Performing Arts

Just went last night. Beautiful.
During the first scene, I have to admit, my mind wandered a little. But I was completely drawn in by the second scene, and this lasted through the end of the show. I think mostly this was me getting used to the style (also, partly, the fact that the first scene is the busiest and least clear). So if you’re going tonight, give your eyes some time to adjust. Oh, and read the program notes, so you know the story.
Dhvee culminates in a battle between good and evil, between Rama and Ravana. Normally we try not to see things in such black-and-white terms, but there’s an undeniable compulsion about that struggle. Rama and his brother Lakshmana (Ashwini Ramaswamy and Amanda Dlouhy) looked like embodiments of rightness from their forthright faces to their open gestures, from their clear steps to their white costumes. Ravana (Tamara Nadel, I Gusti Ngurah Serama Semadi, and others–hey, he has 10 heads) was the opposite, with his stamping, his crimped fingers, and his awful echoing laugh. Even though I knew who would win, I felt in suspense–on the edge of my seat, even.
I loved that the ending took us back to the beginning–it left the story, for me, in an eternal present tense.
If anyone wants to follow up with discussion, here are some ideas:
• the dance/theatrical form here (perhaps considering how it broadens our ideas of dance)
• the story–why is the battle of good and evil such a compelling story for us, even now?
• cross-cultural comprehension (or lack thereof)

Check out Jay Gabler’s review in the TC Daily Planet.
Gabler comments on the difficulty of getting the full content and implications of the Ramayana from a brief summary. Right. . . I slogged through the Wikipedia entry without much success understanding the higher planes of the narrative. I can just add one element of clarity: embodiment is important in the narrative (and in the culture–I think that’s fair to say). So the doubled characters of Dhvee are in play with the story itself. . .
Gabler says something interesting about the classical tradition:

Both the challenge and the appeal of any classical tradition—think Western classical music, or classical ballet—lie in its practitioners’ commitment to enacting (at its best) profound expression within a strictly circumscribed vocabulary.

This is true–but I want to add a little to it–which is that the language of a classical form makes up a world. Ideally you cross into that world at some point; you cease to see the vocabulary itself.

I’m looking forward to Ragamala this weekend. Think of Dhvee as an immersion in sound, color, dance, acting, story, etc–the multifaceted performance arts of south Asia.
I was lucky enough to be at rehearsal on one of the first days when Ragamala (Mpls) joined forces with Cudamani (Bali). Translation, improvisation, everyone excited by everyone else’s art, and the gamelan crowded into the corner–if you’ve never heard one, you really have to. It’s an orchestra in itself.

Last night I saw Bolero Variations by Raimund Hoghe.  It was surprising and personal and grateful.  I entered the performance not knowing what to expect but with hopes for something unique and special.  What unraveled in the next two hours was unexpectedly stunning – extremely detailed simple often slow repeated movements would suddenly subvert my expectations and make me gasp.  It was like Hoghe and his dancers drew out a continuous line that started before I came into the theater, periodically splintered off into me, then followed them off stage.  This line probably has something to do with Hoghe’s artistic integrity – the piece was artistically “unified, unimpaired, and sound in construction” to quote the dictionary definition of integrity.

This morning, I can’t pin down the meaning of the piece but I know that in a year when I think back on it will mean something very important.  Important to me as an artist, more importantly to meas a person.  It’s not a performance to forget.

Leading up to the show a number of people have asked me what a dramaturge is.  It is a flexible term generally referring to the individual in the theatrical creative process who does research into the history and context of a piece, often with an eye on interconnected themes and overarching quality of the production.  It’s clear to me now that Raimund Hoghe is a choreographer who privileges overarching quality and interconnected meaning in his dance.   He values the ritual of the moving body, “Dance is not to be wasted for it is a rare and precious gift.”

When you see it (and if you can please do) enjoy the themes.  I couple of things I watched throughout the piece:

• Black on Black and White on Black and Colors in Black
• Folds in fabric and bodies
• Isolated personal journeys
• Circles and cycles
• Appearing and disappearing

The piece was also unexpectedly political.  You’ll understand why if you see it.

