Straight From The Arts

Random thoughts about watching and working in the arts, from HMS Media co-founder/executive producer Scott Silberstein

August 25, 2011

The Good, The Bad and The Guy Trying To Figure Out Which Is Which

“There are only two kinds of dance,” said Martha Graham. “Good and bad.”  Okay, but how are we supposed to tell which one’s which?  

One way, I suppose, is to check in with people who know more about this stuff than I do, which is why I look forward to reading what our local critics have to say about dance performances. They’re deep background in dance history and intense focus on every aspect of the dance world means that I’m always going to learn something from their reviews and columns, even if I might like something more or less than they do. For dance, I turn to people like Sid Smith in the Trib, Hedy Weiss at the Sun-Times, Lucia Mauro and Laura Molzahn at WBEZ and Zac Whittenburg at Time Out Chicago. Smart, interesting, funny and thoughtful people, whether you agree with them or not.

I sat four seats over from Zac at the second night of The Chicago Dancing Festival, held Wednesday evening at the Museum of Contemporary Art. It was called “MCA Moves,” a short program of just over an hour that featured four short pieces. Some of the stuff I really enjoyed. Some of which it me a while to wrap my head around. And some I didn’t get at all. Where they fall in the spectrum of “good” and “bad,” I can’t say. And I don’t really want to.

“MCA Moves” was hosted, in a way, by Martha Graham – in fact, by performer Richard Move, who fully embodied (as far as I could tell from my limited experience) Graham in voice, manner, dress and attitude, along the way uttering that famous line about good and bad, which put a very specific spin on my reactions and feelings about the evening.

I’m going to safely assume that not everyone reading this knows everything there is to know about Martha Graham. Lord knows I don’t. As a guy who became a dance fan and dance lover in the late 80’s, I would never lay claim to being anything close to a dance historian. For those of you more knowledgeable than I (and that’s most of you, probably), please bear with me. I know a few things about Graham – that she’s regarded as one of the great landmark choreographers, and that she developed a technique of “contract and release” that revolutionized how contemporary dancers move. Wikipedia tells me that Graham’s influence on dance has been compared with Picasso’s on modern visual art, Stravinsky’s on music, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s on architecture, and from what I’ve learned over the years, I have no problem believing that. And it makes me realize that I have some learning to do. That’s exciting for me, so those of you that know a lot about her, I’d like to talk with you sometime. Her work, almost by definition, is informing a ton of the dance I’m currently watching and enjoying, and I’d like get a better handle on that.

I’m more in a position to simply go to shows, take in the work in front of me, and like it or not. Sometime that feels limiting – I’m the kind of person that always feels I could do well to know more than I do, and I think it’d be great to understand more about how dance has progressed as an art form. On the other hand, sometimes ignorance is bliss. It’s liberating, because I don’t feel like I should like something just because it’s the thing to do, or because all smart and informed people do. We’re talking personal preference here, not right and wrong, and I’ve never felt the arts are a place for right and wrong.

Graham’s one-time co-director, Robert Cohan, once said that “Martha did around two hundred works, and all of them were good." Hold on, what? All of them were good? The Beatles (who, let’s agree for the sake of argument, are the best rock band in the history of the universe) recorded around 200 songs and they weren’t all good (“Mr. Moonlight,” anyone? “Wild Honey Pie?”). Shakespeare’s got a few lesser works lying around, doesn’t he? Jeez, even Michael Jordan missed a few shots in his day. What am I supposed to do with this idea that not only does a person know what’s actually good and what’s definitively bad, and that she, as fate would have it, only made the good stuff? What do I do if I don’t like it? How stupid am I?

