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Dancing to Beethoven
| Article
# : |
20089 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1992 |
2,079 Words |
| Author
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Maya Wallach
Maya Wallach is a dance writer, critic, and photographer
currently based in Los Angeles |
It is an unspoken rule among dancers that you don't choreograph to Beethoven. How could anything equal the volume any joy of the music? Call it respect or call it fear, it is only too obvious that matching dance to his symphonies would be a fool's game.
Belgian choreographer Michele Anne De Mey likes games and--perhaps it is foolishness, perhaps it is wisdom--she likes simplicity. She titled her first dance for her brand new Brussels-based company Sinfonia Eroica and cranked up Beethoven's Third Symphony. The result is so exhilarating that Beethoven is assuredly not turning over in his grave. If anything, he's dancing too.
Born in Brussels thirty-one years ago, De Mey studied at Bejart's school of dance, Mudra. In 1981 she began dancing with the Serge Keuten Company in France and created her first choreography. From 1982 to 1988 she danced with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and choreographed two duets on the side. In 1989 she choreographed two more pieces and decided to found the Michele Anne De Mey Company.
Sinfonia Eroica begins very quietly. There is neither curtain nor wings, and the stage is strewn with shoes, sheets, and pulleys. A white rope stretches limply from a tall jungle gym in one corner to a simpler set of steel bars in the opposite corner. While the house lights are still up and the audience is busy finding their seats, a tall, solemn woman (Cabi Sund) walks onto the stage. She climbs the jungle gym and perches at the top, unmoving. The audience continues chatting.
Several minutes later two more dancers walk onto the stage--a thin, angular woman (De Mey) and a rugged wiry man (Andreu Bresca). They, too, are chatting quietly, and many people in the audience see no reason to stop their own conversations. The dancers don't care. Like two dancers arriving at a rehearsal a bit early, De Mey and Bresca matter-of-factly put the stage in order. They tighten and test the rope, still talking comfortably.
The other dancers wander in. Jordi Casanovas tries to catch a ball on the tiny cupped end of an attached stick, unsuccessfully. Francoise Rognerud turns on the stereo at the side of the stage and runs through a series of moves with Olga de Soto. Matteo Moles moves over bench to watch. De Soto spots Sund up on the jungle gym and tells her to come down. The dancers finish cleaning up the stage and sit down on the floor to wait.
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