Raimund Hoghe and his company have arrived in Minneapolis and are working with the Walker’s Events and Media Production department to set the stage for their premiere of Boléro Variations this Friday. If you missed Philip Bither’s eloquent and impassioned comments about Hoghe at last week’s performing arts season preview, you might turn to Bither’s colleague, Walter Jaffe, a co-founder of White Bird Dance in Portland, OR, who interviewed Hoghe recently in conjunction with the U.S. premiere of Boléro Variations at Portland’s TBA (Time-Based Art) Festival.

Hoghe and Jaffe cover an array of topics, including Hoghe’s admiration for ice-dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean (whose Olympics performance to Ravel’s Boléro was a key inspiration for Hoghe), and the ways in which great singers are also great dancers (he mentions Callas and Piaf and Peggy Lee, among others). About his process, Hoghe says, “I’m fascinated when I feel that a little movement can tell a big story. If I could express it with words I would do it but I can’t—and therefore I do my work with dancers. Otherwise I still would work as a writer.” Read the full interview here.

Speaking of Hoghe’s work as a writer, well before he created his first dance pieces, Hoghe had developed a journalism career that included celebrity profiles for the German weekly Die Zeit as well as pieces on avant-garde or “fringe” artists—including Ana Mendieta, whose rarely seen films screened here last March. Bringing things full circle, it turns out that Walker director Olga Viso—curator of the retrospective Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance 1972—85, author of the recently published scholarly tome Unseen Mendieta—is an admirer of Hogue’s writing and referenced it in organizing the Mendieta exhibition. No doubt she will be in the audience this weekend, perhaps looking for parallels between the Hoghe’s choreography and Mendieta’s performance pieces, both of which have strong links to ritual.

On September 18th and 19th  the Walker kicks off its performing arts season with something special: the opportunity to experience a direct line to the origins of Tanztheater (Dance Theater) in choreographer Raimund Hoghe.

A few things that peak my interest in Bolero Variations:

• Hoghe was Pina Bausch’s dramaturge in the 1980’s when she became arguably the most influencial choreographer in Europe, maybe the world.
• Dramaturgy is at the heart of his choreography.  He says he finishes dramaturgy then rehearses once or twice before performing. (The closest local comparison might be MadKingThomas).  What is dance dramaturgy?
• Hoghe’s irregular dance body (hump and rickets) AND this quote “His intelligence is more disturbing than his ugliness.” - Tiago Costa.
• Hoghe’s work is entertaining for a three year old.
• His dancers are also: a jock, not at all a jock, a martial artist, and a doctor.
• Finally, in everything I have read Hoghe appears appreciative, inquisitive, and humble.

Also, this work in the McGuire seems perfect: a very formal space where the audience can get close to the performers.  Personally I’ll be in the front row trying to get on top of a work described as minimalist, ritualized, expressive, precise, intelligent, fascinating, repulsive, boring, inspiring and always extraordinarily dramaturged.

Check out these Hoghe links:

An Interview

Some Background

His Site

Over the past few days, several staff have been writing on their memories of Merce: Julie Voigt, Senior Program Officer for Performing Arts, recalls working with him here at the Walker, while Phillip Bahar, our Chief of Operations and Administration, tells how watching Merce’s performances over the years totally changed the way he thinks about dance. Finally, watch for a tribute by Philip Bither, McGuire senior curator of performing arts, in the upcoming issue of Walker magazine (out in mid-August).

Julie Voigt writes:

I am one of the lucky ones to have had the extraordinary pleasure of working with Merce and his company over the years. I will never forget his grace, generosity, and strong yet quietly humble presence. I have many fond memories of Merce, but my favorites ones are of some of those unusual small moments that engaged my artistic imagination and gave me a glimpse into this man’s spirit.

There was Fluxarenarama in 1993, where we turned a downtown health club into a performance site to wander through and experience chance performance. The Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) took on the challenge of performing in the workout area, with their final dance presented on the basketball court.
There was that moment of joy on Merce’s face when he and his company first walked through Art Performs Life: Merce Cunningham/Meredith Monk/Bill T. Jones, a Walker exhibition that recognized the critical contribution he and the other artists made to the history of 20th-century performance.
There was also the 10^th anniversary of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden in 1998, when MCDC performed a special Event for the Garden on an unusually hot fall day. The company’s shoes were literally melting onto the scorching dance floor, but they continued to dance beautifully across the stage as Merce proudly and calmly looked on.

