Performing Arts

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.

BLK JKS' Linda Buthelezi. Photo by Justin Schell

“Enjoy the rainbow. It’s not about the pot of gold at the end.” So said guitarist Mpumi Mcata near the opening of  BLK JKS’ 90-minute set at the Cedar Cultural Center. The opening of the 2009 Global Roots Festival (the first year the Cedar’s usual “Nordic Roots” festival has gone global), it’s hard not to hear echoes of Nelson Mandela and the idea of the “rainbow nation” as an idealized post-Apartheid South Africa in the Jo’Burg group, “a rainbow nation,” in his words, “at peace with itself and the world.”  Anybody who has followed South Africa over the past 10 years—or at least has seen District 9—knows how complicated such an idea has become.

While this kind of politics only briefly appeared during their set—more on that later—the packed house at the Cedar was treated to a bewildering mix of genres, with roots in music from Soweto to Kingston to London and all points in between. Their roots seem to be in prog rock, with the band’s long, winding guitar and bass lines and on-the-fly shifts in mixed meters, while at other times I felt like I was listening to a spontaneous dub record, especially with the processed drum sounds and vocals. (In a 2008 cover story, Fader described them as “afrogothic,” a neologism that only hints at the variety of styles and influences churning beneath BLK JKS’s surface.)

There was lots of obvious communication between Mcata and the rest of the members of the group— Tshepang Ramoba on drums, Molefi Makananise on bass, and lead singer and guitarist Linda Buthelezi—as they seemed to figure out their path through the songs as they played them. Their positions on-stage, in a straight line instead of the usual drummer-in-back hierarchy, lent itself both to this ease of communication as well as no one musician occupying the center of attention. All this led to sometimes startlingly different versions of songs like “Molatatladi,” “Summertime,” and “Tselane.” This last song was especially striking, a slow, almost dirge-like song at times, with a long buildup that seemed to match the eerie nature of its subject, a folk tale-cum-bedtime story about the ogre Dingwe kidnapping little girls.

Buthelezi and Ramoba seem to be foils for each other, the latter’s frenetic energy and churning drums seemed sometimes at odds with the almost disaffected singing of Buthelezi. For much of the time, Buthelezi looked suspicious of those in the first couple rows. By the end of the show, however, he had shed this stoicism, as he threw guitars and mics to the ground, pecking the entire body of the guitar and twiddling knobs to bring forth ever weirder sounds from his amps.

The group’s audience-demanded encore started out as the most politically-engaged moment of the show, with shout outs to Steve Biko and African Youth organizing in 1974. In fact, it was the most straight-ahead song, with much less of the rhythmic elasticity that marked the rest of the set. (Mcata did say it was a popular political rally song, but I couldn’t recognize it or catch the title over the wash of distortion that crowded his words.) As the minutes went by, dreads, sticks, and microphones, guitars, and cymbals flailed in an incredible, Acid Mothers Temple/Boredoms-worthy freak out, an incredible release of all the built-up energy of the previous 80 minutes. While this might not have been the usual pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, both the path and the end BLK JKS painted at the Cedar were thoroughly enjoyed by both the band and audience.

When I first heard Jewellry, the debut LP from Micachu & The Shapes, I was simultaneously irritated and instantly a fan. Noises grate and lyrics obfuscate amidst the wry, spastic, educatedly uneducated music of Mica Levi, aka Micachu.

The boyish, blond-mopped Micachu shared the Cedar’s stage with Marc Pell and Raisa Khan, Pell on drums and Khan multitasking on laptop, auxiliary percussion, and keyboards. They not only looked young, they were young, all in the early 20s. (This was one of the few shows I’ve been to recently where I felt old.)

Most of Jewellry, the group’s debut album, is danceable as hell, while at the same time intellectually satisfying on an headphone-close listen. There are very few songs that sound similar on Jewellry, each a testament to timbral and sonic subtlety. These sounds are spread out in all parts of the stereo spectrum, and Micachu’s voice effortlessly dips into and out of the digital washes behind it. Such detail is due in part, no doubt, to the masterful presence of Matthew Herbert. And this combination also make it impossible to sit still on songs like “Vulture,” “Lips,” “Golden Phone,” and the Pee Wee Herman-channeling “Calculator.”

Unfortunately, neither of these elements were really on view at the Cedar, the band’s first date on their first US tour. The level of detail on Jewellry wasn’t there during the live show, which can mostly be chalked up to the live atmosphere,  which doesn’t easily allow for the kinds of details possible on record. There were some moments that showed why the band should play these songs live, such as the intricate percussion duets between Pell and Khan (played on everything from garbage can lid cymbals to cowbells to bottles) and the explosive bass of “Floor” that seemed to catch everybody by surprise. And it was entertaining just to watch Micachu, whether it be her vocal delivery or the variety of instruments she played, which included a Frankenstein-ish acoustic bedecked with adaptations, a seemingly constantly de/untuned electric, and what looked like a home-made (anti-)Auto-Tune contraption. While her stage presence itself is nothing extraordinary, she has a wonderful, if unintentional, sneer while delivering her lyrics, lyrics that are opaque enough already without the accent.

