Remixing musical traditions to remake dance
Classical musicians rarely perform Johann Sebastian Bach and John Cage at the same concert. Bach was a formalist, tethered tightly to old-world structures. He combined notes into beautiful passages but nearly always within the strict, compositional templates of his day. Cage needed none of that. He was a modernist who developed his own shapes, and he was just as happy employing complete silence in his work as he was any preprogrammed musical format.
But dancers see the world differently, through movement and patterns, and steps that can be counted and connected, and for 3rd Law Dance/Theater, creating around the composers simultaneously was a way of drawing lines between both styles and eras.
“When we were first looking at this, we started to look the differences,” said Katie Elliott, the company’s co-artistic director.
“But then we found a lot of similarities and that turned out to be our motive.”
Bach, who wrote in the language of circular fugues and was obsessed by patterns, though he allowed personal expression in the actual execution of great works. Cage left a lot of his music to chance, and encouraged improvisation, but he also found inspiration
in numerical sequences and repetitive chants.
“Both of them used strict structures, but both allowed for the unexpected to happen,” said Elliott.
That was enough of a window for 3rd Law, collaborating with the Boulder Bach Festival, to explore the possibilities. Their piece, “Bach Uncaged,” is a liberal remix that alternates Bach’s 18thcentury hits with Cage’s 20thcentury, avant-garde curiosities.
The Bach parts are provided by frequent festival violinist Zachary Carrettin, who plays sections from the Prelude from Suite No. 2 in D minor, along with slices of the Partita No. 2, the Suite No. 3 and other works.
The Cage is handled by pianist Mina Gajic, who performs excerpts of several pieces written for “prepared piano.” Cage was known to give specific instructions for altering the way the instrument sounds, ordering that screws, bolts, and various pieces of rubber and plastic be attached to its inner workings.
They alternate playing 11 times as the 10 dancers perform their moves and change into multiple costumes of various hues, starting in black and ending in white and with various colors in between drawn from shades found in Baroque paintings.
The choreographer, working with co-artistic director Jim LaVi- ta, took inspiration directly from the music. For example, she mirrors the interplay of solo and ensemble musical parts with solos, duets and group movements for the dancers. They enter the stage from the audience giving the piece an interactive feel.
Because the piece aims to integrate different ideas, she also put Carrettin in motion. He doesn’t exactly dance, but he follows a choreographed path that has him flowing among the dancers. Gajic at the grand piano is the only static part of the show.
The action comes together in the final moments when the musicians and dancers perform together “in conversation.” The choreographers have left room for the performers to improvise, so the piece takes on an individual character each time it is performed.
“We were trying to create a yin-yang with this,” said Elliott. “To explore how opposite forces are actually complementary.”