But my fondest memory was this past September, when we produced Ocean in the Rainbow granite quarry in Waite Park, Minnesota. This site-specific production was by far the largest and most complex performance that any of us have ever done. Not an easy task to take a completely empty rock quarry and turn it into an outdoor performance site for 1000+ people each night. After months of hard work turning this seemingly crazy idea into reality, on the last few days it poured rain on many of the afternoons. All of us were on the edge of our seats, hoping it would stop in time for us to do the performances.

Luckily it did – until the final night, when, toward the end of the performance rain began to fall hard and we had to make the unfortunate call to stop the event. We were all feeling frustrated and very disappointed that the final night was cut short. But Merce just smiled and said to me – in an almost consoling way – that he actually embraced the uniqueness of that evening’s performance and that is was just Mother Nature stepping in to change the ending for him – a chance encounter with forces over and above us all that made that final artistic call.
I loved that moment. Merce told us that this performance experience was one of the highlights of his career. It was one of my personal highlights as well and I’m so very glad to have been a part of it.

Merce Cunningham once said that as long as he was breathing he was dancing. I’ve always thought that this was a remarkable way to live in and experience the world. Of course, the dance and cultural community all mourn the loss of Merce, one of the great choreographers of the last hundred years. Merce reshaped modern and contemporary dance: how it was created, how it looked, how it was experienced. He re-envisioned with some of his closest peers—Cage, Rauschenberg, and Johns to name some of his closest associates—how movement, music, light, and décor could come together to create something wholly new, intentionally unintended, and something that allowed each of the art forms to breathe at its own pace within a larger, more complex organism.

My first experience with Merce was through art history — you can’t take a post-war art course without coming across his innovations, often through the lens of his visual arts peers. However, my first true understanding of his work came a few years later. As a new transplant to New York, I found myself with nothing to do on a Friday night. I came across an announcement for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company season at City Center; out of curiosity I attended. I sat in rapt absorption through the entire show; I had always enjoyed dance, but until that moment I had never experienced it in such a visceral and engaging manner. I returned on Saturday. I returned on Sunday. In those three nights, Merce Cunningham changed my understanding, appreciation, and passion for dance, opening me to a vocabulary about which I was uninformed and which I breathed in wholeheartedly ever since.
While living in New York I never missed a season. From that first performance on, if Merce was in town, wherever I happened to be visiting or living, I was there. I can unequivocally say that I’ve seen more performances by Merce Cunningham (well over a dozen) than by any other single performing artist, and over the past few days I’ve been wrestling with what life will be like now that he’s gone. For nearly 20 years I’ve looked forward to my next experience of the athleticism and magic of his work. I never knew what to expect and relished the anticipation. Would the music be ethereal or intense? Would it be Cage, Tudor, Kosugi, Eno, Bryars, or someone fully unexpected? How would he make his own appearance (I remember the first time I saw his “chair dance,” and also the first time I realized that he would no longer be performing in that way)?

I once had the privilege of sitting at the back of an empty theater, watching him conduct class with his dancers — he was at the barre making subtle movements and directing the dancers, who understood implicitly what he was searching for and more often than not delivered it as intended. (The Company began a series called “Mondays with Merce,” which provided enthusiasts and dancers alike an opportunity to see inside his classes and gain insights into his thinking and working process; they are well worth a look.)

A force of contemporary art and performance has left us and all that’s left for us to do is breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

– Phillip Bahar

• We just uploaded “Merce Cunningham’s Working Process” on the Walker Channel and on YouTube
• The New Yorker has a dance reviews going back to 1976 on its site, including one on the performance of Ocean, which the Walker presented this past year
• The Cunningham Dance Foundation’s Legacy Plan — the Foundation had only recently established “a precedent-setting plan delineating the future of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) and ensuring the legacy of Cunningham’s work”
• Interview with Village Voice dance critic Deborah Jowitt

A screen is stretch on the diagonal upstage left, the 2 lower corners taut by 2 ballerinas in white tutus and pointe shoes.  The mountain from Paramount Motion Picture Company is projected against it.  Sally is carried out and attached to to a rope that hangs centerstage.  She is wearing a kilt-like cape with an S.  She is flung against the screen over and over and over.  She pounds her fists and feet against it in the same rhythm with the same dynamic for what seems like 3 or 4 minutes- is this a proclamation or penitence?

