June 12–19, 1997

critical mass|reviews

Have It Your Way!

Beppie Blankert.

To some, Charles Ives is a brilliant maverick composer who revolutionized the sound of music in the 20th century. Others perceive his work, which integrates polyphony, polyrhythms, tone clusters, atonality and dissonance, as little more than a convoluted mess. The latter opinion prevailed for the bulk of Ives' life (1874-1954); he rarely heard his music performed live and instead made a living as an insurance salesman. Toward the end of his days Ives received public recognition, including election into the National Institute of Letters and the receipt of a Pulitzer Prize.

Even so, Ives' output hasn't necessarily been embraced by the public at large. That fact was made obvious at Volume 2, featuring Dutch choreographer Beppie Blankert's company Dansers Studio plus Philadelphia's Relache Ensemble performing chamber music by Ives. Midway through the May 30 performance several patrons quietly fled their seats. Of course, all of them could have been turned off by what they saw on stage (Relache was in the pit, save for the last selection). My hunch is the music pushed these folks out the door.

Ives is Blankert's favorite composer. This is her second full-length work done to his music. Having not seen the prior piece I can't compare it to Volume 2. In any case, Volume 2 is interesting and thoughtful on some levels but falls short in important ways.

It opened with John Taylor, as Ives. He leaned over, peered into the pit and proclaimed, "Play the music exactly as I've written it. All the wrong notes are right." This drew a chuckle from the audience and set a tone of openness for what was to come.

Then followed a series of dances drawing on short chamber works by Ives. The stage set featured a large dual-screen backdrop. One showed a cartoon outline of a boy's face blowing a gust of air. Another screen was blank, though later, in a dramatic moment, it was reversed to reveal the word "boom."

Stools with red cushions on top and black ones on bottom dotted the stage, perhaps representing musical notes. Throughout Volume 2, dancers manipulated their bodies using the stools as props, bending over, pushing against and sitting on them in a variety of ways. As the program progressed the configuration of the stools continually changed. These were good visual ploys to suggest Ives' compositional approach.

But Blankert fell short in conveying the heart of Ives. Her dance corps, while lithe, flexible and high on technique, performed in a predominantly intellectualized mode. There were humanist and whimsical moments. But even here performers' faces were largely inexpressive.

The choreography spins off the sound of the music: dancers converge, break up, create layers, often in fragmented fashion. In this respect Blankert successfully translates Ives' compositions into dance. But the movement doesn't express the spirit of Ives' music.

Ives' works were anthems to his country. They incorporated folk music, hymns, war songs and popular tunes, all of them distinctly American. Yes, there are elements of European composition in his work. But the American ethos always prevailed. This is ignored by Blankert. Further, she opts to suggest, through gestures and in sporadic text spoken by Taylor, that Ives came to be filled with self-doubt about his music. The man made a prosperous living peddling insurance, yet continued to compose for most of his life; this would seem to indicate a lasting faith in his own musical acumen, regardless of others' opinions. I don't buy Blankert's intimations of self-doubt.

And while I don't insist that she make a strident point of working the American aspect of Ives into her dance, ignoring it entirely overlooks too much of what he was about. How's about deconstructing an American folk dance?

Relache did a better job of breathing life into Ives' music. Difficult as it is to play, they mastered its compositional complexity and still managed to transmit its creator's attitude.

— Deni Kasrel