“The Great Mass”
Rioult
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY
April 14, 2009
by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2009 by Leigh Witchel
Pascale Rioult certainly knows his Mass. Rioult, a long time member of Martha Graham’s company who formed his own group in 1994, opened his company’s season at the Joyce with a dance set to Mozart’s “Great” Mass in C Minor. He dedicated it to his mother, a piano teacher and choir director who died the previous year, but one didn’t sense the shadow of death in the work.
Rioult opted for the straight and narrow road of musical interpretation; the dance wasn’t literal but he and Mozart were close to the same page. The Kyrie opened with time-honored images of exaltation – glowing light and billowing fabric. His dancers, all solid performers, formed a pile in the Gloria that recalled Paul Taylor’s horrific tangle of bodies in “Last Look,” but this pile was trying to reach its way out of purgatory. The group marched with purpose to the Credo and couples kissed to the Incarnatus Est. If the note of sensuality was meant to be daring, it seemed more wholesome. More frisky couples romped to the Sanctus; the Benedictus placed two couples in front and the group in shadows behind before a satisfying conclusion. Given Easter and the season of resurrection it seemed fitting the cast was offered lilies at the curtain call.
The designs (Karen Young – costumes, David Finley – lighting, Harry Feiner – sets) were simple and effective, and managed to do a good deal simply. Feiner’s set was a series of horizontal gauzy bands across the back of the stage; the bottom one was set out slightly so the dancers could go behind it to pose in shadows or float as if in clouds.
Liturgical music and choreography are never the easiest of bedfellows, and Mozart is a daunting partner. Rioult tried to match the power of the music with a lot of unison movement, but it also made the choreography plod along familiarly. Much of the imagery, such as the dancers walking forward to collapse and rise one by one, made exaltation look commonplace as if transcendence were simply a matter of patient exercise.
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Perversely, the recorded music heard through the Joyce’s poor sound system assisted Rioult. Had it been performed live, “The Great Mass” wouldn’t have stood up to the Mozart. What would on this scale? What could one do in congruence to this music that wouldn’t be swamped by it?
copyright © 2009 by Leigh Witchel
Photo by Ellen Crane - “The Great Mass”