Photo by Cameron Wittig, courtesy Walker Art Center

The next scene is a circus-like flurry of dancers including Jim Dominick, Taylor Dreyling, Sarah Fifer, Penelope Freeh, Marisha Johnson, Anshul Paranjape, Kimberly Richardson, Sally Rousse, Dylan Skybrook, and Laurie van Weiren. They waltz with flexed feet and spiraling arms.  I see a bullfighter, Michael Jackson Thriller choreography, and a humorous moment when the dancers hit their foreheads with the heels of their hands.  Who are they? What are their roles?

“Paramount to my footage” covers a history of the life of Sally Rousse.  I see that Alek Keshishian, most known for Madonna’s Truth or Dare, was a creative consultant.  Will Sally be just as sexy yet emotionally disconnected as Madonna in revealing what lies behind the public image of an iconic figure?

A lot of territory was covered in 45 minutes.  Some poignant moments for me were seeing a projection of Sally’s father’s eye against the diagonal screen as if he were watching the performance from atop a mountain, Kimberly Richardson’s solo as Goddess of the Wind, a duet between Penelope Freeh and Sally in which they tap dance in their pointe shoes, LVW as an MC asking cliche celebrity questions, and when Sally finally mourned a loss- that of her first husband- and cried into a harmonica.  I wonder what it would be like to explore just one of the many facets of Sally’s life more in-depth for a production? Say focusing on just the story of her first husband? Or the birth of her first child? or just her childhood?  It’s challenging to face a time constraint of a shared evening.

An autobiography can be empowering because one can acknowledge that oneself has been through a lot to get where they are today.  It can be triumphant and a testament to one’s survival through the good and bad.  An autobiography can also be quite vulnerable.  I wonder if I hadn’t read the closing statement that shares the details of the creator’s life prior to the performance.  If I hadn’t, how might the experience been different? How can an artist transcend from personal to universal so that a viewer has a connection to the work? Let’s talk.

5 performers, each in  vintage laden bold colors- orange, blue, purple, yellow, red- stand in a line and stare at the house.  The cast is “introduced” and I don’t need to look in my program to learn  names or backgrounds.  They are highly reputable dancers in this community and each of them is going to shine in Megan Mayer’s production, which is enticingly titled “I Could Not Stand Close Enough to You.” This is my first Megan Mayer experience and I’m reminded of the unique, colorful, clever and detailed work of film director Wes Anderson, who is gifted at working with iconic figures from the Hollywood scene by filming eccentric characters that resonate with a certain familiarity.

Photo by Cameron Wittig, courtesy Walker Art Center

Megan wrote in her artist statement that she wanted to “create distinctive solos for each of the performers inspired by their commanding presences both onstage and off.”  She was successful!   Here’s what I observed:

Greg Waletski’s solo was charming and playful as he reveled in exuberance shouting “Oh my God!” as he climbed the stairs into the house of the Southern Theater.  I’m reminded of joyful first experiences in my childhood- the thrill of the stage, pride in the small successes.

Kristin Van Loon performed an exquisite solo inverted against the wall to Louie Armstrong  lyrics “I put a spell on you…..”  I was intrigued by the manipulation of her face with her hands to create a caricature of someone devious and determined.  She stopped, took a sip of whiskey, sprayed down her mane with aerosol hairspray, then returned to the wall.  Oh yeah, we get a sneak peak at some striped underwear (a foreshadowing of the closing scene).  She is utterly captivating as a performer on stage with her authentic responses, intentional articulation and total body connection.

