Title: Pastorale
Premiere: February 2-5, 1989. University Dance Company in collaboration with the University Symphony Orchestra and the Women’s Glee Club. Power Center, Ann Arbor, MI, as one of several works included in the University of Michigan annual major production entitled Viva Stravinsky
Set and costume design: John Schak
Lighting design: Mary Cole
Duration: 20 minutes
Music: Pastorale for soprano and piano, by Igor Stravinsky (1907) and Fantasia on Stravinksy’s Pastorale, by Stephen Rush. Performed by Kathleen Gale, soprano; Stephen Hurley, baritone; the Women’s Glee Club; the University Symphony Orchestra.
Performers: Heroine: Victoria Tobia Hero: Paul Medlyn-Joslyn God: Thomas Cocco Goddess: Ginger Glenn Shepherds and Sheperdhesses: Janelle Folsom and Gordon Van Amburg; Sarah Breseke and Giles Brown; Joanne Constantinides and Daniel Gwirtzman Sheep/Clouds/Trees: David Love, Nicole Meyer, Melissa Misiak, Jill Moskow, Elizzabeth Patek, Matt Reago (the sheepdog), Rowena Richie, Rebecca Shubart, Erica Turrigiano, Jody Weinberg, Julie Zelman
Description: This dance built upon the original sketch of A Simple Story, which I had premiered at Perry Mansfield in Colorado in the summer of 1988. The Power Center production was elaborate, with a stage set featuring a mountain with a ramp upstage, a deus ex machina in which the God descended to the stage from above, and a video backdrop featuring scenes between the God and the Goddess in their abode in the sky, as well as scenic background for other sections of the dance. The large cast featured four main characters, three couples performing as shepherds and shepherdesses, and a group of first year Dance majors who performed the roles of sheep, clouds, trees and a sheep dog. To perform the latter roles, the dancers moved large cutouts of sheep and a sheep dog, carried clouds on tall poles, and carried pine tree cutouts on stage for a forest scene. The role of the sheep dog was particularly fun to construct. A member of the orchestra performed live barking to accompany the dancer who played the sheep dog, rounding up the sheep and leading them up the mountain and offstage. As I recall, the orchestra member became hoarse with this task during rehearsals, and the conductor Richard Rosenberg took up the barking charge. The 31-member Women’s Glee Club stood along the steps of the theater audience left, and the full orchestra was in the pit. The School of Music had recently purchased a Telaria camera and projector, which we explored for the first time in this production. I collaborated with Michael Knight to produce the video, which was carefully calibrated with the action on the stage. In an opening scene, the video showed a closeup of the God’s face and eyes, following the action of the shepherdess dancing joyfully on the stage below to the original Igor Stravinsky Pastorale. The gods occupied an urban space above, in a kind of corporate office-like setting, while below, the stage evoked mountains, meadows, and a forest.
I worked with literary tropes of the pastorale, including the tension between urban and rural settings, where the urban is construed as corrupt and the pastoral as a freer and simpler setting for shepherds and shepherdesses. It was a story told in a series of brief scenes, each 2-3 minutes long: love found between shepherd and shepherdess; love lost via the lust of the villainous god who descends from the heavens to seduce the shepherdess; love fought for by the jealous Goddess, who turns the Heroine into a tree in the forest; love in despair as the shepherd weeps at the base of the tree, his tears magically transforming the Heroine back into human form; and love regained as the shepherd and shepherdess are reunited. Ginger Gray (maiden name: Glen) reminded me recently that she turned the Heroine shepherdess Victoria Tobia, into a tree with the gesture of a simple flick of her forefinger, released from the thumb. The parting image of the dance is of the God looking over his shoulder from the video above at the reunited Heroine and Hero, with the implication that this may be a recurring cycle. Rush’s score follows this melodramatic narrative with variations on Stravinsky’s melody, at turns romantic, lecherous, jealous, despairing, and joyous.
At the time, this was the most robust production I had mounted in my career I was able to take advantage of the large proscenium stage, the School’s music ensembles, a large cast of dancers, and elaborate production elements conceived and built by professional designers and staff. For several years I kept the foam core forms of several of the sheep in our garage, until finally they got tossed when we moved to a new home.
Review Note: Dancers in photo in the review are Joanne Constantinides and Daniel Gwirtzman, in Pastorale.
Photo below: Thomas Cocco as the God pursuing Victoria Tobia as the Heroine. In the background is seen the cloud covering of the deus ex machina, in which the God descends to the stage.
