THE HANGOVER REPORT – Pam Tanowitz’s beguiling modern masterpiece FOUR QUARTETS triumphantly arrives in New York City

Pam Tanowitz’s “Four Quartets” makes its New York City debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (photo by Maria Baranova).

Last night, I attended Four Quartets, Pam Tanowitz’s much lauded evening length dance piece, which is set to T. S. Eliot’s collection of poems of the same name. Although I missed its premiere at the Fisher Center at Bard in 2018, I was able to stream the production during the pandemic. Even on my smallish laptop monitor, it beguiled me. This week, the acclaimed work for ten dancers (including Ms. Tanowitz herself) – which is rightfully being touted as a modern masterpiece – triumphantly makes its highly anticipated New York City debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where it’s been slated to play only three performances (the final one is tonight).

What distinguishes the piece is how the elements of the production – Ms. Tanowitz’s post-modern choreography, Eliot’s penetrating poetry, Kaija Saariaho’s haunting score (played live by the Knights), and painter Brice Marden’s striking set design – come together in mysterious and potent ways. Like Merce Cunningham’s works, movement exists in its own universe apart from the words and music, but not completely. Although the choreography doesn’t directly reference or echo Eliot’s musings on the conundrums of time, memory, and meaning (serenely recited by the great Kathleen Chalfant), Ms. Tanowitz’s coolly abstract and probing aesthetic is a supple conduit through which to physically manifest these amorphous notions.

Speaking of conduits, Ms. Tanowitz’s dancers are ideal vessels to carry out the task; they’re selfless, tranquil performers who let their unadorned movements speak for themselves. When the ensemble coalesces more robustly, albeit organically, towards the end of the piece, the effect is breathtaking. As for Mr. Marden’s series of artful visual tableaus, they’re an arresting compliment to Ms. Tanowitz’s carefully calibrated choreographic progression, which – true to Elliot’s poetry – ends where it began. The whole production fits beautifully on the stage of BAM’s opera house, which appeared sold out at the performance I attended. I already can’t wait to see Four Quartets again to uncover more of its riches.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

FOUR QUARTETS
Dance
Brooklyn Academy of Music
1 hour, 15 minutes (without an intermission)
Through February 12

Categories: Dance

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