“A Rite” is a collaboration between the Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane Dance Companies and the SITI Company. It is an exploration of Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” and the historical and philosophical ideas it elucidates. First performed in Paris in 1913, the extravagant and revolutionary work, in combination with radical choreography of Vaslav Nijinksy, ignited the audience into a riot. One hundred years later, “A Rite” draws us to re-examine the implications of such an event. Drawing both on the original work as well as transcripts from a World War I veteran, a music scholar explaining the composition, and the words of author and critic Jonah Lehrer, the work explores everything from the impact of war to the power of music to the nature of the space-time continuum. It is a sublime representation of the postmodern sensibility: a deconstruction, celebration, and rediscovery of an incendiary work of modern art. It is both a visual masterpiece and a fascinating philosophical exploration of the power of art to transcend the boundaries of time and place.
With their rigorous physical training in the Suzuki method and their use of the Viewpoints technique, which was, in fact, developed for dancers, the SITI members are an ideal match for the grace and physical prowess of the Bill T. Jones dancers. Having so powerful a combination of performative bodies immediately ignites the stage with a profound electrical current. The group functions as one ensemble, at times coming together in a beautiful physical chorus of bodily expression, at others splitting into solos or duets to explore particular elements of the narrative and the ideas contained in the various verbatim texts. The stage is constantly flooded by these bodies, captured in pools of white light, silhouetted against the backdrop, undulating in choreographed waves. The combination of the physical and vocal storytelling ability of the SITI Company and the elegance of the dancers is simply sublime. The overall effect can only be described as precise physical poetry.
Bill T. Jones and Janet Wong’s choreography is magnificent. The dancers do not leap so much as instantly appear from thin air. Featuring elements of classical ballet, Jazz Age swing and contemporary dance, the work is a statement on the evolution of modern dance. Moreover, the repetition of physical motifs, both between the dancers and the SITI members and throughout the piece, unites the performance in one brilliant choreographic statement. James Schuette’s costume design stitches the performers into a muted palette that is both timeless and visually compelling. Finally, Robert Wiezel’s lighting design is supreme, allowing him to freeze time and suggest locations from the plains of war to the streets of Paris.
I found myself constantly drawn to the SITI members who I have trained with, but seeing them perform was like seeing people you know magnified to the size of gods. Whether it was the incredible physical presence of Leon Ingulsrud or the skill of Akiko Aizawa who combines the grace of a dancer with the strength of a warrior, these performers are imminently watchable.
Yet ultimately I was most awed by the magic of Anne Bogart’s direction, which once again cements her as one of the most significant artists of our times and, in my opinion, the most important theatre director working right now. Indeed, calling Ms. Bogart a director seems insufficient. Like Stravinsky, she is a composer of extraordinary genius, but instead of violas and cellos, her instruments are human bodies, light, color, and texture, which, combined with an extraordinary ability to manipulate and mold time and space, form the basis for brilliance. The simplicity of using only black stools as set pieces allow the stage to be constantly morphing through history and location. The mutation of sound from speakers, to a live piano, to a chorus of live voices, from offstage to onstage, draws our attention to the power of music as a temporal marker and a transformative tool. The construction of visual images is precise yet feels entirely organic; as if the bodies on stage could not help but align themselves in the structures they create. The piece is so remarkable because it is a physical representation of a number of abstract, philosophical ideas: Ms. Bogart allows us to actually see time, to experience it fully. She grants us the ability to see music, and indeed art itself, as moving beyond the constraints of physical time and space and instead existing as a thread that unites a multiplicity of historical moments and physical existences in one glorious creative moment. At last we understand the significance of theatre as a live shared event, at last we can move past the drawing room dramas that take up space on Broadway and share so much with film and television: here, finally, is the theatrical event, alive, present and unspeakably true.
