Now in her 70s, Margaret Beals, dancer, choreographer, actress, improviser and founder of Impulses Dance Theatre Arts is an inspiration, a tribute to what it means to be a fearless artist and do what you are called to do, no matter what. I had the pleasure of attending the first evening of a three night celebration of her work, Margaret Beals Films and Stories, where the first screening of excerpts from Stings, a theater production based on Sylvia Plath's Ariel, was shown. Filmed in 1976 by Ping Chong at Ms. Beals' old loft on West Broadway and Canal Street, Stings premiered at the 92nd Street Y and was also seen at the Institute for Contemporary Arts in London in 1977. Stings’ cast consisted of three actresses, one in her 20s, Brooke Myers, one in her 30s, Ms. Beals and one in her 40s, the late Lee Nagrin, who also co-created and co-directed the piece with Ms. Beals.
What deepened the screening for audience members was Ms. Beals’ stories, including how she first heard Ms. Plath on the radio in 1962 reading her “Tulips” poem and was spellbound. She acquired the rights to Ariel in 1974 following a meeting in London with Ms. Plath’s husband, Ted Hughes, and his sister and literary agent, Olwyn Hughes. At the screening, Ms. Beals also shared deeply about her own creative process. With a fascination for “the power of the present moment” and in a time when art forms were much more separate (if you were a dancer, you just danced), Ms. Beals became obsessed with the melding of movement and text, in particular poetry. Besides Ms. Plath’s poetry, Ms. Beals’ work has explored the words of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Carl Sandburg and Virginia Woolf.
Joining the conversation was the lovely Ms. Myers, who as a young theater performer began studying yoga and improvisation with Ms. Beals in Boston and went on to perform with Impulse for several years. Ms. Myers, a beloved New York-based Iyengar yoga teacher for the past 30 years, spoke of “finding her way” and “coming to know each other as humans” through her studies and performing with Ms. Beals.
They both spoke about the density of Sylvia Plath’s words, how they had to be “diggers”, their interest in shapes and in going beyond choreography and “becoming the words”; in one poem, the accompaniment is that of recorded slightly labored breathing, and throughout the film, traffic and street sounds float through the open windows. All three performers in addition to eloquent physicality possess distinct and expressive voices. Although the film was in black and white, Ms. Beals described the costumes by Sally Ann Parsons as going in gradations from ashes to flames, a riveting idea given these poems were written only a few months before Ms. Plath committed suicide.
All the pieces in Stings are incredibly compelling, but two in particular have stayed with me on a visceral level over the past few days: “Daddy” features Ms. Myers, her lithe liquid limbs and beautiful face revealing a haunted and defiant soul; and “Lady Lazarus”, built around Ms. Plath’s words "Dying/Is an art, like everything else./I do it exceptionally well./I do it so it feels like hell", stuns the audience with its confidence and sorrow.
