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[DANCE REVIEW] Tero Saarinen at Jacob's Pillow
7.21.06
JACOB'S PILLOW DANCE
TERO SAARINEN COMPANY
and THE BOSTON CAMERATA
Ted Shawn Theatre
July 19-23, 2006
BORROWED LIGHT
U.S. Premiere
review by SETH ROGOVOY, critic-at-large, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
(BECKET, Mass., July 20, 2006) -- Their name is perhaps as suggestive as anything, and that's only one reason why the Shakers provided the inspiration for TERO SAARINEN COMPANY of Finland's meditation on Shaker music and dance being given its American premiere this weekend at Jacob's Pillow.
There was indeed some shaking onstage -- and a lot of stamping of feet, clapping, body-slapping, and twirling of extended arms, in a 70-minute program that seamlessly integrated eight dancers, including choreogapher Saarinen himself, with the seven-member early music vocal ensemble the Boston Camerata.
The piece began starkly, with most of the dancers seated in Shaker chairs along the back wall of the stage, and with one dancer with her back to the audience slowly, one-by-one, conjuring the dancers or bringing them to life, getting them all moving in unison.
Having breathed life into the dancers, and then the musicians, who sang a succession of Shaker folk songs, some wordless and some in English, some solo and some in unison, a series of vignettes then followed. At first, the dancers seemed to be introducing the audience (or themselves, teaching themselves perhaps?) the vocabulary for the unique language of this dance, which Saarinen has gone to great pains to make clear is not intended to be taken for an ethnographic reproduction of Shaker movement, but rather, movement inspired by the songs.
And indeed they were inspired, by the songs and by our understanding of the unique relationships of the Shaker community. Just as there was an emphasis on simplicity and functionality in Shaker work and life, so to did the dancers -- as well as the costume, set, and lighing designers -- challenge themselves by limiting themselves to a simple, functional dance language.
And just as we know that Shakers were very much about the suppression of the individual's wants and needs in favor of the community's (in this sense, they were a Utopian group), so too did the dances speak to the tensions inherent in such a social living arrangement, herein expressed as people and also as creative artists dealing with those tensions and limitations.
This isn't to say the dance was all round pegs in round holes, or square pegs in round holes. There were moments of suggested violence and ecstasy, with two men seemingly facing off over a woman, with dancers seemingly engaged in a rite of self-flagellation, and with the group achieving a communal transcendence while being stirred into a frenzy to the tune of "The Great Wheel" -- probably the highlight of the evening.
There were a lot of other things going on -- lighting was extremely significant, with much of the dance being performed in a dusk-like setting, and the all-black costumes were a gorgeous combination of old-style skirts with suggestions of slinkiness. Rarely if ever have musicians been so seamlessly integrated into a performance; the singers didn't just stand to the side, but moved along with the dancers, becoming part of the action.
It was a most theatrical dance, and if it lacked a little something in variety, or if it was somewhat monochromatic, it was only due to the monomaniacal vision of the choreographer, which in the end only left this viewer wanting to see how he would handle other dances. We will get the chance, hopefully, in future years at the Pillow.
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review by SETH ROGOVOY, critic-at-large, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
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