Look, I liked a lot of what I saw on the MCA stage tonight. I appreciated being provoked (and entertained) by the idea of having Graham herself on stage. Richard Move’s performance was on the order of Spinal Tap, gentle lampoon swaddled in genuine reverence and respect. Still, the idea that the arbiter of good and bad was our emcee for the evening put me in an odd frame of mind, namely, that I have to think of the dance in front of me as good or bad. How do I know what’s good and what’s bad? How do any of us? Did Zac know? Would Hedy, Sid or Laura? What do they know that I don’t? Plenty, obviously, but I didn’t want to worry about that until I read their reviews in the morning and think, Good Lord those guys know so much that I don’t. (That’s what makes it so much fun to read their stuff.) Me, I don’t know how to review dance. I don’t think I’m that good at being critically objective about it. I’m too moved to engage my brain that way, and I envy those that can I know what I like. I know what moves and thrills me, and I know what bores and irritates me. Within the world of “Scott The Goofy Guy Who Loves Going To See Dance Concerts,” I’ve got an idea of what I like and don’t, not what’s good and what’s bad. I think I’m ok at sharing my feelings about those kinds of things with people, but I don’t even like to think in terms of good or bad. You’re far more likely to hear me say “I loved it” or “That last piece – not so much” before you’ll hear me declare that something was objectively good or bad. I may have the nerve to do so, but I don’t feel like I have the right.

So after Faux Martha introduced the first piece of the evening – an excerpt from Robert Wilson’s “Snow on the Mesa,” dedicated to Graham’s friend Doris Duke, and performed by dancers from the Martha Graham Dance Company itself – I was genuinely bothered and somewhat unnerved that I didn’t get it. At all. What was I missing? This was, I had been assured by the great lady, good dance, being performed by two wonderfully talented members of her own company who were fascinating to look at – one of whom was a gorgeous woman who was topless for God’s sake – and rather than question the “goodness,” I sat there clueless. What was wrong with me?

I’m going to get bold, answer my own question and say, nothing. Nothing at all, thank you very much. Look, I love opera, and I’m not a fan of Wagner’s Ring, and I can live with that. I know, I know, what kind of opera fan am I if I don’t adore the twenty greatest hours of music ever written – here’s what kind of opera fan: the kind that respectfully disagrees that it’s the greatest music ever written, has complete appreciation for some of its magnificent qualities, and would love to produce a documentary about it so I can learn and share what I’ve learned with the world. That’s be awesome. But right now, in this moment, give me La Boheme, Debussy, Sondheim, The Beatles (good and bad) – you can have the Wagner and the Pink Floyd and we’ll both have a great time loving what we love, and appreciating that we might not love the same stuff but at least we love something.

And just to be clear, my problem is not that I don’t love odd, avant-garde, out-there art. Ever listen to the soundtrack for 2001: A Space Odyssey? I have, a lot, and not just the great tunes you can hum, but, even more, the whacked-out, atonal choral and orchestral music composed by Gyorgy Ligeti that goes with all the truly scary and freaky moments in the movie. I love that stuff. So yes, I can handle art that’s modern, or post-modern, or post-post-modern, or whatever we’re supposed to call it today. Case in point: when Julia Rhoads’s Lucky Plush Productions took the stage after the Graham Company departed and started performing a piece called “Habituation,” I had a blast. Lucky Plush is a Chicago-based company that has earned the right to call itself “dance theater,” and I thought “Habituation,” featuring Julia, Meghan Wilkinson and Kim Goldman was funny, charming, quirky and captivating. It wasn’t linear, and it wasn’t about anything especially obvious, and still I connected easily with the three women as they explored ways to connect with each other, themselves and their every day movements and routines. Neither the dancers nor the dance declared their inherent wonderfulness. They simply displayed it, confidently and humbly. I found myself liking them, their movement and their words, and even though I couldn’t begin to tell you exactly what was happening. And when it ended, I wanted more. I felt like I’d either awoke from a very entertaining dream about three smart, funny, beautiful and slightly quirky women (my favorite kind), or that somehow I’d magically been eavesdropping on one of their dreams. More of that funny-quirky-human-relatable stuff, please, with an extra heaping of that wonderful Julia Rhoads movement.

