Courting Chaos

Leah Stein goes for the glory with a reimagined Carmina Burana

	print	email	reply	rss feed

Published: Nov 15, 2006

Following a rehearsal of her company's contemporary take on Carmina Burana, Leah Stein gives her dancers feedback on a particularly fast-moving section. "Really listen to the rhythm and play with the suspension of it," she advises. "You can improvise, and it's OK if it's a little chaotic."

Organized chaos is a tricky gambit. The dancers want to be sure their actions here — a sequence of chasing, falling and rolling — have a haphazard appearance, but are not so random that the center falls apart.

The topsy-turvy scenario is more raucous than usual for Stein, who is best known for designing sensitive, free-flowing, improv-based dances that directly relate to the environment where they're performed.

This entire project, in fact, will likely surprise many of Stein's faithful fans, because it is far afield from her prior pieces.

The choreographer normally works with experimental music played by either a soloist or duo, but for this production, her company is accompanied by a large choir, two pianos and assorted percussion instruments.

And while Stein typically goes for one-of-a-kind, custom-made compositions, Carmina Burana is familiar on the orchestra and ballet circuits — not to mention movies (Glory, Natural Born Killers, Jackass: The Movie), TV commercials (U.S. Marine Corps., Capital One) and rock concerts (it's the sound of Ozzy Osbourne taking the stage). Even Stein admits her involvement with Carmina Burana is "so unlikely."

Opportunity, however, can make for unlikely bedfellows. When a choral director at Frostburg State University in Maryland asked her to be part of a grant proposing a Carmina Burana-based collaboration, Stein initially declined.

"I told him I think you've got the wrong artist," Stein recalls. The director persisted, telling her that he wanted to try something new. "He was interested in my ideas, and so we went forward."

At first, Stein was stumped as to how to create choreography to fit the dramatic musical score. "I didn't know what to do for the longest time. I would listen and try and find a connection, and the first place I found it was with the soloists. That opened the door."

She eventually saw her way through the score's 25 movements and was so pleased with the result that she's remounting Carmina Burana at Girard College this weekend, where her company is accompanied by the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia.

Composed by Carl Orff, Carmina Burana is based on a collection of Latin medieval poems. In ballet versions the text drives the movement. Stein opted for another angle.

"Leah uses a very different approach," observes Alan Harler, the Mendelssohn Club's musical director. "It's not narrative. And that is very interesting for me, because it moves it out of the realm of a texted thing and it becomes more absolute music. ... In a way it strengthens the music. Because sometimes the dancers are working at a substructure, a subrhythm, something that is underneath what we're doing, or on top of what we're doing, and so the music itself becomes more interesting."

While Stein did not entirely disavow the text — that chaotic scene is based on a portion of the libretto that takes place in a tavern where patrons grow increasingly intoxicated — her main thrust was to address the sonic components. "I talked to all the dancers about the physicality of sound. What that means to them, and letting the music be essentially sensual. So there's a lot of passion and energy to the movement. ... Some of the sections are slow and spacious and others are really dense with a lots of vigor and accents. There are a lot of different tones."

The presence of live musicians in such close proximity has a profound effect on the dancers. As Josie Smith, a longtime member of Stein's company notes, "When you're standing next to the timpani and it's going boom, boom, boom, you're going to react to that."

The power of the large choir also stirs a palpable reaction. "As soon as they start singing, the sound waves are going through you and your body starts tingling. It is physical, like these waves are moving you," says dancer Lee Shapley.

Likewise, the singers are affected by the dancers. "Leah's movement very much influences my conducting, which influences the choral performance," says Harler. "The tempos are all relative and they are not in my purview anymore. ... For us, it makes it more interesting. When you've presented Carmina a lot, it's great to have something new done to it."

(d_kasrel@citypaper.net)

Carmina Burana, Leah Stein Dance Company and Mendelssohn Club Choir, Fri.-Sat., Nov. 17-18, 8 p.m., $21-$25, Girard College Chapel, West Girard and Corinthian aves. (between 20th and 21st sts.), 215-893-1999, www.mcchorus.org.

All reader comments are subject to our Terms of Use. By clicking Post Comment, you acknowledge that you have reviewed and agree to these Terms.

Name	please enter your name
Email (will not be published)	please enter a valid email
URL	please enter a valid url
Comment	please enter a comment
Enter the security code on the right in the textbox below.
Security Code	please enter the code
	Join the City Paper Mailing List

This Week in A & E
Lampwork Wonders
Danco's Victory Dance
Ballroom Blitz
Too Funny
Webcams
Benefit for a Friend
The Tales of Hoffmann
Jules Feiffer
Les Grands Ballets