Blue Rider in Performance
Miller Theater, Columbia University
New York, NY
September 23, 2009
by Carol Pardo
copyright 2009 by Carol Pardo
In recent years the first installment of the seasons of Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum and of the Miller Theater at Columbia University has been a joint production with dance front and center, including an evening of works by up and coming choreographers including Brian Reeder, and an all-Wheeldon, all-Ligeti program spring immediately to mind. The four dancers from Armitage Gone! did not fare nearly as well. They were on stage for only six minutes of "The Blue Rider in Performance", a two hour long sound and light show, built around Vasily Kandinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, and the Blaue Reiter Almanac.
This is not to say that movement was absent. On the contrary, the boxy, functional, unprepossessing, rectangular stage space of the Miller Theater was transformed into a room pulling away from the tether of single point perspective. A triangular slice of ceiling flew forth like a space ship; the two walls strained outward like giant wings. The whole was bathed in a succession of colors, on to which elements derived from works by Kandinsky were projected, moving in their turn. Early on, a horizontal line and outline of a circle morphed into the outline of mountains under a large moon. The concept grew bolder from there. Even the entrances and exits of mezzo-soprano Susan Narucki were consciously choreographed.
It was only after the intermission that dancers appeared, initially in shadow, escorting the members of the Brentano String Quartet to their places at center stage. This too was deliberately choreographed with first one musician led in, then a second, followed by the final two. The dancers, Leonides D. Apron, Megumi Eda, William Isaac and Mei-Hua Wang, then took over the space that was left, the two front corners and the narrow band that connected them.
The dance, by Karole Armitage, presented two contrasting couples, one contented with its lot, the other less so. William Isaac's partner jumped on his back, her kneecap positioned to slice his spine in two. The presence of a woman on Leonides D. Apron's back revealed that there was no burden he would more willingly bear. The tenderness of the first couple also showed itself in soft, languid, floating arms and in the harmony of ballet-based placement. But this idyll is interrupted twice, each time by a catfight between the two women. In the end, the tall, imposing Mr. Isaac walked off with the women under his arms and under his protection, like a lion ruling over his pride. Mr. Apron, vanquished, followed behind. What are we to make of this example of survival of the fittest? What, if any are its sources in the first movement of Schoenberg's "Quartet for Strings no. 2" which accompanies the dance? It was hard to tell, leading to the conclusion that the dance was defined by the limited space available to it.