We’re halfway through the show at this point, and the resurrected Graham returns for something a little more helpful for people like me – a demonstration of the Graham technique with two dancers. I found this informative, interesting and done just irreverently enough to convince me that this whole framing device was being done with a genuine sense of humor and affection. Thank you! It occurred to me at this point to ask, what if you didn’t know who Martha Graham was? Could you still enjoy the show? I’m going to guess yes, you could, much as you could started watching “The X-Files” halfway through season 4 (as I did) and still get hooked. Interesting characters are interesting characters, and good stories are good stories; they captivate you no matter what point meet them, and they make you want to either Netflix the earlier seasons or do a little research about the goddess of contract and release to get the back story. Fair enough.

The third piece, Faye Driscoll’s “if you pretend you are drowning I’ll pretend I am saving you,” a work in progress performed by Faye and her collaborator Jesse Zaritt, had me straddling a fence throughout its fifteen minutes. The first ten seemed to me to be about a relationship between a young man and young woman, and as I watched I was thinking, this is the kind of couple that corners you at a party and tells you way more about their relationship than you ever wanted to know. It’s not that they weren’t interesting or attractive – they were – it was more a question of TMI. As uncomfortable as that might have been at an actual party, from the safety of Row G at the MCA Theater, I was intrigued enough to want to see where this was headed. Then the piece transformed into a wacky sequence where Faye spent several minutes trying on and playing with a bag full of props – wigs, scarves, feather boas, hats, glasses – being as silly, goofy and playful as any child would when playing dress-up, while Jesse slowly backed away and watched from an upstage corner (with affection? Embarrassment?). Faye really lets herself go – if this were really that party and she were really that half of the TMI couple and I were really backed into a corner listening to her story, this would be where I would truly start worrying about this poor woman’s mental health. But then something unexpected happened. Faye stops her dress up routine, with a look on her face somewhere between bewilderment and embarrassment, waiting to see how the audience will react. And the audience – presumably because it’s not quite sure what’s going on – doesn’t. So Jesse just starts clapping, and smiling, gazing adoringly at Faye, as if to say, “You guys might not get her, but I do, and I think she rocks.” All of sudden, I find this crazy couple rather sweet, and I find the piece working for me in a way I didn’t see coming.

The last piece of the evening was Brian Brooks’ “Motor,” a duet for Brooks and David Scarantino that offered the same effect you get when you see people running on stage in a strobe light – you know that can make people look like they’re floating, or moving wildly through time? – but these guys managed to do it without the strobe. Through brilliantly athletic series of hops and skips, these guys really did start to appear to be gliding to and fro across the stage. Great idea, great execution, and a terrific way to end the evening.

Or almost end the evening. Faux Graham returned to perform the Graham solo "Lamentation" to the sound of a recording of a recorded interview from the real Martha, whose actual voice, as compared to the impersonation offered by Move, seemed a touch softer, perhaps a little more forgiving than I might have expected. Maybe the grand dame had been talking all along about her own internal standards, not the outwardly objective ones? Or maybe not, maybe not at all, and instead I was now simply less worried about whether I "got it" or not?

Ultimately it didn't, and doesn't, matter. Out of four pieces, I really liked two and was challenged and was intrigued by two others. By the end of the evening, I found myself a little more confident declaring what I like, and comfortable declaring what I don’t. That’s a great and empowering experience, one which contemporary dance has given me repeatedly for more than two decades, and a reason why I love it so much. And being challenged by an icon like Martha Graham is great, because it forces me to develop my own taste, refine it through experience, evolve it my using my brain, and ultimately trust it. That’s a lesson I continue to learn from this kind of dance that’s called "modern" or "post-modern" or "post-post-modern" or... you know what? Let's dispense with those labels and the idea of what's good or bad, in or out. Let's call all work "pre-future," shake hands, agree to sometimes disagree, and have a good time. I certainly did tonight.

The good times continue Thursday night at Chicago Dancing Festival Night 3: The Masters, at the Auditorium Theatre. Featuring Hubbard Street, River North, The Joffrey and Lar Lubovitch, the program also contains another appearance by the Martha Graham Company – so I imagine I will be kept on my toes, and happily so. More info at chicagodancingfestival.com. Showtime is 8pm – hope to see you there.

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