A New Musical Work for Dance

Strings, Flute, Zurna, and More

Sunday, April 29, 2005
By Koren Cowgill

Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company. John LaSala: Soul Descending. Noel MacDuffie (choreography). F. M. Kirby Shakespeare Theater, Madison.

The Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company presented us with the modern dance production of Soul Descending, loosely based on the Orpheus myth. The drama is described as "the struggle of the living to let go of the dead." John LaSala's music, prerecorded for the production, strongly reflects this struggle. Yet the music is so inherently expressive that nothing is lost from the lack of "live" performers.

The dance begins with a "Prologue." We are immediately immersed in another world as we hear the sound of a laintive flute melody floating over the sound of waves washing upon some distant shore. A gentle strumming of stringed instruments follows. Shortly after, the "weather" becomes stormy and the flute line becomes more agitated. At this point we see that the character "William" has been overtaken by a storm at sea and finally falls into darkness. The agitated music sets the stage for the funeral scene that follows.

Now the mood on the stage is darker. Metallic bells come out of nowhere, sounding throughout the theater over an insistent pulse peppered with strident percussion of indefinite pitch. Reverberating cries of a zurna, a middle eastern reed instrument, echo in a highly disturbing manner.

Again, we are taken to another world. The dancers on stage are appropriately lugubrious yet somewhat agitated in accordance with the music. Gradually, soaring strings enter, oscillating insidiously between major and minor above the more discordant sounds underneath. The second entrance of the zurna is even more insistent this time. The contrast of major and minor especially heightens the drama for the dancers on the stage. Groups of voices disconcertingly grow out of the strumming that provides am earlier foundation for the strings and the bells. The major "key area" of this work is in the "forbidden" *Locrian mode, which provides much of the tension within the piece.

The scene marked "Home," is in three parts. The first part, "Taking Abigail Home," begins with a sense that we are in a specific place, namely home; the folk-song feel of the melody in a type of flute called a bansuri, which is a North Indian flute, and the simple strumming in the guitar reflect this. The section, "Alone," also begins with a solitary and forlorn flute, a different type called a ney, a middle Eastern end-blown instrument. The writing is rather like *melismatic vocal music. "Dubious Reunion" begins on a major chord over which the loveliest flute melody soars, reflecting the possible reunion of Abigail and the ghost of her lost love, William. One flute becomes two and they intertwine much as the dancers do instate. Chords continue to shift in the background until the composer introduces minor chords and the flute seems to lose its momentum and simply fades away.

The next section is called "Work" wherein the drama depicts Abigail's friends urging her to immerse herself in the harvest in order to free herself from thought of William. This time, the musical material from the "Prologue" returns and is slightly varied with bell-like sounds used in a repetitive manner in short melodic cells. It is evident when Abigail, beautifully danced by Pamela Wagner, finds herself thinking about William, for at these times, the sounds of the underworld, very faint, foreshadow like a *Leitmotif.

This leads us to "Torment and Abigail's Lullaby," as well as the "Precept of the Ancients," where we begin by hearing wispily nightmarish sounds commingled with the more savage sounds of the underworld. As the nightmarish sounds fade, we are left with the wash of the sea and a lone voice: it is Abigail, who sings to comfort herself. We briefly hear a short girl's chorus along with Abigail's lullaby, but in a dramatically effective move, all singing ends abruptly.

"The Festival" is marked by sprightly percussion and lively melodies punctuated by the vivacious shouts and hand claps of the dancers. The music here is simple yet most inventive owing to the composer's gift for thoroughly developing small bits of material. The festival music gradually recedes into the background and rising chords overpower the texture little by little. Again, a flute enters toward the end leading us further away from the festival.

"Over the Net" opens with emotionally overwhelming cacophony that burgeons gradually when Abigail finally finds herself in the underworld. Here she is confronted with ethereal voices singing and whispering sounds which speak of the horror of the place. The underworld echoes throughout the theater like a demonic train about to derail, while voices cry, metallic percussion clashes, and white noise blares. Over all of this the ethereal voices persist; again the chords often oscillating between major and minor, possibly distinguishing between the underworld and the world of the living. Toward the very end of the dance, "Abigail's Lullaby" returns followed by silence. The production ends with a few poignant notes played quietly by two flutes, and we see on stage that Abigail has not succeeded in bringing William into the world of the living but rather, she is consigned to remain in the underworld so she may be with him.

In general, the technical quality of the recorded music is spectacular and beautifully balanced. Yet, with any performance, even a pre-recorded one, there is the possibility that things may not go exactly as a composer would wish. Toward the end of the concert there were some technical glitches which detracted from the power of the production, yet to their credit the dancers on stage remained unaffected by the static.