Reconstructed work is 80 years young
Becket, Mass. Cups of black tea served before the show, tea sandwiches passed around, a program that looks as if it was pounded out on a manual typewriter — it’s all part of Adam Weinert’s reconstruction of Ted Shawn’s 1938 masterpiece “Dance of the Ages.”
The historic details are charming, but the dance itself doesn’t feel like a period piece. At 80 years young, it’s still vibrant and surprising — it’s easy to see why it took audiences aback, on three counts: It was the first evening-length modern dance, Shawn’s first overtly political work and, of course, entirely devoid of female dancers.
None of that is groundbreaking today, yet Weinert’s seamless recreation buzzes with energy and
relevance. The restaging debuted Thursday afternoon at Jacob’s Pillow, with repeat performances this weekend.
Each show begins with a nod to Shawn’s famous lecture/demonstrations: an incisive, whimsical talk by Sydney Sky better, delivered while dancer JM Tate slowly balances and folds on a pedestal behind him. Then it’s on to the main event, performed in the Bakalar Studio, where the work was first shown.
Accompanied by
Jess Meeker’s original piano score — played live Thursday by John Sauer — “Dance of the Ages” is broken into sections mirroring the four elements: fire, water, earth and air. But Shawn layered on symbolism and meaning, associating each element not only with a movement quality, but also with an archetypal figure and a stage in the development of society. For example, the first section, fire, references tribal culture, with the shaman/priest as archetype. Clustered together, the nine dancers rise and flutter like flames, then gather around an initiate, who they ritually induct into the community.
In the second part — water — the circular movement and imagery of the fire section give way to lines and diagonals. Lyrical and flowing, this section represents the city-state — linked with classical art and the concept of ideal beauty. The men’s staggered bodies conjure up rivers and waves as they rise and drop, parting to allow the archetype of the poet/ philosopher to emerge from the depths in the form of a mermaid-like Jordan Isadore.
Earth is the most lighthearted section of the four, as the men, costumed in shades of rust, orange and brown, join forces to work, build and choose sides. The archetype is the politician (Brett Perry, as an efficient and officious leader) and culture has now progressed to the stage of democracy. There’s a terrific sequence of machine-like movement, all right angles and whirring gestures, and also a glimpse of the inevitable consequence of power struggles.
Shawn closed the work with an airy vision of the future. He called it “beyond democracy,” and described it in recorded remarks as a “more harmonious, loving, perfect society,” in which the creative artist becomes the new shaman. The dancers jump and leap, over and over, higher and higher, striving for flight.