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This was a very busy weekend of music making. I was involved in two separate performances of the Vivaldi Gloria – one on period instruments with a small choir and informed by Baroque performance practice; the other in more typical fashion with string orchestra and large choir. The choir at Trinity also sang a poignant Advent cantata by Hugo Distler, a lesser-known German composer from the early 20th century.
I often myself conflicted about music for this season. Of course, there’s the fussiness that pastors and church musicians are sometimes accused of when we ask our congregation to sing out of the (usually small) Advent section of our hymnal. But I find it so difficult to jump over a time of waiting and ambiguity and directly into the warm, fuzzy glow of Christmas carols and holiday cheer. Maybe it’s on account of my own spiritual journey – having experienced moments in life where rays of hope pierced the darkness of doubt, fear and grief in my heart. And maybe it’s just this year in particular, which has been full of so much unexpected grief and loss.
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Tonight I watched Federico Fellini’s film 8 1/2. It was so rich and fascinating that I had to watch it twice. The first time was with subtitles, letting the images and dialogue surprise and delight me. The second time I watched it with commentary offered by two film scholars and a personal acquaintance of Fellini. I rarely afford myself the luxury of watching anything twice and I consider myself a second-rate movie watcher in that I often miss extremely important symbols and ideas in films. But the second viewing was a spiritual experience.
This film is semi-autobiographical as it tells the story of a film director who has a producer, a cast, and a set for a new movie but has not been able to write a script. His creative energy is depleted, he is struggling with his faith, has several broken relationship and (as we see in some very surreal flashbacks) is still haunted by memories from his past. He is also painfully aware of the sorts of questions that critics and the public will ask about his work when it is finished. We get a picture of someone paralyzed by fear and perfectionism. In his mind, success or failure in life stem from a choice between a true, “pure” art (which is somehow separate from the brokenness) or finding personal wholeness (which he believes can only happen if he quits the whole film business and starts over again from the beginning).
In the course of the movie (especially the final 30 minutes or so) he finds a new level of clarity and honesty. Through his interaction with several characters, he becomes aware of his freedom and sees that the choice between a “pure” art and a “pure” life is a false one. The starting place for his art (and his wholeness) will come in allowing all of the parts of his being to dance together. At the very moment the movie ends it begins as the entire cast (his wife, his lovers, the actors, his mother and father, the Catholic cardinal, the prostitute) join hands and dance in a circle, accompanied by the music of a circus band. There isn’t a tidy bow put on the story; the brokenness, doubts and pains are still present. Perhaps his art and his life will never be extraordinary by others’ standards, but they will be more honest and deeply human because they speak to each other; they meet in the tragic/comic circus dance that is our lives.
I couldn’t have found a more wonderful film for the season. Advent asks us to take an honest look at this messy existence of ours. But, thankfully, we are not left there. The Incarnation shows us that God is willing to enter into this place with us; Christ’s birth, life, death and resurrection affirm the complexity and depth of our human stories. We do not need to live fearful and divided lives but are invited to a place of freedom and hope. It is a holy place – where all of our being is present to and held by a loving God who is calling us, not to greatness by others’ standards, but to lives that are more whole and more human.
Here are a few clips from Friday’s rehearsal that I uploaded to YouTube. I wish they were a little longer, but they give a sense of how the music and dance went together.
