Last Friday, the renowned Shen Wei Dance Arts, under the direction of Shen Wei, presented two richly textured and emotive pieces at Jackson Hall. Re- (Part One), a quartet created in 2006, was co-commissioned by the Mondavi Center, while Folding, a more epic production, was originally created in 2000 for the Guandong Modern Dance Company.
Re- (Part One) features hauntingly stark lighting by the legendary designer, Jennifer Tipton. The costumes and stage design, by Shen Wei, are similarly simple, but effective. A layer of light snow confetti carpets the floor, giving way/moving with/trailing behind the dancers as they move. The soundscape alternates between traditional Tibetan Chants and silence, and the four dancers move seamlessly, silently and organically. Slow and meditative at first, their movements seem sourced from internal impulses. As the piece evolves, the dynamic shifts as the dancers begin expanding their use of space, sweeping across the stage, and fully inhabiting their own kinespheres. Even as their movements sharpen and crystallize, the dancers retain a remarkable sense of lightness and ease in their actions. They fold themselves into and out of the floor, kicking up the confetti snow and leaving tracers in the air as they drag the particles along with them – a record, however fleeting, of their movement through space. This imagery is reminiscent of the sand art Tibetan monks meticulously create, then leave to blow away in the wind – a reminder to invest fully in the beauty of an image even while accepting its impermanence.
If Re - (Part One) is an exploration in movement sourced from internal impulses, Folding is the opposite. In this piece, Wei uses the set, costumes, dancers and music to create a grand, almost operatic vision bigger than any of the individual dancers. All the design elements come together to evoke surreal, poetic images that are at once very Chinese and universally mythical. The dancers wear “coneheads” (think SNL in the 80s), which distort your sense of where their bodies end, especially when they turn backwards and contort. Their costumes consist of nude (or, for the women, nude-colored) tops with either black or red “monk” pants. The backdrop is a traditional, yet fantastical Chinese painting (by Wei), and the lighting is bright and vibrant. The movement, rather than being organic, is idiosyncratic and functional in the way it services Wei’s grand fanciful vision. The dancers skitter across the stage which, because of their balloon-like pants, gives the impression that they are floating through space. They form surreal creatures by stacking person upon person inside of the red and black fabrics to create 2-headed forms that ooze and move about the space in a slow butoh-esque style. They create illusions of height, depth, mass, and, in the end, appear to climb a “stairway to heaven”.
Both pieces, while different, were lush with imagery and made for an enjoyable and contemplative evening.
Showing posts with label dance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dance. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
St. Petersburg Ballet presents "Russian Seasons"
The Mondavi Center was packed on Friday night for the St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre’s presentation of “Russian Seasons”. The company opened with “Chopiniana,” choreographed by Mikhail Fokine, which first premiered in St. Petersburg in 1908. At first, it took me awhile to adjust my eye to the pace of the romantic ballet and to the style of the company in general, as I have become accustomed to the “Western” ballet style dominated by Balanchine’s neo-classical aesthetic of precise athleticism, or more recently by William Fortsythe’s pyrotechnic articulations. Set to the music of Chopin, the piece consists of a series of gradually shifting tableaus, or frozen scenes that come to life slowly and subtly. The corps moves as a unit in architectural formations while several soloists emerge to portray “a young man’s dream”. But, it is far more abstract than the program notes led me to believe, and is best appreciated as a stylized movement poem of evolving landscapes, and a historical glimpse into the style of the world renown Russian Ballet company.
The next piece, “Scheherazade” with music by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and choreography by Yuri Petukhov is based on the tale of a sultan, his wife (Scheherazade) and the story she weaves to escape her execution and win the sultan’s heart. Relying heavily on pantomime, the ballet follows the star-crossed lovers of Scheherazade’s fairytale in a series of pas de deuxs. The young couple is fierce and spunky in their movement vocabulary, while Scheherazade and her Sultan are portrayed with a more lush, luxuriant movement style. The dancer portraying Scheherazade, while exhibiting impressive flexibility and facility, did not carry the emotional weight or phrasing depth I wished for in such a role. The young couple and the executioner infused the ballet with a shot of adrenaline, and displayed the great technique and energy I expected from the legendary Ballet Company.
