We heard the Ririe-Woodbury Company in a performance of works by Alwin Nikolais. To begin with, this was a bit of nostalgia for both of us; we had seen Nikolais's work in the the 1970's and 1980's, but not since then. Nikolais has been both praised and criticized for his approach to dance. He viewed a dance performance as a multimedia event; he is often quoted as describing his work as "a polygamy of motion, shape, color, and sound". To me the most striking aspect of his work is that he composed the sound for his pieces; often using early electronic music techniques such a manipulation of taped sound. (One work on the program had a score by David Darling which was not good.) All the pieces on the program begin with a mini overture with the curtain closed.
Nikolaus also takes great pleasure in using bodies to create visual shapes and patterns that don't look like bodies. He uses black lights, mirrors, and all kinds of visual devices and props. And when we see the actual dancers, the dance is appealing and interesting as well. I am occasionally bothered by some tacky sorts of gimmicks with props and some of the overt synchronization between sound and music, but ultimately it is a great pleasure to experience. (I wish I could find good photographs on the web to show some of the visual elements, but I can't find them.)
We heard the NY Philharmonic perform Mahler's 6th symphony, conducted by Semyon Bychkov. It was an outstanding performance (our resident Mahlerian thought so too). They performed it with no other works on the program, as it should be. It would be more than I can possibly communicate in words to describe this performance. At times it seemed to evoke a kind of Schoenbergian expressionism (it was written before Schoenberg's expressionistic works). Another striking thing is the amazing sound and performance of the NY Philharmonic's brass section; there is really nothing in the world like hearing a live orchestra, especially brass in a large hall. Though many people complain about Geffen (aka Fisher) Hall's acoustics, by and large I think it sounds great, especially in comparison to concert halls I have heard in provincial cities, where the walls can be made from concrete blocks.
I have a new favorite choreographer, Pam Tanowitz. We saw her company at the Joyce Theater. (I remember when it was the Elgin Movie Theater, showed revivals, and was pretty much a dump.) The show was one of the best things I have seen in years. Tanowitz could be described as the love child of Merce Cunningham and George Balanchine. She combines the musicality of Balanchine with a movement style that might be called post-Cunningham. The best piece on the program "Heaven On One's Head" was set to Conlon Nancarrow's String Quartet's No. 1 and No. 3, performed live by the Fluxus Quartet. (It's such a pleasure to hear dance performed to live music!) These are rhythmically complex pieces, like Nancorrow's player piano studies, but Tanowitz has clearly understood the music. Her choreography somehow works in counterpoint to the music in ways which are not immediately clear, but ultimately make sense. The dancers move in very rhythmic and idiosyncratic ways; movement is often unpredictable, and always interesting. I was completely mesmerized. The dancers were extraordinary to watch; extremely focused, and working together in a way that reminded me of Cunningham. The first piece on the program, a world premiere, was less successful, perhaps because of its length and because it had a more contemplative character. Music was a string quartet by Julia Wolfe and an electronic score by Dan Siegler. Both worked very well for the dance.
Tanowitz is really a remarkable choreographer; the next time they do a Thomas Adès evening, they should commission her. Or just give her a MacArthur grant already!
Images from the web:
We went to hear the Broadway musical "American In Paris". It's really a ballet/musical, though. We don't often go to Broadway musicals, but we had heard good things about the choreography, so we went. The dance was indeed wonderful, as choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon. The dancers are frequently on pointe, and the climatic ballet is stunning (as it was in the movie on which the musical is based). There is also quite a bit of story telling through the dance, which is very effective. The staging, lighting, and set design are truly dazzling in the best sense of the word. It is amazing what they can do in the theater these days; the last ballet scene is a feast of abstract color and movement.
