![]() Some of the décors include doorways and screens without being intrusive. We’re taken, poetically, through planes of existence. The way one follows another helps to make this “Four Quartets” a spiritual journey. The scenic designs by Clifton Taylor uses four paintings by the artist Brice Marden, employing both bright and soft colors, in some of the finest stage imagery of our time. Here is dance with its own evocative panoply of melodies, rhythms, harmonies, dynamics, constructions. Tanowitz herself, making a brief but telling appearance) illustrate Eliot’s haunting line “You are the music While the music lasts.” They are, that is, their own music - and their phraseology embodies many of music’s dimensions. ![]() Especially in solos, the 10 dancers (including Ms. Varied effects of vibrato, portamento and pizzicato bring different shades of intensity, atmosphere, eloquence: Even a single austere cello line down a few tones can become fraught with significance.īut the choreography is vividly independent from the music. In ensembles that combine pattern and asymmetry, in duets and solos of thrilling contrasts and insistence, the choreography becomes the poems’ outer framework (dance often proceeds at length between stanzas) and their spiritual accompaniment.Ī superb new score by the illustrious Kaija Saariaho is also played, sometimes between stanzas, sometimes underneath the words, by the four musicians of The Knights (violin, viola, cello, harp). It’s more the other way round: The stage world gives us the amazing impression that Eliot’s words arise out of Ms. The movement here does not illustrate the words in literal terms. Tanowitz’s production, which ran through Sunday, the dance itself gives us multiple aspects of philosophy. (“At the still point, there the dance is,/ But neither arrest nor movement.”) And these references to dance illustrate Eliot’s larger philosophical points about time, memory, culture, history, life and death, recurrently expressed in terms of paradox (“In my beginning is my end”). Eliot piercingly grasped the principle - obtained surely from Hindu religion - that, in dance, motion contains stillness and stillness motion. After one viewing, on Saturday night, I’m inclined to call this the most sublime new dance since Merce Cunningham’s “Biped” (1999).įew poems are as suffused in ideas of dance as these Eliot “Quartets,” written between 19. This had its world premiere on Friday at Bard College’s Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. Eliot’s poems “Four Quartets,” the choreographer Pam Tanowitz has created dance theater of the highest caliber. FIVE stars for the music.In her new staging of T.S. Casting and writing are the big culprits here. ![]() Going into scenes, it is clearly obvious what will happen, and what will be said. In Quartet, the characters never really say anything of importance, and repeat themselves so often, that you can safely fast-forward through whole sections of the show, simply because you know you won't miss any dialogue that matters in the least. You want to listen to every word, and never take your eyes off the screen. In that show, nothing much is happening, but the plot does move forward and the development of the characters is riveting. But compare this show to "Makanai: Cooking for a Maiki House" and you'll understand the difference. Unless it is for clearly comedic effect during a scene of such buffoonery that it feels totally out of place. ![]() But you'd expect the characters to have some life in their eyes, or some emotion in their voices. I understand this is not an action movie. The lead characters are, how do I say it. ![]() But, even as a fan of classical music, I can't endorse this show more than, watch it if there's nothing else on. Decent concept, with a "is-she" "is-she-not" sort of plot device hanging over most episodes. ![]()
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