The highlight of the evening, however, was Petukhov’s “Bolero” set to Maurice Ravel’s famous score. The dancers start hunched over and bunched tightly in a dim pool of light. A cappella, they circle slowly while beating out the familiar opening rhythm with their feet. As the melody begins, a single male dancer breaks away from the group. He is barely distinguishable at first, but his solo becomes more clearly defined as the ever brightening downward spotlight highlights his presence. More dancers begin to break away in a reverse circle, creating a whirlpool effect. The corps maintains the rhythm and the weight of the music on the perimeter, while the soloists articulate the melody with their fluid and dynamic movements on the interior. The back curtain slowly opens throughout the piece, revealing a bright red backdrop as the dance and music builds, culminating in a mass unison flourish. The original soloist exuded a clear charisma coupled with a powerful technique that was not seen from the company until this point. He took his superb technique a step further to transcendence. His phrasing choices and intense focus left me feeling energized and inspired.
The next piece, “Scheherazade” with music by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and choreography by Yuri Petukhov is based on the tale of a sultan, his wife (Scheherazade) and the story she weaves to escape her execution and win the sultan’s heart. Relying heavily on pantomime, the ballet follows the star-crossed lovers of Scheherazade’s fairytale in a series of pas de deuxs. The young couple is fierce and spunky in their movement vocabulary, while Scheherazade and her Sultan are portrayed with a more lush, luxuriant movement style. The dancer portraying Scheherazade, while exhibiting impressive flexibility and facility, did not carry the emotional weight or phrasing depth I wished for in such a role. The young couple and the executioner infused the ballet with a shot of adrenaline, and displayed the great technique and energy I expected from the legendary Ballet Company.
The highlight of the evening, however, was Petukhov’s “Bolero” set to Maurice Ravel’s famous score. The dancers start hunched over and bunched tightly in a dim pool of light. A cappella, they circle slowly while beating out the familiar opening rhythm with their feet. As the melody begins, a single male dancer breaks away from the group. He is barely distinguishable at first, but his solo becomes more clearly defined as the ever brightening downward spotlight highlights his presence. More dancers begin to break away in a reverse circle, creating a whirlpool effect. The corps maintains the rhythm and the weight of the music on the perimeter, while the soloists articulate the melody with their fluid and dynamic movements on the interior. The back curtain slowly opens throughout the piece, revealing a bright red backdrop as the dance and music builds, culminating in a mass unison flourish. The original soloist exuded a clear charisma coupled with a powerful technique that was not seen from the company until this point. He took his superb technique a step further to transcendence. His phrasing choices and intense focus left me feeling energized and inspired.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
"Collapse": Behind the Scenes
Sideshow Physical Theater’s “Collapse (suddenly falling down)” kicked off the Mondavi Center’s Creativity Project on Thursday October 25 and ran through this Sunday November 4. In the spirit of the project, which is meant to explore how artists create work (and, by doing so, to make contemporary art more accessible to audiences), I thought I’d use this space to reveal my experiences as a dancer/collaborator in this performance, and to explore different interpretations for this show.
The Creative Process
I began work on this project in the beginning of September, and at that time director Della Davidson was already juggling many creative activities. She had been exploring movement ideas with dancers Jane Schnorrenberg, Kegan Marling, Kerry Mehling, and Victoria Terrell-Carazo for about a month (Sara Zimmerman, David Orzechowicz and I came into the project around the same time, and Victor Toman came in a few weeks later). She had enlisted Ed Gaible (the script writer) as a collaborator, who had begun some initial scenes inspired by Jared Diamond’s “Collapse,” and who had interviewed the dancers on their ideas about “collapse” and about their rational and irrational fears. She had also begun discussions with several scientists who were hard at work on the LIDAR scans which would become our stunning 3-D scenery.