It didn’t help that the audience was one of the stiffest I’ve ever seen at a show, at the Cedar or anywhere else. It wasn’t until the very last song that they started whoopin’ it up with joyful responses to “Golden Phone.” I was expecting a twitchy mass of spastically dancing hipsters, but few obliged.

Nothing about Micachu & The Shapes is all that new, whatever Pitchfork might say; shades of Deerhoof, Aphex Twin, Sonic Youth, Harry Partch (who is appropriately, if unexpectedly, thanked in the liner notes), Brainiac and numerous other pop/avant-garde acts all echo in Micachu’s overtones. That doesn’t mean, of course, that the show was a drag or Jewellry is any less impressive. Let’s just hope that the audiences on the rest of their tour will be a bit more effusive in their appreciation.

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

Here are some behind-the-scenes Q&As from each of the artists to give you food for thought on last weekends’ Momentum shows. What do you remember from the new works? Do these support your vision of the pieces?

Make a list of ten adjectives to describe your work.

Sachiko: contrasting. warm. bright. natural.  manic depressive  windy.  personal.  secretive.  lonely.  lost.

Sally: brave, silly, Fellini-esque,  allegorical, musical, over-arching, ridiculous, still, upright, salacious

Megan: vulnerable, comedic, intimate, musical, endearing, personal, undisguised, particular, candid, bittersweet

How do you title your work?

Megan: For this piece, the title arrived before the piece did. I remember driving in my car and the title just popped into my head. Images of a group work had been playing in my head for a couple of years, and I let the title ruminate a while before it stuck to this particular piece. Typically I title a work after it’s done, or at least at some point during the process. So this piece was a little unusual in that respect.

Sally: This title came easily.  It contains words that I never use– Paramount and Footage.  The phrase had an absolute ring to it, for me and it reminded me of a Fred and Ginger movie.

Sachiko: “The Apple Tree,” because the story takes place around the symbol of nature and its forth, warmth, light, generosity, and gentleness, an apple tree.

Vanessa: I usually start out with a title to help focus the work. The title is inspired by the content that I want to express. Rarely have I found a title after the creative process has started.

What is the intent of your piece?

Vanessa: To celebrate, to rally coming together, to acknowledge a new era, to do something all together.

Sachiko: To spotlight un-heard peoples’ voice.  To emphasize the sacrifice and mistakes people make in life, and loss of youth and innocence.

What have you learned about your process while creating this piece?

Sachiko: I discovered sometimes I am like a mathematician to make sense musically.  I understand much of dance in a musical sense, since it is the nature of Flamenco.   I read emotions and story within music.  Music and dance share the same vocabulary in Flamenco.  I see the light when my vision and ideas integrate with the music in my brain.

Has your piece changed since you began making it?  How?

Vanessa: It changes every day with life’s experience and interaction. In the beginning there is what you know and what you think you know. Then through discovery and research it changes and adapts; the collision of thought, movement, and emotion.

What is your editing process?

Megan: I’ve always been a very visual thinker/processor, so that’s worked to my advantage in this project. I’m able to picture a section in my mind and virtually edit it as we have not had a ton of rehearsals together. I think it’s also a result of shooting digital photos over the last several years; it trains your eye to be more efficient at creating an image as well as framing an image.  I can tell that I’m more aware of the holistic picture of the stage and theater, allowing me to take an almost sculptural approach to making the work.

How does the art form you’re working in express your work?

Sally: The form of ballet is key to this work, even if it isn’t apparent.  The line, the opposition, the polarity in ballet, the tension— they are all describing my reality.  The art form of theater itself is enabling me to transcend some of the literalness by way of layering images and repeating motifs.  I think I have a lot to learn, though.  I would like to harness these art forms more and be able to really bring the audience with me more, so that would know  ”Oh, this was important.  OK, this part isn’t real, it’s just how it SEEMED at the time.”

Vanessa: Movement based performance in my opinion speaks to the poetic/subconscious mind and body. It transcends language barriers. This is my chosen form for those reasons and speaks to my desires to work on that level.

How do you respond to your own work?

Megan: Sometimes it’s like seeing an old friend; there is something recognizable and innately familiar to me. Sometimes with a cringe. Hopefully I’m engaged and drawn in to the images. Usually I’m most riveted by the performers themselves. With that said, I often do solo work, so that objectivity is more difficult. If a moment or image makes my heart beat faster or makes me hold my breath then I know I’ve made something successful that I hope provides a visceral, emotional connection for the audience.

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.