I’ve been traveling a lot in the past month. This weekend was a quick jaunt to New York City for a fundraiser. For the last 6 years I’ve been the composer and musical director for La Compagnia de’ Colombari (The Company of the Dovecote) and it has become a very important part of my creative life. We’ve been working on an adaptation of medieval Mystery Plays, Laude in Urbis (Praises in the City), which we have performed on the streets of Orvieto, Italy during the Feast of Corpus Christi. The piece finds creative energy in a collision and juxtaposition of texts, cultures, musical styles and languages – all within the framework of a populist (i.e. street theater) aesthetic. The “frame” play is St. Luke’s account of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, post-resurrection. As Christ comes alongside, he opens the Scriptures to them. In our production, we literally walk the audience through the town performing various stories from the Bible. These are alternately pious and bawdy tellings of The Creation, The Fall, Noah and the Flood, The Sacrifice of Isaac, The Nativity and the Harrowing of Hell. Music and dance provide glue between the scenes and invite the actors and audience to move and sing together, breaking down the barrier between them (no “fourth” wall). In the final scene, Christ breaks bread and the disciples finally recognize him, at which point an actual feast of wine and food is shared by those who have attended the performance. Talk about communion! The piece is not evangelistic in nature but invites people to hear and see these well-known stories anew – through poetic and idiomatic translations of the original Medieval texts (both Italian and English); striking casting choices (imagine an African-American woman playing God and a child on a red motor scooter playing the Holy Spirit); through music that spans from chant to Dylan-esque folk music; and through lighting and gesture that find their inspiration in the frescos of Fra Angelico and Piero dalla Francesca. I think we are also (perhaps secondarily) doing theology through theater – helping actors and audience to explore fundamental questions about God, humans and the relationship between the Divine and Humankind. It’s exciting work.
I flew into Laguardia on Friday morning and headed to the Museum of the City of New York in Harlem, where we’ve made some great community contacts. The plan is to get to a point where we have two events a year: our Corpus Christi piece in May or June and an Advent/Christmas piece in Harlem during December. We especially want to draw from the amazing creative energy within New York City, including the wonderful mix of African-American and Latino culture in this part of the city.
We had a long afternoon and evening of rehearsal, in which we pieced together an invocation from a Trinidadian poet, several Psalm settings (two newly written for this occasion), a small excerpt from the Second Shepherd’s Play, an Italian Christmas carol and then a finale with all the actors musicians and dancers. This final section included a piece that I composed for my friend Damayanthi Niles’ ordination back in April. It’s a setting of a prayer by St. Augustine of Hippo for choir and percussion.
“All shall be Amen and Alleluia.
We shall rest and we shall see.
We shall see and we shall know.
We shall know and we shall love.
We shall love and we shall praise.
Behold our end, which is no end.”
- from An African Prayer Book, edited by Desmond Tutu
The vocal parts are set in an almost chantlike fashion with lots of imitation and open fifths and fourths (sort of a cross between minimalism and Medieval organum). When you add the steady drive of the percussion underneath it all, it’s pretty exciting. I was satisfied with the piece when the choir at Trinity sang it back in April and was happy to adapt it for this context. What made this particular performance memorable was the inclusion of thirty 8-year old tap-dancers! Thanks to our growing relationships in Harlem and the tireless work of our artistic director Karin Coonrod, La Compagnia connected with Community Works, an arts organization that provides dance and other Arts enrichment for public school students. I was asked to make an mp3 of the piece and sent it to the dance teachers. Then they choreographed the music and taught it to the students over several weeks.
The rehearsal was pretty amazing. On one end of the room were a group of classically trained singers and a percussionist; on stage at the other side of the room were the tapdancers. And then in the last section of the piece we added step dancers in front of the singers. This style of dance comes out of an African-American context – it’s a high energy, full body movement with rhythmic handclapping and fast movements of the arms and legs. The energy that these four women brought to the piece was just tremendous and put the piece over the top. I thought my piece was already a unique juxtaposition of styles but then add tap dancing and step dancing on top of that. And to think that a group of 8-year olds in Harlem have heard and danced to a setting of St. Augustine!!!! This in itself blows my mind. A fourth-century saint meets the ‘hood. And the text is such a joyous, positive affirmation that I hope they can carry through their lives.
I have a feeling that this is just the beginning of some new possibilities. The interconnectedness and complementarity of the music and movement have got me imagining other ways that seemingly disparate things can find a resonance and a commonality. So often I want to compartmentalize different artistic and musical expressions, but working on this piece I felt the ONENESS of the Spirit if just for a few hours. I sensed the shared human connection between the saint who wrote this amazing text, the children in all their diversity, the different styles of dance, the singers, and ultimately with the Creator. It was a huge moment of affirmation – of my creative gifts, and of a calling to nurture and build the sorts of bridges that will allow these sorts of moments to occur in the future.
