Course blog #19 [Sara] Esplanade sets the stage for modern dance

Paul Taylor claims that his inspiration for writing Esplanade came from watching a young girl run to catch a bus on a beautiful day. According to the dramaturgical notes archived by the Paul Taylor Dance Company, much like his contemporaries in the visual art world such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg were using found objects to create art, Taylor was using “found movements” and quotidian gesture to re-create American dance.

An esplanade is a large outdoor place for walking and indeed Taylor’s choreography is pedestrian in the sense that it refuses the formal, prescribed gestures of classical dance while still capturing the exuberant poetry-in-motion of the everyday joys of being out and about in the air. I was particularly struck by the irreverence of the movement in contrast to the motivic structure of Johann Sebastian Bach's Concerto in D minor for Two Violins. At first, I was unable to see the expansion or repetition of a dance idea that might coalesce with the music, but in continuing to watch, I began to pick out the lovely return time and again of the solo women—I’m thinking the first, dynamic entrance by the lone female figure, and the delightful image of the small girl bouncing—leaping—bounding? over the line of prostrate dancers. 

From Research IUBloomington: "IU Dance Theatre celebrates 85th Anniversary" 22 Oct 2012.

This playful image finally forced me out of a losing game in trying to match the relationships between the dancers to the contrapuntal relationship between the two violins and instead see the choreography coalescing so beautifully with the music, rhythmically or “aesthetically” independent and yet intertwining, each made richer and more beautiful in their juxtaposition.

A little research at home turned up a lovely intertextuality between this piece and George Balanchine’s ConcertoBarocco, a ballet made on students at the School of American Ballet in 1941 that also used Bach’s Double Concerto. Here, though, Balanchine is using pairs of dancers to evoke the violins and there is much more consonance between the dance form and the music. I don’t feel as enlivened watching this piece as I did Taylor’s, but my experience of it enriched the IU Dance performance project for me—I’m struck that at an anniversary performance in which only four selections were made that Taylor’s playful exploration of the everyday perhaps finds more resonance with contemporary audiences. I do not suggest that there is a one to one comparison between the pieces nor than Balanchine’s work even entered the conversation in a showcase highlighting modern dance forms; however, in light of our recent conversations about certain universal reactions to the particular shapes of human bodies, I’m struck anew by Taylor’s intervention in the world of dance c. 1975. By eschewing narrative and formal abstraction for embodied exuberance and the aesthetic of the everyday, it was Taylor’s work that created a space for the subsequent pieces we witnessed. There is no beauty much less propriety in the tumble on the mattress without first witnessing the beauty in the walk for the bus. As a retrospective, I was happy to begin with Taylor and ponder the journey from formalism to expression, youth to age, public to private. It let in some necessary air, and the light of a beautiful day.

Dance Review (Derek)

IU Dance Theatre 85^th anniversary celebration gala was held November 4 and featured four pieces: Esplanade, Rite of Summer, Straight Duet, and Nascimento Novo.

Choreographed by Paul Taylor in 1975 and performed to violin concertos by Bach, Esplanade consisted of four distinct parts, each with a different feel. The first part was dominated by bright colors and a light atmosphere generated by the playfulness of the dancers’ geometric movements. Particularly notable was Miss Lalah Hazelwood’s smiling exuberance, which set the tone for the piece. The dancers engaged in domino tag, touch-falling and rising, leaping into the air, and I could not help smiling in pleasure at the joy they exhibited. One of my favorite moments was when they moved in circles and spirals, expanding and contracting, occasionally exploding outward like a starburst. The second part of Esplanade was more serious, reflected in the more somber music, lighting changes, and movements of the dancers. Four dancers stood off center, two taller (a man and a woman) and two shorter (two women), which made me think of a family. Miss Hazelwood was again a key dancer in the piece, seeming to float around the other three members of the family unit, hands pressed to one thigh as though signaling some injury, yet ignored by them as evidenced by their non-response to her movements and her hand waving. The end of this part was the most poignant, with the mother figure extending her arms with hands clasped, pleading and crying, before sinking to the floor as the lighting faded and the ensemble dancers crawled ever closer, circling around and enveloping her as the lights went out. The sadness of this part was cast off in part three, which began with bright lights, quick cheerful music, and more exuberant running and smiling dancers criss-crossing the stage. There was again the sense of playfulness exhibited in what might have been a game of tag. I was struck by the image of one of the male dancers running across the stage, taking long strides with his chest thrust out, smiling broadly; watching him, I felt the joy of unencumbered movement, of running freely through the warm grass in an open park.  As the final pair of dancers met in a leap caught deftly on the left of the stage, another pair of dancers entered from the right, mirroring the pair exiting to the left. This transition marked the beginning of the final part of Esplanade. This was marked by a great deal of physicality between dancers. I particularly enjoyed the twin rolling, which reminded me of wrestling.

