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August 2006
Thoughts from Brazil
Just minutes away from leaving our hotel above the majesty of the Copacabana oceanfront with its angry tide and atmosphere of water, light and sky that would have challenged even Turner, the great painter of seascape. Turgid seems inadequate in defining the waves and this phase of our tour in Brazil.
Our presenter, Maria Rita, and her staff worked tirelessly to deliver press coverage and audiences. We have two more venues ahead of us, but Friday afternoon's matinee performance for 1,500 inner city kids (aged 8 to 18) has left such a strong impression that all else seems pale in comparison. There was a sort of shriek of approval, delight and, yes, maybe fear, that greeted Another Evening: I Bow Down. Our band, Regain the Heart Condemned and particularly Oscar’s demonic wail were received with a near visceral impact as the audience sometimes screamed back at the stage. The question and answer, while full of approval, easily became an opportunity for some of the more extroverted audience members to join us on stage, performing capoeira moves.
What is there about the "new world" that has created a Rio de Janeiro audience like this? Every skin tone, shape of eye, nose, mouth, all speaking Portuguese, all seemingly able to invest the Africanism of the capoeira and equally samba with a mysterious blend of toughness, sweetness and, yes, what Toni Morrison described once to me as "a profound sexuality." I sound as if I am answering the most asked question of the 20 or so interviews I have done in preparing for this engagement: "What do you think of Brazil and what is it like to perform here?"
The other questions have been about the impulse behind Another Evening: I Bow Down. Somewhere in our press materials, I must have remarked how the version of I Bow Down done at NYU’s Skirball Center naturally - though belatedly - evoked Hurricane Katrina. I have said the piece is the result of yet another spiritual dilemma, "When horrible, surprising things happen of which nature is a prime cause and that human failing, incompetence and weakness exacerbate, who or what does the fragile psyche turn to - and if there is nowhere or no one to turn to then what is right action?"
The Brazilian press wants this piece to be yet again an indictment of Bush's response to Katrina and, while Andrea Smith does shout out above the musical din at one point in the work "If disaster is the lifeblood of change, why haven’t the changes been made?", I contend my motive here is less simple than to indict any government. The piece begins with the story of Noah and the Flood and the story of the angry god's destruction of mankind and the world. Later in the piece, Anton Batagov's composition Prostration to the 35 Buddhas as rearranged by Daniel Bernard Roumain calls for a precise and dignified recitation of this venerable Buddhist prayer. This sutra is intended as an antidote for those of us conditioned by the Judeo-Christian angry, vengeful god. But such an antidote still gives way to the assault and cacophony of sound produced by the grind-core band. In all of this, the grind-core band's erosion of comprehensibility, clarity of thought and design is like the ocean below me now, making a mockery of any architecture or civic gesture that aims to compete with nature and, by extension, the surprising, the horrendous and the cataclysmic.
And still, I insist the piece is encouraging. There is something I take comfort in that last difficult, perilously sentimental account of my last visit with my mother, Estella at her hospital bed. Here this strong woman, brought low by old age and disease, near comatose, is revived by the irreverent pressure of one of her great grand babies lolling about on her breasts that have nursed 12 children and chest. Estella was a woman full of the vengeful Old Testament god. When she came to herself and was able to sit up she wanted sing. Though I can't be sure of it, I think the singing was for us, for me. It was like the Buddhist chant that continues thru the onslaught of Regain the Heart Condemned.
And then I count as far as I can before the logic of the piece demands the lights to go down. I count years into the future, way past my lifetime and even the lifetime of Estella's great-grandbabies, perhaps. That's my truest response to the relentless surge and retreat of time and circumstance. And yet, when I look out at the surf, I sometimes see a single person, a jogger, a man or woman with some kitsch merchandise for sale, running at the water's edge and I smile. This is the human response to the immensity and impersonal stone crunching persistence of nature.
Is this right action? Is this what our dance means?
-- Bill T. Jones (Tuesday, August 29, 2006)
How are things in New York?
"So, how are things in NY now?"
The person asking was one of Impuls Tanz Festival Wien's directors, Andrée Valentin, a French woman who lives most of the time in Vienna. Whenever I am in Europe lately, I am on guard for the too easy invitation to trash American life. However, queries from cultural workers about NY always deserve a more generous and thoughtful response. Why? Because the world of culture is always a world inside of a world, often cosmopolitan, defying nationalistic boundaries and united in a common struggle against... How shall I name it? The great leveler: globalization as corporatization, the impersonal, grim mathematics of marketplace.
Doctrinaire? True? Well, as Oscar Wilde might say, it’s true enough!
"How are things in NY now?"
This conversation was taking place in a chic late night restaurant after the first of two shows of our newly re-organized and restaged (kudos to Janet Wong for her firm hand in directing this!) As I Was Saying… at Vienna's Volkstheater.
The full weight of two weeks of preparations for Blind Date and its Lincoln Center Festival performances themselves, rehearsals and promotion of Another Evening: I Bow Down and the 3 city tour of the same in France during a record breaking heat-wave, a torturous 48 hours of confrontation with As I was Saying… in Vienna (more kudos to Bob Bursey and our heroic tech team!) and then its European premiere, resulted in a response to Andrée Valentin’s question that reflected just how personal and public perceptions are inextricably linked.
"How are things in NY now?"
1. One can still dream there - I have a dedicated administration and board that are making dreams, like the company’s Home in Harlem, a reality.
2. Though it's never easy, new works can get made here.
- Chapel/Chapter, a heartfelt collaboration between my company and the brave and daring Harlem Stage (formally known as Aaron Davis Hall), will have its premiere in their much needed and much anticipated new Gatehouse facility on December 5.
- Spring Awakening, the off-Broadway musical that I am proud to have choreographed is making the move to Broadway. When I told Andrée Valentin how in this adaptation of Frank Wedekind's notorious 19th Century exploration of repression of youth in a small Bavarian town, its teenage cast reach into their period costumes to produce microphones and wail their rebellion, angst and desire through Duncan Sheik's music, she lit up in agreement saying, "Yes, yes, that sort of thing can happen in NY!"
3. There is still a Dance Community in NY as manifested in the third year of the phenomenally successful Fall for Dance at City Center, which we will be making our second appearance at with excerpts of Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin/The Promised Land with company, alumni and friends and Julius Hemphill's Long Tongue Saxophone Sextet under the direction of Marty Erlich (September 28 & 29).
4. One can still have a truly diverse organization if one is willing to do the difficult work of identifying differences and making clear over and over again what the common ground is: to participate in our time thru its ideas.
5. The present administration of NY really "gets it" concerning the essential relationship of the creative/cultural sector and the city's overall health. In our case, the DCA and EDC have been diligent, challenging and effective in bringing our Harlem Home closer to reality.
Seen from the vantage of the sagebrush mesa and the unpredictable skies of Northern New Mexico where I arrived two days ago after yet another hellish bout with contemporary air travel, New York is doing fine. I am taking this time to look back, but not too far and to look forward to the fall with its premieres, restaging, tours, institution building and planning, planning, planning...
-- Bill T. Jones (Monday, August 7, 2006)