Charles Campbell, the performer who ate regurgitated green peas and urinated on the stage floor of Bryant Lake Bowl in a piece I saw back a few months ago (which by the way was unforgettable!), shared a triumphant piece with a trophy.  Napoleon Dynamite only wishes he could dance that well!

And now Megan Mayer, the creator.  Here we go……….. She struggles to find that picture perfect shape then beats the air with her limbs before crumbling to the floor. She’s up and bourres (spell?) offstage and returns with a bar stool to take a seat and sing Elvis’s heartbreaking lyrics “Were you lying when you said you loved me?”  She passes out from the drama? the exertion? the heartache?- we laugh.  She retreats to a hidden corner upstage against the shins.  We see her blue legs as the cast stays centerstage and improvises with crossed legs on chairs.

Drums kick in- a duple meter aerobics routine begins- the 4 performers create a rhythmic machine that rotates and they begin to talk about hmmmm, an inside joke?

Lights and sound out. I hear ventilation and rattling in the Southern. No one in the house moves or coughs.  Megan returns to the space with a light and she illuminates the walls, the grid, the house, and the dancers.  It’s very zen as we all become present to take a moment and examine this space with fresh eyes.

Theresa Madaus is the last to perform a solo.  She is the kid sister of the group, but she holds her own performing a little ditty with finger puppets, running, and finishes by flying home into the arms of her family. Dig the green high tops!

After a mambo routine, the cast takes their clothes off to reveal psychadelic undies.  They line up down centerstage and they synchronistically fall back – a unified group- to the upstage brick wall, pinned, poised, finished.

I’m curious about Megan’s process in relation to the spontaneity of the flow of the performance.  One thing is apparent, there was a strong sense of community and comradre amidst the performers.  They danced together, and respectfully complimented the soloist that took a turn in the spotlight.   I can only imagine that rehearsals were fun and playful. Nice.

Edwin Suarez opens “The Apple Tree” as he gazes into a swirling blue pool centerstage.  Black out.

2 silk screens unfold beneath the Southern Theater’s archway.  I experience a projection of grass with stone amidst a soundscore of wind.  I see elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and finally Water.  Sachiko slowly appears upstage- she is curled in all white and slowly unravels to the gorgeous music created by Ben Abrahamson and La Conja.

Photo by Cameron Wittig, courtesy Walker Art Center

Laura Horn as the Apple Tree comes to life and the two women dance together- spiraling and twisting in both unison and aunison phrases.  Precise shapeshifting unfolds- these Flamenco dancers have an ability to balance fluidity in the core and arms simultaneously with bold strength and rhythmic percussion in their feet.

Sachiko and Edwin meet for a duet.  She now garners a long mermaid tail-like skirt in bold orange, which she exquisitely maneuvers throughout their encounter.  Passion is tangible in the air for a dramatic courting.

3 guys shows up and distract Edwin from his life mission.  They circle him and tease with a 4-count meter of stomp-clap-clap-clap repeated over and over.  Laura and Sachiko twirl upstage behind the safety of the white transparent walls.  The men welcome Edwin back, but back to what?

All is silent and I see a balancing white light projected against the silk screen wall stage left.  I see moving dots in the globe reminiscent of birds.  The tree (Laura) and the girl (Sachiko) counterbalance with one another upstage.  There is tension in their breath.  The girl moves into the globe and then into a tunnel of light on the diagonal from downstage right to upstage left.  And now I am engaged………

Our female heroine moves on this diagonal of light- she is tormented by her past and by the future ahead.  Her eyes can’t stand to stay present- she only looks ahead and behind.  She shivers, lunges and whirls as she closes her eyes to the passion from time to time.  I see a silhouette of her spiraling fingers against her neck, torso and face.  She argues with the tree, and then the shimmering pool of blue light from the opening scene reappears center stage.  The girl is beckoned.  She pulls away and begins a rhythmic shuffling of her feet that is synchronistically executed with the beat of La Conga’s clapping hands.  She succumbs to the water and bends backwards as the tree regrows above her.

“The Apple Tree” closed with the young man (Edwin) back at the opening scene- he is haunted by images of the young girl, reminiscent of the previous scenes of her dancing.  He grabs for her in the air and pulls his fists into his core.  They are empty and the lights fade.