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 Trisha
Brown Dance Company
'Winterreise'
by Holly
Messitt
July
31, 2003 -- John Jay College Theater, New York
As I watched Trisha Brown’s choreography
to Franz Schubert’s “Winterreise,” the song cycle Schubert wrote to Wilhelm
Müller’s poetry, I couldn’t help but wonder at how amazingly well these
two opposing temperaments worked together. The piece, which featured baritone
Simon Keenlyside accompanied by pianist Pedja Muzijevic, first premiered
at John Jay College Theater last December and was brought back last week
for Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart festival.
Schubert’s highly emotive music epitomizes the German Romantic sensibility.
Equally Romantic is the text, which uses the figure of a lonely, wandering
young man to represent an internal search for the self, the link between
the human and the divine. In opposition to this searching emotion and
driving individuality, Trisha Brown’s reputation lies with the more stoic
postmodern dance. So, it’s surprising to see the music and the movement
work together at all. Though “Winterreise” is not Brown’s first foray
into narrative and operatic choreography, this piece does demonstrate
how the emotiveness of the music and the abstraction of the movement compliment
each other.
With lines such as “Frozen drops fall/ from my cheeks,” and “every river
will reach the sea,/ every sorrow, too, will reach its grave,” an overly-literal
dramatization of the text risks sending the piece into melodrama. Instead,
Trisha Brown’s movement adds enormous depth and power to Shubert’s work.
At times she works to reflect the text, as when Mr. Keenlyside positions
himself in front of the three dancers, Brandi L. Norton, Seth Parker,
and Lionel Popkin, as they all raise and intertwine their arms to signify
the motion of the Linden tree. In other instances she works with the mood
of the music. At one point, the dancers cradle Mr. Keenlyside with their
shins. They lie on their backs head-to-toe and bring their legs into a
tuck to support Mr. Keenlyside as he reclines back and lets them bear
his weight.
In “Good Night,” the first song of the cycle, Brown relies on just a word,
“shadow,” as in “A shadow thrown by the moon/ is my companion,” to stimulate
the movement. Playing with Jennifer Tipton’s inspired lighting, Mr. Keenlyside
steps forward on the stage to create an overpowering shadow that looms
over a smaller shadow cast by Ms. Norton who circles him in the character
of the wanderer’s lost lover. Equally impressive shadow play appears at
the end of the cycle in “The Organ-Grinder.” Here Mr. Popkin crosses the
back of the stage. He moves slowly and slightly, but when he raises his
arm both his arm and his hand become distorted in the shadow, emphasizing
the organ grinder’s “numb fingers.” The old man’s suffering in turn compels
the young man to identify with his suffering and ask, “Strange old man,/
shall I go with you?/ Will you grind your hurdy-gurdy/ to my songs?”
The music alone has satisfied audiences for over 150 years, and some in
the audience seemed unprepared to accept the change in performance style
fully. Yet I found that the intuitive nature of the movement enhanced
the overall effect of the music. The action happens very slowly, at about
the same speed that the power of Mr. Keenlyside’s voice slips quietly
into our consciousness.
Edited by Jeff
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