We began rehearsals with a lot of big societal questions. Diamond’s question, “What were the Easter Islanders thinking when they cut down the last tree on their island?” was a major point of departure. We asked, “How might this question relate to our current concerns about environmental sustainability and cultural priorities?” We sourced images, ideas and events such as the collapse of the twin towers and major bridges (both the physical collapse of the structures themselves and the impact these collapses had on individuals and society); the bee crisis; animal poaching in Africa; social upheaval in Rwanda; the collapse of the human heart from heartbreak; and the collapse of long term relationships.
After discussing many of these ideas, we began physical dance explorations. Davidson set up various improvisation structures where we attempted to wrap our heads (and bodies) around some of these questions through the process of staging and acting them out.
At the heart of the creative process for the dance were the questions:
We used these improvisations to create material, which Davidson then shaped and pieced together into the final product. A section of the group dance material which we called “Prayer” dealt with social ideas about what happens to a group when one of its members collapses. The physical manifestation of bodies collapsing can be read literally and metaphorically. The section we called “Falling Man” dealt with our impressions of and reactions to big disasters. We referenced images from Don DeLillo’s book (by the same name) about 9/11, but the collapse of the boxes at the beginning of this section and our reactions to it can refer to any kind of disaster or feeling of Armageddon. Solos emerged from the questions “What are we afraid of?” “What do we do when we get depressed?” and “How do we cope with upheaval in our lives?” They represented our personal responses to some of these questions. The duets were often sourced from the questions “Is there a shelf life to relationships?” “Why do relationships collapse, what do we do to stop that from happening?” “Do those things make a difference?”
The Production Collage
In the spirit of the Creativity Project and Merce Cunningham, we didn’t have much contact with the other collaborators until “tech week” – the week preceding opening night when everyone arrives in the theater to put together the show. The show is therefore the product of multiple artists working simultaneously, but not necessarily collaboratively on the same material. Each artist approached the idea of collapse according to their own interests. Davidson used the above methods to explore her interest in the subject of collapse through movement. Gaible used Diamond’s book and his interests in anthropology, economics and sociology to imagine a scenario where two characters discuss their options given that they are the last people on an island with only one tree left standing. When an anthropologist (Toman) arrives on the island, hilarity ensues as he and the islanders make (often erroneous) assumptions about each other. The scientists used their visual research on natural disasters to create a backdrop for the production. Some of the LIDAR scans (3-dimensional snapshots of landscapes) included imagery from landslides, dam failures, debris flows and sink holes.
The flow of the show ended up feeling a bit like a Greek tragedy where the narrative is advanced by the actors; the emotional content and physical expression of the ideas are articulated by the dancers; and the set, costumes and other elements support these actions.
During tech week we experimented with several different order sequences for the material – some more linear than others, while Davidson tried to create the best possible version which would illustrate our ideas about collapse as a kaleidoscope. Merce Cunningham, a famous modern dance choreographer, used ideas of chance, choice, collage and probability in his work. His practice of collaboration through parallel creation inspired Davidson and “Collapse’s” structure.
FAQs
Some common questions emerged from discussions I had with friends who came to the show: “What’s with the Black feathers?” “Why did you keep walking towards the light?” “What’s with the repetition?” My friends, annoyed that I threw these questions back at them (“What do you think it meant?”), should be comforted – there are no right answers when looking at art. Images and symbols can be interpreted in many ways (maybe the repetition represented non-linear time or a sense of history repeating itself), but sometimes a feather is just a feather.
Let me know what you thought! What are some of your interpretations?
The Creative Process
I began work on this project in the beginning of September, and at that time director Della Davidson was already juggling many creative activities. She had been exploring movement ideas with dancers Jane Schnorrenberg, Kegan Marling, Kerry Mehling, and Victoria Terrell-Carazo for about a month (Sara Zimmerman, David Orzechowicz and I came into the project around the same time, and Victor Toman came in a few weeks later). She had enlisted Ed Gaible (the script writer) as a collaborator, who had begun some initial scenes inspired by Jared Diamond’s “Collapse,” and who had interviewed the dancers on their ideas about “collapse” and about their rational and irrational fears. She had also begun discussions with several scientists who were hard at work on the LIDAR scans which would become our stunning 3-D scenery.
