{"id":1888,"date":"2013-08-16T19:57:35","date_gmt":"2013-08-16T23:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/?p=1888"},"modified":"2013-08-16T19:57:35","modified_gmt":"2013-08-16T23:57:35","slug":"the-beat-goes-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/2013\/08\/the-beat-goes-on\/","title":{"rendered":"The Beat Goes On"},"content":{"rendered":"

O Vertigo Danse of Montreal and the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de Musique Contemporaine du Qu\u00e9bec perform Ginette Laurin\u2019s <\/i>La Vie Qui Bat and Steve Reich\u2019s <\/i>Drumming at Jacob\u2019s Pillow.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"Ginette<\/a>

Ginette Laurin’s La Vie Qui Bat<\/em>. Foreground: Caroline Laurin-Beaucage and Louis-Elyan Martin. At back, L to R: Wen-Shuan Hang, Audrey Bergeron, and Genevi\u00e8ve Boulet. Photo: Karli Cadel.<\/p><\/div>\n

There are two performances happening simultaneously on the stage of Jacob\u2019s Pillow\u2019s Ted Shawn Theatre, but I can only see one of them and a tantalizing smidgen of the other. The one I can see is Ginette Laurin\u2019s La Vie Qui Bat (The Beat of Life) <\/i>performed by nine virtuosic members of her Montreal-based company, O Vertigo. What I can\u2019t see is the dance of arms and bodies belonging to members of the Ensemble de la SMCQ, which consists of the six musicians of Sixtrum\u2014The HeART of Percussion, three additional percussionists, a flautist, and two female singers. They are playing Steve Reich\u2019s great 1971 Drumming<\/i>, and the patterned swing and fall of mallets swing makes the score visible. For those who can see them.<\/p>\n

Ideally, La Vie Qui Bat<\/i> would be presented on a stage deep enough to allow the musicians to be placed behind the dance. In the Ted Shawn Theatre, they play from just offstage right, which means that those spectators seated on the opposite side of the theater can see them pretty well, while others see them less well, and some hardly at all.<\/p>\n

\"(L<\/a>

(L to R) James Phillips lifts Audrey Bergeron, Louis-Elyan Martin lifts Wen-Shuan Yang. Genevi\u00e8ve Boulet at back. Photo: Karli Cadel<\/p><\/div>\n

We can, of course, hear them, which is the most important thing. There\u2019s something magical about this score, with its unstopping pulse and its emphasis on repetition. Say three musicians, gradually joining to playing the same short passage on tuned bongo drums, slip out of synch with one another; as the sound becomes denser, submerged motifs emerge. You can choose to follow any one of them; you can practically hum it.\u00a0 So imagine the intricate, thrumming web of sound that can then be shaped by three marimbas and two female voices (that hardly sound like voices), then by three glockenspiels plus a piccolo, finally by all the instruments. It\u2019s hard to believe that all of Drumming<\/em> is built on one basic rhythmic pattern. As Reich has written, \u201cThis pattern undergoes changes of phase position, pitch, and timbre, but all the performers play this pattern, or some part of it, throughout the entire piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

I saw the dance that Laura Dean set to this music in 1975 and the first half of Ann Teresa De Keersmaeker\u2019s 1998 choreography for it in 2008. The revival of Laurin\u2019s 1999 work is as different from the previous two as they are from each other. Dean\u2019s piece, for instance, involved strenuous and bouncy footwork, like that of a Slavic folk dance, and spinning. Laurin makes it clear that her nine dancers are members of a highly althletic tribe. They all wear trim, casual shades-of-gray (mostly) attire and may remove or add pants and shirts. All have their hair dyed a practically fluorescent red. They are dancing \u201cto\u201d the music, in a sense, but not dealing with its every rhythmic complication. Instead, Reich\u2019s patterns seem to function as a three-dimensional web that they fit themselves into where they can. Their basic rhythms seem as even as the music\u2019s underlying pulse, although almost never as fast. And it doesn\u2019t seem to me that their \u201ctone\u201d changes when, for example, the higher, jingling glockenspiels replace the deeper marimbas.<\/p>\n

