Last night the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) presented a livestream programmed by Sean Carson presenting performances by Robert Dekkers’ Post:ballet. The program was originally planned to present two new works (only one of which was described on the BAMPFA event page); but a work-in-progress excerpt was added between those two selections. All three of these pieces were realized as films. Carson also moderated a discussion with Dekkers, who choreographed the first selection, and Vanessa Thiessen, the creator of the other two, addressing viewer questions submitted as YouTube comments.
That opening selection was “Eight Whiskus,” taking its name from the solo violin composition by John Cage to which the choreography was set. This was a solo dance by Emily Hansel, which she choreographed jointly with Dekkers. The music was performed by Helen Kim, Associate Principal Second Violin with the San Francisco Symphony. Hansel was filmed performing in the AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park, and the footage was edited by Reneff-Olson Productions. Since Kim was not seen in the film playing while Hansel was dancing, Reneff-Olson presumably also aligned a recording of Kim to fit the “final cut.”
It would probably be fair to say that Hansel was not dancing “to” Kim’s performance, just as Merce Cunningham usually did not dance “to” Cage’s music. Indeed, since Cunningham and his dancers were rarely aware of what their musicians were doing, it may well be that Hansel was filmed in silence. Clearly, the choreography had much more do to with the diverse variety of geometric shapes formed by the trees and their branches in Golden Gate Park than it did with the music. Hansel’s dancing involved highly imaginative techniques through which her body reflected those geometric structures, making the video a vivid viewing experience. The raw sonorities of the violin, rich in upper harmonics through bowing very close to the bridge, provided just the right “auditory context” for Hansel’s geometric explorations.
Emily Hansel, Andy Meyerson, Babatunji Johnson, and Moscelyne ParkeHarrison performing Vanessa Thiessen’s “Surface Down” (screen shot from the YouTube video being discussed)
This was followed by “Surface Down,” part of an extended dance interpretation of the Orpheus myth entitled Lyra. The performance was filmed on a railroad track leading into a tunnel, presumably the path leading to the Underworld. Music was provided by percussionist Andy Meyerson, positioned right at the mouth of that tunnel; and the choreography appeared to be a reflection on Eurydice being taken from Orpheus, escorted to the Underworld by Atropos. Meyerson thus seemed to serve as a “gatekeeper,” an impression reinforced by electronic sounds accompanying his work on vibraphone and drums. The music he performed was composed by Samuel Adams.
The program then concluded with Thiessen’s “La Folia,” a duet danced by Kody Jauron and Colleen Loverde. The dance was named after Danny Clay’s composition, which he composed for the MUSA Baroque Ensemble. Clay, in turn, took the title from one of the oldest harmonic progressions in the history of Western music, providing his own embellished thematic material for that progression.
The choreography was filmed along the Columbus River in Oregon. Much of it involved engagement with both the river and the land along its banks as a basis for Thiessen’s choreography, somewhat in the same spirit in which the geometry of the trees provided the basis for the choreography of “Eight Whiskus.” The film was created by Stephen Kimbrell and emerged as the richest visual feast of the program. What was important, however, was that all of that rich visual background never distracted from the prodigious inventions of Thiessen’s choreography.
As of this writing, the entire program has now been uploaded to YouTube.
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