Last week, I made the journey down to the BYU campus to see the company that has probably inspired me the most in my dance career. I was a little bummed because I missed the exit that I needed to take and then college parking being what it is, I made it into the auditorium about 15 minutes late.....sad. I missed an original Isadora Duncan piece. But all was not lost....
The first sweet of dances was basically telling a story of economic/political history at varying points in history including the depression and Cold War eras as well as others. The final piece was called 'Panorama' and featured dancers from BYU's school of dance. WOW! 40 dancers all in red on stage at the same time. It completely illustrated the point that Martha was trying to put forth that many people banding together can create and cause change. I'll put some YouTube links at the bottom of the post.
The second sweet of dances was so moving! There is a famous piece by Martha called Lamentation. (I'll post a link). It's an interesting piece that a lot of people might not 'get', but it's pretty cool and gets better the more times you watch it. Well, the company picked three up an coming choreographers and told them to use that piece as inspiration to create dances about the their individual reactions to 9/11. They had to work within specific parameters such as simple costuming and lighting and they were presented at the 6th anniversary of 9/11. All three were amazing and so moving. Just looking at three different choreographer's interpretation of 'falling' was inspirational not to mention the virtuosic performances.
The third section of dancing was the one that I was looking the most forward to. Martha Graham's seminal work is which tells the story of a young pioneer couple in a new settlement as well as the story of a revivalist and his followers. They didn't show the entire piece but instead, they presented it in a way that I wasn't expecting. some background on the ballet....it was more or less choreographed as the music being composed. Martha and Aaron Copeland would write back and forth sharing ideas with Martha telling Copeland how she wanted the music to sound in certain parts what images she wanted to show. For the performance that evening, They actually read the original letters and then the dancers performed those sections. At first I was disappointed, but then, as I thought about it, it was such a rare insight as to how artists collaborate and how inspiration is born. It really brought the dance to life for me and I don't think that I will look at it the same way.
For any modern dance enthusiast, this was a rare and amazing opportunity. As I watched the dancers and absorbed the choreography, I realizes why Martha Graham is such a huge influence for me. She takes movement that is somewhat pedestrian (thus making it seem accessible) and make it anything but pedestrian through her use of contractions and repetition. One of my favorite ways to choreograph is to find 'real-world' pedestrian movement and chan
ge it up to make it something different. What an amazing talent she had. I'm so glad that her legacy has been preserved and that her work is still in existence for generations to feed off of.
Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.
*Some fun links*
Panorama Part 1
Panorama Part 2
Panorama Part 3
Appalachian Spring Part 1
Appalachian Spring Part 2
Appalachian Spring Part 3
Appalachian Spring Part 4
Lamentation
No comments:
Post a Comment