|
Lemniscate Arts & Eurythmy Spring Valley Present
Making Music Visible
Symphonic Eurythmy Tour 2005
www.eurythmy.org
Jim Papoulis, Conductor
With Students of Juilliard and Manhattan School of Music.
At City Center
www.citycenter.org
Press: Linda Golding
Gregory Singer
October 5, 2005
Program:
Jim Papoulis, History Doorstep for Orchestra
Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886), A Word is Dead
Dylan Thomas (1914 – 1953), and Death Shall Have No Dominion
Antonin Dvorak (1841 – 1904), Sections from Piano Trio in E minor Op. 90, “Dumky”
Antonin Dvorak, Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, “From the New World”
Although Eurythmy is a well-established art-form, originating from the nineteenth century, its performances are less common than those of the other arts. The idea behind Eurythmy is that it is a space and time art, a visualization of speech and music in gestures. It is an art that has been around since modern dance, but it emerged from a different source. The basis of Eurythmy lies in the nature and meaning of sound in music or the spoken word.
Music can be expressed through movement, a high tone being represented differently to a low tone, but it is not an exact reproduction of music; it is rather the essential experience of the music. It is what a musician experiences that is brought to physical expression in Eurythmy.
This concept was created during the nineteenth century by Rudolf Steiner, who was an Austrian born artist, philosopher and scientist.
Today there are thirty schools around the world providing professional training in Eurythmy. The Threefold Community School was established in Spring Valley, New York during the 1930s.
The Performance:
The opening work was a fine tonal work composed by Maestro Papoulis. Through this orchestral reflection, History’s Doorstep attempts to evaluate and to question the speed at which we have arrived at the twenty-first century and what it means to be human at this time. It captured the audiences’ imagination with the appropriate excitement and intrigue. Martial drums and a lively brass and woodwind arrangement held the audience in great expectation.
After the orchestral introduction, Kim Snyder-Vine narrated the poem by Emily Dickinson entitled, A Word Is Dead Unless It Has Meaning. It was a dramatic reading, enunciated beautifully as Dorothea Mier provided the visualization of the poem’s expressive sounds on stage. Seeing the physical movements helped the audience appreciate the sounds and fluctuations of the words themselves. It was a new and intriguing way to hear poetry.
For the next piece, Marke Levene and Michael Steinruecke joined Ms. Snyder and members of the cast who provided the choreography for the poem And Death Shall Have No Dominion. The poem was said and performed in unison, creating a sort of modality reminiscent of medieval times. The effect was almost trance-like.
Then followed extracts from Dvorak’s Dumky Trio, played by Oleg Arzoun on piano, Annaliesa Place on violin, and Caitlin Sullivan on cello. The trio performed with panache, worthy of any concert hall or center stage performance. The cellist Caitlin Sullivan was especially inspiring. For the stage visualization, the backdrop changed to bold colors of blues and reds, alternating with yellow pastel shades. The talented lighting designer was Peter Jackson. The veils the dancers wore also have symbolic meaning in their color and movement. They enhance the performer’s movement and gestures through space.
The final work of the program was Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, “From the New World”. The Adagio – Allegro Motto was played as an overture. The curtain was down for the entire movement, giving the opportunity for the orchestra to shine, under the direction of Jim Papoulis.
The second movement, Largo, was perhaps the highlight of the evening. It was performed brilliantly by members of the cast which grew to at least twenty members on stage. There were times when movements took place in complete silence; the consciousness of the audience was united with the dancers, pure movement taking control.
The Allegro con fuoco fourth movement was vividly portrayed by the entire cast. The vocabulary of their movements began to take hold of the audience in a collective subliminal message of spiritual unification. The experience was extraordinarily uplifting.
Dvorak’s Symphony, “From the New World” was an enlightened choice for this newly resurrected art form of Eurythmy. The evening was a sublime mix of sensations audibly and visually stimulating and spiritually healing. The well deserved standing ovation, from the filled to capacity house, was the audiences’ way of saying, ‘thank you and Bravo!’
|
