BUTS 2017 Contemporary Weekend 1.3 – Organ Concerto by Nils Christe

Long-awaited. It hasn’t been performed by Singapore Dance Theatre for years. I feel a bit apologetic that the posts have been a bit heavy-handed or long in the tooth (literally long, not figuratively in the tooth), but I think I wouldn’t do it any other way.

Costumes.

The music. YouTube comment(s) claim you must hear the Maurice Duruflé (organist) version.

A giant darkened backdrop of organ pipes. With the opening notes (I think?), a group of men and women dash across the stage from our left to the right, the women disappearing offstage and the men dropping to the ground along the way. The men get to their feet; the women rush out, stopping along the way at whoever is their partner. The women are facing us, one hand clasped in their partners’ hands to their partners’ chests, and everyone bends their knees slowly, never breaking eye contact; then everyone is up and off, running offstage.

0:52 – droves of men running out, and disappearing into the curtains to the audience’s right, while the women follow and collapse to the ground at selected spots, then raise their bent arms to cover their faces, their fists at their foreheads; and knees drawn up. At the gentle strains of music at 1:08 or so, the men return to their ladies and look down. The women roll over and clutch the men’s legs, and each man, sliding an arm round his partner’s waist, helps her up.

This is Nils Christe, so the choreography is wild and utterly magical and out of this world. Hands are frequently balled up into fists and arms up over faces like two columns, with the fists at forehead-level – a strong gesture that is visually arresting (it cuffs your eyeballs to the images on the stage) – we will have to call it arms up. Feet are sometimes, unexpectedly, flat as a palette knife. Picture the women, arms held straight out before them and one leg parallel to the ground, the other foot en pointe, while they bounce on that toe, knee bent and supported at the waist by the men. It’s all extremely quick, matching the music’s tempo – flashes of film reel, extraordinarily beautiful. Everyone on toes in a discreet low arabesque, arms up; or arms thrown back or down fiercely even though their heads are lowered; or arms and hands raised high and at an angle, sharp as blades.

Everyone is in a fine temper and on a severe high for this. Listen to the music up to 5:24 and imagine folk leaping and jumping and lifting / being lifted to every beat.

Ladies held aloft and upside down, facing outwards like corpses, their legs up like planks and feet flat while the men walk around. Then down they go, legs in second position en pointe. Perhaps their arms are wings of bats in belfries. Women lifted about the waist with flat feet, arms up to cover their eyes. Set down, they bourre out. One move per heartbeat – the women turning round and making running movements towards the men and the men catching them about the waist; the women are captured in mid-run, a leg raised, hands pressed down on their thighs.

I think it’s this dance in which the men form a row in front facing the audience, and the women are in a row at the back – but the men break out of the row in bits and pieces, running to the back as the women run towards them, and the men lift them high overhead – the ladies with a leg raised in high arabesque to the back and the arms arced in a V or overhead, like birds of prey taking off from the tops of the organ pipes.

Huo Liang has his solo next, at machine-gun speed, with great kicks that make patterns in the air behind him. It’s good to see him taking on large solo roles. Don’t know if you remember that he used to partner Li Jie in 4 Seasons by Natalie Weir.

Then we have Yorozu Kensuke and Elaine Heng; and Beatrice Castaneda and Jason Carter. Part of the choreography is seen below at 0:52 to 1:17. You can see how fast the dancing has to be, and the arms-up move, and the hand pressing on thigh/knee move. Vigorous, speedy, emphatic. My favourite part is when the ladies jump in the air, their fists at their throats and their elbows straight out, as if they’re fixing their bow ties. Lush music and razor-sharp movements; swift feet from Elaine Heng and Beatrice, as always and as necessary for this dance: look at those spitfire turns in the video below.

Enter the crowd, after this, accompanied by soaring sonorous melodious music.  Folk clutching their shoulders, arms crossed; women falling to the ground and raising themselves by one hand and rolling over; thighs squarely parallel to the ground, pointe feet that fall flat, sharp; tiny fierce backward bourrées (which I keep spelling with one less ‘e’ but which I will not go backwards in time and cyberspace to correct as I have use the misspelt version too often). Graceful, but with attitude (actual attitude; not attitude as in ballet).

Now the stage is left to Kwok Min Yi and Shan Del Vecchio in a show-stopping pas de deux: gorgeous, lithe, frenetic. She is graceful, sweeping her leg out in an open arc on the ground. They were well-matched. There is a strange yearning, sweet note to this pas de deux. This part, as danced by them, is one of the hearts of the entire piece –even in its entertaining choreography which, I think, includes a slightly aerobics-like move of raising the arms up to the face while bending one knee and tapping the foot out with the other; and lowering the arms and repeating with the other knee and foot, so fast it’s almost like splashing water in one’s face while doing a side lunge.

I think the other folk flock in after this, fast as ever: holding ladies as they hop back; wrapping a hand quickly round the head and then more face-splashing; and one favourite – doing a backward swim with the arms while bouncing backwards (quick plies, I think, with feet facing forwards instead of turned out).

It’s a lot more graceful and fabulous to see than it looks when it’s written out – it’s done so fast that it unfolds like a frieze of unbelievably original images because one thing’s for sure: you aren’t going to see any other description like the above for any other neoclassical / contemporary choreographer, or in any hieroglyphics on any wall.

The next two couples to take on the stage: Etienne Ferrere and May Yen Cheah, Huo Liang and Nakahama Akira, superbly deft and efficient. Where else but in Organ Concerto, will you see such double-quick elbows up so that fists are behind the head while legs slide sharply open and shut into fifths? Or ladies with a knee bent and another leg stretched out to the side, as the gentlemen turn them through 180 degrees so their toes slide across the floor. I can’t recall if it’s this or the other double-pair dance where the ladies dances a few steps on their toes before they are swirled a little of the way so their toes drag across the floor instead; and dance a few more steps and then are swirled again.

