Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Lincoln Center’s genre-blurring WHITE LIGHT FESTIVAL commences its 10th anniversary, looking to the past for transcendence

• By drediman
• October 28, 2019
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Last week marked the commencement of Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, which this year is celebrating its 10th anniversary. In this incredibly crowded fall theater, dance, and classical music season, what distinguishes White Light is its disregard of boundaries between these genres of performance. In many ways, the festival is a nice counterpoint to BAM’s concurrent Next Festival. Both seek to uncover deeper truths in our shared humanity through new forms and combinations of performance. But while Next Wave looks to the future of performance for such answers, White Light excavates the past to attain transcendence and illumination within.

Hiroshi Sugimoto’s “Love Suicides at Sonezaki”, an offering at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, at the Rose Theater.

First up at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center was Sugimoto Bunraku Sonezaki Shinju (“The Love Suicides at Sonezaki”) (RECOMMENDED), the brainchild of celebrated artist Hiroshi Sugimoto and director Seiji Tsurusawa. The work finds Mr. Sugimoto working within the unlikely vernacular of Japanese bunraku puppet theater, which he uses to tell the tragic story of the double suicide of two lovers in 18th century Japan. The meticulously crafted puppets are true works of art, and they’re brought to exquisite life by a team of onstage puppeteers, who themselves are beautifully choreographed throughout the evening. Mr. Sugimoto’s elegant, hypnotic staging also features mesmerizing live music composed by Mr. Tsurusawa and delicate video projections by Tabaimo and Mr. Sugimoto. Although I may argue that the Rose Theater is far too large of a venue for the production to fully appreciate the all the details of the deceptively simple staging, I was nonetheless captivated throughout (thanks to my decent seat), culminating  in an uncompromisingly protracted death scene of intense poetry, passion, and anguish.

Jordi Savall leads “Journey to the East”, an offering at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, at the Alice Tully Hall.

Next up at the Alice Tully Hall was Journey to the East (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), Jordi Savall’s unique musical narration of St. Francis Xavier’s missionary travels from Western Europe to the Far East during the 16th century. The epic journey is “told” solely through primary sources, notably music that the Jesuit missionary would have likely encountered along the way, as well as various writings and documented public statements (great New York stage actor John Douglas Thompson provided the occasional spoken word narration). What’s brilliantly captured through the recreation of early music and its stirring “mash-ups” – here magnificently performed by Hespèrion XXI, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, and a number of guest musicians, as sensitively led by Mr. Savall – is the notion of true communication and cross-pollination of ideas between cultures, religions, and philosophies. Indeed, Journey to the East suggests that the East was influenced at least as much as Francis Xavier’s spirituality was affected by the peoples and places he came across during his travels, and the new perspectives they allowed for.

Circa’s “En Masse”, an offering at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater.

The week of concluded with attending a performance of En Masse (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) by dance/circus arts company Circa. There has always been an element of dance in circus acts, and vice versa. Indeed, I’ve seen a number of performances by alternative circus arts companies over the years, and admittedly, some experiences have been more successful than others in achieving a true hybrid. However, I don’t think I’ve seen the two forms more seamlessly merged than by this Australian company, now having seen them a number of times (I saw Opus at 2015 Next Wave, Humans at 2018 Next Wave, and now En Masse). En Masse depicts – through rousing movements that awe equally through their risk and beauty – the slow, often violent progression from winter to spring, which could be potently interpreted as a metaphor for change at large. The work features ten acrobats and three musicians performing to, in the first act, music by Swedish composer Klara Lewis, as well as, fittingly, Schubert’s “Winterreise” and “Schwanengesang”. The production’s second act is set to a riveting two-piano arrangement of Stravinsky’s still-jarring “The Rite of Spring”.

SUGIMOTO BANRAKU SONEZAKI SHINJU
Theater/Music
Rose Theater
2 hours, 30 minutes (with one intermission)

JOURNEY TO THE EAST
Music
Alice Tully Hall
2 hours (with one intermission)

EN MASSE
Dance/Circus Arts
Circa / Gerald W. Lynch Theater
1 hour, 50 minutes (with one intermission)