Exploring History, Film Through Dance
By Susan Broili, The Herald-Sun, Durham, N.C.
Jul. 11–DURHAM — The American Dance Festival’s 75th Anniversary Season of shared programs continues with work by Bill T. Jones and Meredith Monk.
The 8 p.m. program continues today and Saturday in Duke University’s Page Auditorium.
The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company performs the world premiere of Jones’ “Another Evening: Serenade/The Propostion.” The new dance features the company, performances by actor Andrea Smith and music created by cellist Christopher Antonio William Lancaster, vocalist Lisa Komara and keyboardist Jerome Begin. Jones uses dance, text from period writings and video in his exploration of the essential and powerful issues Lincoln’s presidency raised about the moral, social and political future of the United States at the time.
When Jones accepted the 2005 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement, he spoke of both faith and freedom. He recited a poem by Frank O’Hara, “To the Poem,” that dealt with personal freedom. He also sang one of his mother’s favorite hymns. “My whole journey has been an attempt to reconcile the two,” Jones said.
His new dance is reportedly “drastically different” from the “Another Evening” Jones presented at the 2005 ADF. In that work, Jones included sequences from past dances as well as new material, including a glimpse of works in progress. In his text, spoken in the dance, Jones reminded, in subtle ways, that life is a blessing to be savored each day. In the post-performance discussion, Jones spoke of how this dance had taken on new resonance after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He also referred to the recent bombings in London. “It’s just another day at work and you never see a person again,” Jones said.
He spoke of how he once thought that people could overcome all odds and change the world but now he’s not so sure. “I’ve decided to make a microcosm of the world I want to live in. This is it,” Jones said of his dances and the dancers who perform his work.
Meredith Monk received the Scripps/ADF Award in 1996. The interdisciplinary artist returns to ADF this season for a rare solo performance of “Part II” from her 1972 “Education of the Girlchild: an opera.” This work has won many awards including first prize in musical theater at the 1975 Venice Biennale. In her solo, she follows a long, white fabric road and uses her innovative vocal technique to help create a world onstage.
She is a composer, singer, director and choreographer who creates new opera, music theater, films and installations. She will appear at ADF today for a discussion after the screening of her 1981 film, “Ellis Island,” in the White Lecture Hall on Duke University’s East Campus. The screening is part of the ADF’s conference “Screendance: The State of the Art 2, Curating the Practice/Curating as Practice” that continues through Sunday.
The conference is held in conjunction with the 13th annual Dancing for the Camera: International Festival of Film and Dance that takes place today through Sunday. Both the film festival, held at White Lecture Hall, and “Ellis Island” screening and Monk’s discussion are free and open to the public. (At press time, the time for the “Ellis Island” screening had not been announced. For more information, visit www.americandancefestival.org.)
Monk started out doing site-specific work including her “Needle Brain Lloyd and the System’s Kid: A Live Movie” in 1970 at the ADF, then at Connecticut College in New London, Conn. The work lasted seven hours, including a dinner break, and included 25 motorcycles and eight horses.
“I try to work with theater in a sculptural way,” Monk said in an interview before she and visual artist Ann Hamilton presented their new work, “mercy” at the 2001 ADF. The dance used 40 local volunteers who appeared as characters and singers.
“When you make a piece of art, you’re basically hanging out in the unknown in the process. It’s very much like being a detective. You go on hunches. I believe these pieces already exist. You just have to get out of the way,” Monk said at the time.
She also spoke of art’s capacity to heal. “It really brings us back to our sources,” she said. “We’re living in a culture that encourages diversion, lack of focus, instant gratification instead of community, compassion, continuity. I think art can be an antidote.”
And, she explained how she came to pioneer what has become her trademark “extended vocal technique.” She represents the fourth generation of singers in her family and sang folk songs in high school and to help pay her way through Sarah Lawrence College, graduating in 1964. A year later, she happened to be vocalizing by singing inarticulate sounds. “I had the revelation that the voice could be an instrument. My basic premise was that the voice can do anything,” Monk said.
It takes us back to when the first humans mimicked birds and other natural sounds, she added.
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WHAT: The American Dance Festival’s 75th Anniversary Season presents the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in the world premiere of Jones’ “Another Evening: Serenade/The Proposition” and Meredith Monk in her solo, “Part II” from her 1972 “Education of the Girlchild: an opera.”
WHEN: 8 p.m. today and Saturday.
WHERE: Duke University’s Page Auditorium.
TICKETS: Call 684-4444 or visit www.tickets.duke.edu
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