Li Jie and Nazer are next: gorgeous mandarin ducks in water, the swan, the swallow – silky dancing, different from the strained pas de deux in Age of Innocence. Nazer raises Li Jie quickly so she can fiercely kick back; lifts her while her legs cycle across the water; carries her by the waist so she can throw her legs (crossed tightly at the ankle) in front of her, while she folds her arms up; supports her waist and back so she can be a graceful swallow in the air.

I do think there’s more frenzied group work after this – ladies skating by on their toes with the mens’ help, and lifted splits, and folk all falling to the ground, then rising back up for the plank-lift (seen earlier) i.e. ladies upside down and feet flat; ladies back down again from the dead lifts to dance more, before all exit, with the ladies held high, bent-backed in the air (the impaled lift).

Enter Etienne Ferrere, alone at last. A bird, a plane: the great barrel twist of the torso in the air with the legs rolling; the juicy whirling kicks and freewheeling arms, those slick splits; rolling his arms like a boxer against a weight and unfurling an arm into a fist, and reeling the arms back in, accompanied by very deft footwork.

I might have got the order all wrong, but we could be back with couples in raised lifts and more rapid-lightning dancing. The music doesn’t feel like it follows the dance – somehow I keep thinking 13:49 to 14:00 close the show. For sure the last minute or so of the youtube video above don’t seem to be the ending music. Kwok Min Yi and Shan Del Vecchio have another brief moment on stage alone; in a semi-waltz ; and the comical move of throwing their arms straight up and while the other is bent and has lowered his or her arms, all the while steadily progressing to the back of the stage. I can remember Friday’s parts of their dances very clearly, and Saturday’s less so, which is unfortunate, as I was really looking out for them on Saturday – the flair, fury, the fling.

Chihiro and Kenya next, to gentler music. A doomed love, a wistful wraith partnership. A plank lift that is transformed by one leg slowly drawing to passe and down into a long split. Listen to the gorgeous music – from 15:03 to 15:53, for instance, and so on until the portion at 16:05, because it will lead us by the hand to the gorgeous 16:22 to 16:41. In that phrase of music (16:22), you can see the muted light and shadows falling on the couple, Chihiro seeming to float in the shadows. The touch of her foot along her leg – so delicate and tender; Chihiro spread-eagled as a wisp on Kenya’s back as he carries and whirls her about. Chihiro’s feet sharp and clear as she drifts across the stage; the couple reunited kneeling on the ground, then rolling apart. You can visit Singapore Dance Theatre’s video page and look for the 21 August 2013 video for Chen Peng and Rosa Park dancing this pas de deux.

Then in comes the crowd for a jolly show number. Perhaps about 17:27? For 17:44 is where they kick in with the same throwing up and down of hands. If you visit the videos page of Singapore Dance Theatre and look for the 19 August 2013 video that shows couples, and go to 1:58 (after Val Caniparolli’s Lambarena), you will see this part of the dance. It gives another idea of how fast-paced the dance is, and you understand how very precisely the dance fits the music, like a sabre blade into its sleeve. All these steps you could never imagine yourself: people clasping their own hands and lifting those hands high above their heads and then bringing them down again like stones, all the while on bended plies as they march about, the music pounding overhead.

Now to the finale. It feels like Organ Concerto ends at about 13:49 to 14:00 of the music – it’s poignant and it repeats a motif of the music.

The last scene sees an empty stage and everyone running across again. Then a white bar of light, and Chihiro makes slow motion running moves across the stage from the audience’s left, her arms and legs in great exaggerated motions. When she is two-thirds of the way across the stage, Kenya starts to make his way out after her in slow motion as well.

From the audience’s right, the other pairs start to make their way out in slow motion, one in pursuit of the other. Akira always brushing her hand just where Huo Liang’s has been; and, strikingly, front and centre, Min Yi always reaching out for, and missing, Shan Del Vecchio’s hand. Kenya is the only one in the opposite direction from everyone.

Then, like clockwork, the men turn, and the ladies turn away. The men open their arms and their arms encircle the air about the ladies, as if they are embracing them without daring to touch them. The men turn their backs to us, and the ladies, facing us, have one hand clasped in the men’s hands to the men’s chests (I think), and everyone bends their knees slightly, and you can see the quivering emotion in some faces – Kwok Min Yi’s, May Yen Cheah’s.

Then everyone scatters and runs in opposite directions, men in one and ladies in another, I think – except for Chihiro, who runs to the left and Kenya, who turns to the right and, at last, catches her in mid-leap in the air, in a pure bright light – and then boom, the stage goes black.

On both the nights I went, there was spontaneous loud cheering and applause from the audience once the lights went out, as if the audience could not wait for curtain call.

As a very musically-inclined friend said, if you’re looking for a dance which best matches the music, this is it.

What’s there not to love? What’s there not to want to watch all over again, and again and again? Here’s what I’d totally love to see again, other than all of it:

1. The pas de deux between Kwok Min Yi and Shan Del Vecchio. So bold and startling and refreshing. Where has it been all our lives, this music and choreography brought to life by these dancers. It’s easy to say they have their own distinct contemporary style, but the funny thing is, they weren’t using it in this dance exactly – they just had this 默契, this connection, during their segment. It was as if they fed right off each other’s energy.

2. Anything with the lively dancing from all the couples and all its gloriously mad choreography.

3. The stunning ending.

Long I have longed to see Organ Concerto, and I so enjoyed it.