The second piece of the evening was Rite of Summer, choreographed by William Evans in 2005 for the Bellingham Dance Gallery. The dancers in this piece were all female. One wore a green slip while the other six or seven wore white dresses. On the far left front of the stage was a white pedestal with a basket of rose petals on top. I felt like the girls in white were spirits or represented the inner emotions of the girl in green. As they danced they often kept their eyes on the girl in green. Overall this piece was very emotional, with the dancers convulsing and twitching with pained expressions, arms outstretched grasping, yet restrained or pulled back by some invisible force. I was really impressed by the controlled body movements and poses that they struck, many of which were quite difficult; for example, they did many lunges and deep squats, which I’ve done in karate, wrestling, and yoga, so I could sympathize with them as they struggled with trembling limbs to maintain their poses. Toward the end of the piece, the girl in green lay on the ground in a near fetal position, and the lighting turned red. The movements of the girls in white became jerky, their arms pushing out in pain and longing, perhaps fighting their desire for the basket, but eventually giving into that desire. They lifted the girl in green and gave the basket to her. She sprinkled flower petals on the girls one-by-one, and then dumped the remainder on the final girl. Each girl upon whom the petals fell sunk to the floor twitching.

The third piece was titled Straight Duet, and it was choreographed by Larry Keigwin and Nicole Wolcott in 2003. Miss Lalah Hazelwood returned to perform in this number opposite Joe Musiel. Both dancers wore plain white sports underwear, and the only prop was a queen size mattress. At the start of the piece, Miss Hazelwood tipped the mattress flat and flopped onto it in invitation, but Mr. Musiel’s character declined to join her, which prompted laughs from the audience. The entire piece seemed to chart the evolution of a relationship, progressing from happy flirtation to angry argument, with several ups and downs in between. I had a lot of admiration for their athleticism, for several of the movements required a great deal of strength to perform, including leaps, catches, and “tension” holds (where one person supports another at an odd angle). The movements of the dancers mimicked changes in relationships, with moments of tenderness, support, tension, and opposition. At the end of the piece, after Mr. Musiel’s character held the wrists of Miss Hazelwood’s character and shook her arms, they went round in circles pushing to spin the mattress before finally Miss Hazelwood had enough, up-ending the mattress into Mr. Musiel’s face, metaphorically slamming the door, which she then turned her back on and stalked resolutely chin-up off the stage.

The fourth and final piece of the evening was titled Nascimento Novo, and was choreographed by David Parsons in 2006 and set to the music of Milton Nascimento. The ten dancers in this number were dressed in white tops and brown bottoms. They performed a hopping dance step with their arms raised and lowered. This reminded me of a dance step that I use sometimes when dancing to techno. At one point they were in a half circle, and took turns leaping into the middle to dance solo. The final song had some English lyrics, “gathering together”, and featured rhythmic clapping by the dancers, which made me want to clap along with them. My companion felt this fourth piece was her favorite, but clearly tastes will vary. I liked it but enjoyed the others more, perhaps because this piece reminded me of going to a dance club. As I exited the building, a man of possibly South Asian origin commented to his family that the music seemed like a fusion of Eastern and Western styles. I also felt that way because of the instrument sounds I heard. Perhaps some of the arm, wrist and hand movements were meant to be evocative of non-Western dance styles, too; however, I am not sure if that’s actually the case.

Blog 19, IU Dance Theatre's 85th Anniversary Gala

Never having seen live modern dance before, I was unsure of what to expect from Sunday’s Gala. Actually, sitting in the cavernous, ribbed auditorium, I rather expected plankton to emerge when the curtain lifted (this perhaps reflects on my self-awareness as a consuming observer). The pink, orange, and tan costumes and initial sprightliness of Paul Taylor’s “Esplanade” didn’t undermine this expectation.

I was particularly affected by the juxtaposition of joy and misery throughout the evening’s performances. For example, the opening was joyous: happy bodies frolicking across and around the stage in what appeared to be an updated quadrille. The second movement was a sudden change – an exploration of destructive isolation. The dancers reached, but their inability to actually touch each other was painful to watch. The dancers emphasized their shoulder blades and collapsed their cores, dragging themselves to center stage where they revolved in a starving, circling herd.  The final two movements, featuring ecstatic leaps and flirtation, were each shaded by this indelible image of suffering.

The misery returned in full force in the next piece, William Evans’ “Rite of Summer.” I tried not to impose a narrative on the piece, but the use of a prop (a flower-girl’s basket of petals) and symbolic costuming appealed too much to the latent lit scholar in me; I ended up reading Evans’ work as one in which the performers wracked their bodies against a female-enforced patriarchy. The titular reference to a rite was evident in the shortened wedding dresses of the bride figures. Their gestural attempts to coerce and impose conformity on the female dancer in the simpler dress were intentionally redundant/stuplimitous: a big, circular gesture reminiscent of stirring a vat followed by a flattened, raised hand as though they were looking in vanity mirrors. The Rousseau figure’s eventual triumph – her rejection of the brides – was evident in the contrast between her previously jerky, seizing movement and her graceful, dismissive exit stage left, leaving the brides to twitch on the floor. The final two pieces continued this pendular swing from joy to misery, leaving me with aftershock mood swings on the drive home.