(Caution, rant alert; reader discretion advised)
But it's a Broadway "musical"...and there is a problem. The leads, including NYC Ballet's Robert Fairchild, were chosen for their dancing abilities, but starring in a musical requires that they also act and sing. They do that credibly, but when either one of the leads sings their big numbers, it's really a letdown. It's what you might expect from a good quality high school production. Having heard many great singers sing these songs over the years, we are spoiled. But it is very rare that anyone comes along who can sing and dance well, and in this production the singing definitely takes a back seat. But, to my ears, even worse is what happened to the orchestral performance of the music (which is all by Gershwin). On Broadway, the standard practice these days is to use the minimum number of musicians, bury them deep in the pit, and put a microphone on them and amplify and mix the whole thing through loudspeakers. In some cases the musicians are not even in the auditorium. Looking in the pit at intermission, I could see that each musician was surrounded by plastic shields to aid in isolating each instrument for the use of microphones. So they can't hear each other. So the end result, from taking an orchestral score, reducing it to fewer instruments, and then amplifying it, is a musical travesty to my ears. I think of the Beckett estate, that is vigilant in protecting the integrity of Beckett's texts. (So if I were to propose adapting "Waiting For Godot" to be performed as a musical, staged in a shopping mall, and to add a Godot arriving to keep the waiting to a minimum and please the audience, the Beckett estate would say no way.) The Gershwin estate, though, is a willing handmaiden to these butcherings, while making lots of money from the performing rights. So the music was filled with completely out of whack sound balances, flagrant wrong notes, out of tune chords, and it generally sounded bad. You would think with all the technology that is used to create the astonishing stage settings, that the equivalent could be found for music. But it's all about money, too; the producers don't want to pay for too many expensive live musicians, and the audience, used to the extremely loud sounds of movie theaters, wants a big sound in the theater. No one cares.
End of rant...
We went to see the New York City Ballet do one of their Balachine "Black and White" concerts. "Agon" was on the program; this was my fifth or sixth "Agon" performance in the last few years. It gets better every time. It really is a uniquely composed intertwining of music and dance. Each time I hear and see it, I get closer to being able to grasp the intricacy of the musical and choreographic counterpoint. There are complex patterns in both the music and the dance that interact with each other in multiple ways. But, in the end, it is also totally accessible on first acquaintance. There are very few such avant-garde works that have met with immediate audience acceptance; at every performance I have ever been to, the audience has always cheered with great enthusiasm. What at amazing work it is!
Also on the program was "Episodes", Balanchine's choreography to the music of Webern, and "The Four Temperaments" set to Hindemith's music of the same name. Both were exciting and stimulating to see and hear (I have seen both many times), but nothing reaches the peak of "Agon" for me.
We heard a concert of the music of Georg Haas, sponsored by the Austrian Cultural Forum (it was free!). I have written elsewhere on this blog about my admiration for the music of Haas, and this concert reaffirmed my feelings. He has such an extraordinary ear for sound; his sonorities are unlike anyone else's that I know, and he has gift for somehow making his sonorities cohere and develop into meaningful large scale movements. The highlight was a performance of " wie still brannte das Licht" with soprano Tony Arnold absolutely stunning as the soloist.
The Pacific Northwest Ballet was in town, performing at City Center. We saw the second of two programs, featuring works by Crystal Pite, William Forsythe, and David Dawson. They perform with a live orchestra (with the exception of the Pite, which was choreographed to an electronic score by Owen Belton, one of Pite's frequent collaborators.) The Dawson work, set to a performance of a piano version of Bach's D-minor Concerto, was mostly classical ballet style, and to my (post-Balanchine) eyes, quite bland. I had high expectations for the second piece, set to the last movement of Schubert's C-major symphony, given that Forsythe is one of the greatest modern dance choreographers around. But it was again mostly riffing on classical ballet styles, energetic but not very interesting. Pite's work, "Emergence", on the other hand, was a knockout. Suddenly, we were back in the world of modern dance/ballet. "Emergence" is based in part on the idea of the behavior of swarms, as in swarms of insects. As in her piece "Polaris", we are in a dark and seemingly post-apocalyptic world. Dancers move in irregularly patterned groups; conflicts emerged. It was compelling to watch, though I would have to say that the piece doesn't really justify its length. After thirty minutes, of darkness and conflict, I felt the need for contrast and variety. But Pite is a truly visionary choreographer, and I look forward to any of her works.
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