We began rehearsals with a lot of big societal questions. Diamond’s question, “What were the Easter Islanders thinking when they cut down the last tree on their island?” was a major point of departure. We asked, “How might this question relate to our current concerns about environmental sustainability and cultural priorities?” We sourced images, ideas and events such as the collapse of the twin towers and major bridges (both the physical collapse of the structures themselves and the impact these collapses had on individuals and society); the bee crisis; animal poaching in Africa; social upheaval in Rwanda; the collapse of the human heart from heartbreak; and the collapse of long term relationships.
After discussing many of these ideas, we began physical dance explorations. Davidson set up various improvisation structures where we attempted to wrap our heads (and bodies) around some of these questions through the process of staging and acting them out.
At the heart of the creative process for the dance were the questions:
- What does collapse actually mean, and how can this be expressed physically?
- What are different ways in which you personally collapse (i.e. how is the physical expression tied to emotion – how does being tired, depressed affect you physically)?
- Why do systems collapse: from your body, to relationships with loved ones, to ecosystems, to societies?
- Can we acknowledge the paradox of collapse: Can collapse be positive? (It creates the need to rebuild, rearrange, reinvent, and rebound.) Can it be energizing?
- What does this have to do with us (personally and as a society)?
- What happens to a group when one of its members begins to collapse? How do we support each other? What happens when we chose not to?
We used these improvisations to create material, which Davidson then shaped and pieced together into the final product. A section of the group dance material which we called “Prayer” dealt with social ideas about what happens to a group when one of its members collapses. The physical manifestation of bodies collapsing can be read literally and metaphorically. The section we called “Falling Man” dealt with our impressions of and reactions to big disasters. We referenced images from Don DeLillo’s book (by the same name) about 9/11, but the collapse of the boxes at the beginning of this section and our reactions to it can refer to any kind of disaster or feeling of Armageddon. Solos emerged from the questions “What are we afraid of?” “What do we do when we get depressed?” and “How do we cope with upheaval in our lives?” They represented our personal responses to some of these questions. The duets were often sourced from the questions “Is there a shelf life to relationships?” “Why do relationships collapse, what do we do to stop that from happening?” “Do those things make a difference?”
The Production Collage
In the spirit of the Creativity Project and Merce Cunningham, we didn’t have much contact with the other collaborators until “tech week” – the week preceding opening night when everyone arrives in the theater to put together the show. The show is therefore the product of multiple artists working simultaneously, but not necessarily collaboratively on the same material. Each artist approached the idea of collapse according to their own interests. Davidson used the above methods to explore her interest in the subject of collapse through movement. Gaible used Diamond’s book and his interests in anthropology, economics and sociology to imagine a scenario where two characters discuss their options given that they are the last people on an island with only one tree left standing. When an anthropologist (Toman) arrives on the island, hilarity ensues as he and the islanders make (often erroneous) assumptions about each other. The scientists used their visual research on natural disasters to create a backdrop for the production. Some of the LIDAR scans (3-dimensional snapshots of landscapes) included imagery from landslides, dam failures, debris flows and sink holes.
The flow of the show ended up feeling a bit like a Greek tragedy where the narrative is advanced by the actors; the emotional content and physical expression of the ideas are articulated by the dancers; and the set, costumes and other elements support these actions.
During tech week we experimented with several different order sequences for the material – some more linear than others, while Davidson tried to create the best possible version which would illustrate our ideas about collapse as a kaleidoscope. Merce Cunningham, a famous modern dance choreographer, used ideas of chance, choice, collage and probability in his work. His practice of collaboration through parallel creation inspired Davidson and “Collapse’s” structure.
FAQs
Some common questions emerged from discussions I had with friends who came to the show: “What’s with the Black feathers?” “Why did you keep walking towards the light?” “What’s with the repetition?” My friends, annoyed that I threw these questions back at them (“What do you think it meant?”), should be comforted – there are no right answers when looking at art. Images and symbols can be interpreted in many ways (maybe the repetition represented non-linear time or a sense of history repeating itself), but sometimes a feather is just a feather.
Let me know what you thought! What are some of your interpretations?
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