![\"Wendy](\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/WW-as-puppet-Hagoromo_l-r-Leah-Hofmann-Rowan-Magee-Wendy-Whelan_PC_Julieta-Cervantes.jpg\")
<\/a>Wendy Whelan and puppeteers Leah Hofmann and Rowan Magee in Hagoromo<\/em>. Photo: Julieta Cervantes<\/p><\/div>\n It is<\/em> a marvelous robe! Well, not a robe exactly; it looks more like a shawl\u2014light as feather, shimmering with gold, unearthly. It gives its name to a Japanese legend and to Hagoromo<\/em>, the 16th<\/sup>-century Noh drama it inspired; the robe belongs to a celestial dancer who can depict through her movements the changes in the moon. Why did she take it off? Did she wish to bathe in the bay at Miwo? This is just one of the enigmas in the play and in the transmutation of the story into a dance- opera presented by the Brooklyn Academy of Music and America Opera Projects.<\/p>\n David Michalek, who conceived and directed Hagoromo<\/em>; David Neumann, who choreographed it; Nathan Davis, who wrote the music; and Wendy Whelan and Jock Soto (long-time partners in New York City Ballet), who play the two characters in the story\u2014these and numerous others have together created moments of considerable beauty and imagination. The five musicians of the International Contemporary Ensemble sit on a high platform at the back (set design by Sara Brown); from there, sing Peter Tantsits (tenor) and Katalin K\u00e1rolyi (contralto), and there the women members of the superb Brookyn Youth Chorus are ranged in two rows. Clifton Taylor\u2019s lighting turns the BAM Harvey\u2019s brick wall behind the musicians a glowing red. Set into the wooden wall that seems to support all this are two semicircular doors that open to reveal a giant moon.<\/p>\n The story is a simple one. A fisherman, swept by a storm onto a nearby island, finds the \u201cfeather robe\u201d hanging on a tree and thinks he might display it in his house and charge money to see it. The celestial dancer (called an angel in this production) asks him to give it back to her; he refuses, but relents as he sees her begin to weaken and die when bereft of the power it gives her. A deal is struck; he will give back the robe if she will dance and teach him a part of her dance (which will do wonders for his health).<\/p>\n To enrich the tale Michalek has added puppets. Animals playing near the robe accidentally untether it and it flies away. A big furry cat whose tail seems to grow out of its neck is manipulated by two of the production\u2019s six puppeteers (one of them kneeling on a wheeled platform that the other pushes around). The other animal is a rambunctious, much smaller white dog. That it looks as if it had been folded into existence by a master of origami only adds to its yappy charm (rather than turn it around, its handler simply removes its head and replaces it at the other end).<\/p>\n Hagoromo<\/em>: Wendy Whelan in her celestial dance flanked by her puppet images. Two life-sized puppets also figure importantly. They have pale faces and bald heads, and their legs above the knee are simply metal framework. Chris M. Green is credited with puppetry. Three puppeteers work each doll (the puppeteers: Len Carillo, Pepper Fajans, Catherine Gowl, Leah Hofmann, Rowan Magee, and Erin Orr). These creatures can imitate Whelan\u2019s gestures and steps. I kept wondering who these twin guys were, but my perceptiveness must have been taking a break, because I later realized that they were extensions of Whelan, and their faces were modeled on hers. I\u2019m not convinced she needed these doppelgangers to enhance her aura, which is considerable.<\/p>\n The puppeteers are, however, wonderfully effective. They support Whelan in flight (puppet of the gods?) and manipulate her as if she too needed guidance. They band together into a living storm to pull and push Soto in all directions. In one lovely moment, they cluster around him, fluttering fans to suggest the flock of twittering birds that the musical score provided. Nor do those in the chorus only sing. They too wield fans at key moments, or clap their hands. In the inspired ending, when the fisherman is left alone onstage and in silence, they rapidly flick their fans, and the sound is that of wings, as the celestial dancer returns to her home in he heavens.<\/p>\n<\/a>
Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes<\/p><\/div>\n