me
Motion dissolves, striving ends,
we are spared but haunted.
Enough wildness can melt toward beauty,
surprise has a calculated perfection,
like an arrow narrowly missing the heart.
In one body,
we struggle to articulate separateness
without being alone.
Curves snap to angles,
parallel lines meet,
eyes stray,
limbs torn by will
mend through yearning,
and across inestimable distance
against all odds
the scent of other disappears.
(We all want heaven but no one wants to die.)
Order is undone only at the moment
of complete convergence,
surrendering to a surge
going nowhere it already isn't,
both the pull and the reach relentless.
We come to each other
for the wrong reasons
but with the right hunger.
Our fall is identical to our climb
and when your fingers touch my face
I forget to remember they are not mine.
Comment by Willa Drey — 3/18/2007 @ 10:47 am