\"(L<\/a>

(L to R): Genevi\u00e8ve Boulet, James Phillips, and Audrey Bergeron of O Vertigo. Photo: Em Watson<\/p><\/div>\n

Laurin handles the kinship between music and dance in various structural ways. For instance, even before the first drummer begins, Genevi\u00e8ve Boulet starts to travel along a path of light at the front of the stage. She covers ground at a fairly slow pace\u2014undulating her torso, putting a hand to her ear as if listening a sea shell, pointing a finger. As others enter and begin their own patterns, she continues her voyage, turning left onto a path leading upstage (pausing to open her mouth as if to exhale or hiss), and then turning left again to travel across the back of the stage, and then toward the audience.\u00a0 Others sometimes enter that border, treating it as a sort of waiting zone, even when the lighting is bright on the rest of the stage (lighting design by Axel Morgenthaler, lighting adaptation and direction by Fran\u00e7ois Marceau).<\/p>\n

When I saw Laurin\u2019s choreography in the 1980s, I found it very daring physically\u2014strenuous and a bit wild. The name, O Vertigo, suggested her love affair with disequilibrium, leaning forward, say, at the edge of a cliff. Her choreography is athletic still, but more controlled\u2014with every risk counterbalanced. As dancers enter and leave, they form temporary partnerships. Men hoist women, lay them athwart their thighs. Men tangle with men (notably in a duet by Louis-Elyan Martin and James Phillips). Women lift men. Sometimes two identical duets happen at the same time; once a third duet mimics the music by being briefly out of phase with the other two. One engrossing duet is performed by Wen-Shuan Yang and Phillips. It\u2019s almost as if he\u2019s assisting her to perform movements she could do without his help. She, in turn, listens to his ankle and handles him as if fixing him up for some about-to-happen occasion.<\/p>\n

\"Caroline<\/a>

Caroline Laurin-Beaucage pushes Louis-Elyan Martin. Genevi\u00e8ve Boulet at back. Photo: Karli Cadel<\/p><\/div>\n

Sometimes the events become more reckless. People run at other people and are lifted. Then they run to new partners. They form and un-form circles. Like the music, the texture of the dance thickens and thins. Occasionally dancers move in slow motion. But at times, gestures and poses predominate, such as pointing a finger, crossing one\u2019s arms over one\u2019s chest, stroking one\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

The performers move with fervor and heroic intensity. Those not already named are Audrey Bergeron, David Campbell, Marianne Gignac-Girard, Caroline Laurin-Beaucage, and Robert Meilleur. They deserve the applause and the cheers that they incite.<\/p>\n

\"(L<\/a>

(L to R): David Campbell, James Phillips, Marianne Gignac-Girard, Genevi\u00e9ve Boulet. Photo: Karli Cadel<\/p><\/div>\n

La Vie Qui Bat <\/i>is ingenious and intriguing, but it doesn\u2019t match Reich\u2019s score in at least one respect. You can imagine these people performing small rituals and demanding tasks needed for survival. The jubilation and the singing-ness of the music that influences their patterns aren\u2019t part of their lives.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

O Vertigo Danse of Montreal and the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de Musique Contemporaine du Qu\u00e9bec perform Ginette Laurin\u2019s La Vie Qui Bat and Steve Reich\u2019s Drumming at Jacob\u2019s Pillow. There are two performances happening simultaneously on the stage of Jacob\u2019s Pillow\u2019s Ted Shawn Theatre, but I can only see one of them and a tantalizing smidgen of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[904,906,905],"class_list":{"0":"post-1888","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-new-dance-from-abroad","7":"tag-ginette-laurin","8":"tag-la-vie-qui-bat-steve-reich","9":"tag-o-vertigo","10":"entry","11":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}