With the lights turned off, a cold darkness fell upon the opera house. Save for one dusky light shining on the front of the stage, the entire stage was covered in darkness. A man runs onto stage, shouting guttural, strange words to the audience and then running back in to the depths of the darkness. On the whole, I was pleasantly surprised by Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker’s Cesana. I might be in the minority party when saying this, but I absolutely loved the first half of the dance (before the lights were brightened). The taunt manner in which the dancers held onto each other as they walked out of and into the darkness was riveting. With the light being so dull, after some time the eyes projected a hazy, other-worldly glow on the people. Though I understand the complaints others have, I found the effect of the lighting with the white glow of the white chalk circle to be amazing. However, one thing that confused me was whether the gradual brightening of the light was intended or because of the opinion of the woman who shouted about not being able to see the dance. One possible interpretation of this lighting change is that the actions and working of this group of people was becoming increasingly more transparent, and the discord and chaos we see towards the end of the dance is a result of that. The gradual lighting of the stage could show the progression of a “day” (in this case a certain time period), with the interactions between people coming to an explosive climax at the end. One effect of there being little light at the beginning of the dance was that I really had to trust my ears and listen to the sounds the dancers were making so that I could form a visual picture in my head as to what was going on in the entire stage. During some parts I closed my eyes and using the sounds simply imagined the dance in my mind – the entire procedure allowed me to feel the intense emotions that were rampant across the stage.
Other than lighting, another very important part of the dance was music. The entire soundtrack to the piece was a cappella, hummed by performers on stage who worked and moved with the dancers. In that sense I was very pleased; the singers were as much a part of the performance as the dancers; I could see no line between both. The only time I could tell who was singing was when I noticed one person, always different, would be conducting the dancers. The music, accompanied with the lighting, created a very dynamic rather spooky atmosphere.
Many of the movements in Cesana were constantly repeated. Dancers constantly ran in circles, perhaps representing the never-ending repetition found in life. Many of the movements took place around the chalk circle; towards the end of the dance there were pairs dancing in unison with one another. Some slide their feet along the chalk, slowly making their way around the circle and at the same time smudging the very foundation of the circle. The degradation of the chalk circle expressed the slow decline of a society through the general, peaceful movements. In addition to the movements around the chalk, the individual movements on the rest of the stage were radically different. Dancers would run onto the stage, pushing and touching others, causing what at some points seemed to be a brawl. There were many solos throughout the piece, each showing the turmoil the character the dancer portrayed was going through. There was much discord between the individual and the group; actions and appearances that had to be kept up in front of others melted away when alone.
As I whole, I thoroughly enjoyed Keersmaeker’s Cesana. While watching the entire piece, a story played in my head. Each movement meant some, every piece of the performance added to my experience. After the performance, I read through the booklet given to us and read a bit about Keersmaeker and her intention behind the piece. I was surprised when I was able to see much of that in her piece. In addition, I thought the lighting choices were brilliant in this piece, and the music was a very good accompaniment to the dance. Though there are many things I still do not understand from the piece, on the whole I can say that I enjoyed it at some deeper level, which made this entire evening worthwhile.
Malavika (B)
Like Malavika, I absolutely loved the first half of the dance, before the lights were brightened. While it was mildly annoying at first not being able to see the performers, I realized that was a large reason for the darkness. Being in the darkness also accentuated the presence of the chalk-circle. The barely visible chalk-circle immediately brought thoughts of continuity and safety into my mind, the primary ideas I tried to relate everything to; it made sense to build everything around the first thing De Keersmaeker purposefully showed us, especially when it was not only the first, but the only thing clearly visible for a large portion of the performance.
Both the circle and the darkness were intentionally associated with this particular part of the dance, which was supposed to represent medieval times. Clearly darkness is representative of the medieval times, literally the dark ages. But it is what this darkness brings to the performance and its message that is more important. By highlighting the circle, making the symbol of continuity and safety brighter, while casting the people into, literally, the shadows, De Keersmaeker shows the relationship between Humans and their environments. The darkened humans are shapeless and barely visible apparitions, they have purpose and movement but it is barely visible especially in light of the bright circle, much like the people of the dark ages and the light they felt from their various systems concerned with keeping things “continuous and safe”. The idea of safety morphed into the ideas of imprisonment and suppression. The performers’ energies were notably less during the first half of the performance, implying a few possibilities. One possibility was the implication that the structure of the dark ages caused the low energies of the performers; by forcing them to dance around the circle it was limiting their “free energy” and that is the most powerful energy a human being possesses. They were instead being imprisoned by the circles quest for infinite completion.
Slowly overtime however, the circle was broken, sometimes by acts that didn’t seem to have the purpose of breaking the circle, but simply did so in their natural progression, while other movements seemed to deliberately destroy the circle and its perfect continuity. Eventually the circle disappears completely and the performers are now moving in arrangements that don’t revolve around revolving around the center of the stage. I’m not sure if De Keersmaeker was trying to say that in breaking free from our circular quest for circular feelings of safety and continuity, specifically as given by the environment or society, we unleash a far greater power, as evident by the dancers more vibrant energies the second half of the show. However, this power is not necessarily better because it does cause more turmoil between the performers, and this turmoil is the byproduct of the impassioned and energetic new spirits now roaming the stage. Perhaps a representation of the new capitalistic world and its survival of the fittest is what De Keermaeker was trying to talk about, interestingly her dancers never stayed dead, or in periods of on-the-ground motionlessness, for very long, and the only time they did was when all of the performers were on the ground.
The constant shifting of groups of actors and shifts between singers and dancers did not create an image of continuity on the part of the performer but rather the group; there was no identity given to a single individual (with a few exceptions) allowing the group of people in the light to feel like a different group than the one that first started out on the stage, or even different from the group 5 minutes ago, allowing the feeling of being in a different time period to exist.
De Keermaeker puts the piece in the context of the circle of all human life implicitly and the circle of a day explicitly. By relating these two ideas she creates the idea of the circle of time, and adds a new context to the piece. In trying to figure out what I can only come to think two things. The first is that the humans energies caused the daytime to occur but that seems incorrect, though a possible abstract interpretation. Instead I thought that time would always have a period of darkness and light, and that we are the product of our time, but I came to a greater realization. I came to realize that it is both of these ideas. Time will always follow its own ebb and flow but that flow is decided by the time movers – the people as represented by the performers, and it is only when the peoples energies increase that the light increases, and only when the light increases that their energy increase; a very apropos circular argument.
This was my first time at BAM and I very thoroughly enjoyed the performance. I didn’t have a story playing in my head and I think that was because of the lack of continuity on the part of the individual performer, which made me focus more on the general relations between the things that I felt De Keersmaeker thought were important enough to choreograph. Exactly like Malavika, “Though there are many things I still do not understand from the piece, on the whole I can say that I enjoyed it at some deeper level, which made this entire evening worthwhile.”