Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – BAM’s Next Wave Festival, Week 6: A banner week featuring Philip Glass’s SATYAGRAHA & Sasha Waltz’s KREATUR

• By drediman
• November 9, 2018
• No Comments

After taking two weeks off from attending performances at the Next Wave Festival, I was eager to reengage in BAM’s flagship festival once again last week. Even before Week 6 commenced, it was already promising to be one of the banner weeks of this year’s festival, featuring a new production of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha (RECOMMENDED) playing the Harvey and Sasha Waltz’s Kreatur taking on the Opera House. Potentially savory stuff for performance arts lovers, and neither disappointed.

The company of Folkoperan and Cirkus Cirkör’s production of Philip Glass’s “Satyagraha” at the BAM Harvey Theater.

Satyagraha (RECOMMENDED) may just be my favorite Philip Glass opera. Its premise – a meditation on Mahatma Gandhi’s life, times, and philosophy – is tangible enough to sustain my curiosity, and the opera’s contemplative libretto (in Sanskrit, adapted from the Bhagavad Gita) lends itself beautifully to the hypnotic minimalism of Mr. Glass’s music. The last time I saw the piece was a few seasons ago at the Metropolitan Opera (originally staged at the English National Opera in London, which I had also seen) in a profoundly poetic, visually ravishing production by Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch. The new staging, which recently concluded performances, arrived at BAM via Sweden, in a collaboration between Folkoperan and Cirkus Cirkör. Inventively directed by Tilde Björfors, the big surprise here is how well circus arts works as a means of theatrical storytelling. Aligned with Mr. Glass’s gorgeous but insistent score, the newly-added physical component contributed an element of tension and heightened drama that was missing from the more tableau-driven production at the Met (a valid approach that has its merits). Although I missed the sonic grandeur of the Met treatment, Folkoperan’s much smaller forces (in terms of both chorus and orchestra size), as led by conductor Matthew Wood, more or less did a solid job of bringing the mesmerizing score to life.

The company of Sasha Waltz’s “Kreatur” at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House.
Photo Credit: Stephanie Berger.

The latest work of boundary-pushing and aptly-named contemporary German choreographer Sasha Waltz was also featured last week. I had previously seen the touted choreographer’s Continu during the 2015 Next Wave Festival, and remember being shocked and awed by it. This season, we get her dance theater piece Kreatur (RECOMMENDED). While I initially found much of it aggravating and aimless – the piece seemed focused on creating a persistently distasteful atmosphere and choreography that was devoid of any semblance traditional beauty and driving purpose – I found its cynicism and dark sense of humor to be ultimately fascinating.  By the end of the performance, I had interpreted Ms. Waltz’s sculptural dance theater creation to be a highly abstract expression of humanity’s desperate limitations. Senselessly gyrating biological bodies are all we are, the piece seems to be suggesting, which is a deeply disturbing sentiment. Kreatur has been designed by Ms. Waltz to accommodate a company 14 dancers, and she’s assembled a fearless and idiosyncratic bunch of movers. One of the main attractions here were the stunning, highly-textured costumes of Iris van Herpen (beautifully lit by lighting designer Urs Schönebaum). These striking works of art wouldn’t be out of place strutting down the catwalk of a chic Parisian fashion show – or MoMA. Lastly, the recorded score by Soundwalk Collective is eerie and unsettling, an appropriate aural backdrop to Ms. Waltz’s oppressive and humanity-discounting choreography and world view.

SATYAGRAHA
Opera/Performance
BAM Harvey Theater
2 hours, 45 minutes (with on intermission)
Closed

KREATUR
Dance
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
1 hour, 30 minutes (with no intermission)
Closed