| Anna
Halprin
Emergence
and Seasons
by
Rita Felciano
San Francisco, July 23, 2003.
A
month ago today, members of Anna Halprin’s The Sea Ranch
Collective performed "Summer," the
first section of a new piece, The Seasons,
conceived as part of the 25th anniversary celebration
of Halprin’s Tamalpa Institute, “Summer” was performed
in the woods of the property surrounding her
Mountain Studio Theatre and the legendary “dance deck”
in Kentfield, north of San Francisco. “Fall” is scheduled
for October.
Attended by supporters, Tamalpa students and the dance
curious, the afternoon performance included at least
one skeptic. This one. Yet for the past month I have
lived with the images of these dancers fused into an
environment resplendent with dappled sunshine and cool
sea breezes. The memories have been good company.
Halprin’s fifty year career—she is turning 83 this fall--
as an innovator and thinker about the intersection of
art and life, her rethinking of the idea of performance,
and her work with people with life threatening illnesses
demand the greatest respect. And admiration. At the
same time, a nagging doubt about what sounds suspiciously
like utopianism, a disbelief that a deep reconnection
with the natural world is possible, and an intense distrust
of group process or participatory performance have kept
me at a distance from her life long work.
“Moving Toward Life”, (Wesleyan University Press, 1995),
Halprin’s collection of writing is subtitled ‘Five Decades
of Tranformational Dance’. She believes that dance can
change life. I have my doubts.
 In
introducing Seasons during the weekend of the
summer solstice, Halprin explained that the dancers
were not trying to create a ritual—which cannot be invented—but
a ritual performance. Ritual performances, she said,
make possible a common language out of which rituals,
which are based on cultural myths, can grow. That seemed
fair enough. Whatever else it was intended to be, “Summer”
turned out to be an exquisite site-specific performance
piece built around the theme of emergence.
Led by a silent guide, dressed in red from head to toe,
the audience, which was not supposed to think of itself
as “audience” but as “witnesses”, proceded along leafy
paths from one performance arena to another. The artists,
Halprin had explained, had chosen a specific site and
created their section of the work from that place. All
along the way we would encounter a hunched-over dry
as dust gray old woman, silently crouching next to a
path, merging with a pile of earth, only to disappear
and pop again. After a while you began to believe that
she really was the spirit of these woods.
At the first of the six way stations, ‘Oak Grove’ (by
Lesley Ehrenfeld) you looked down into grove of oaks
from whose blackened, knarled branches hung equally
murky pods. They were interspersed with snaking rope
and plant llanas. Ever so slowly a hand emerged from
one, a foot from another and gradually nude bodies began
to profile themselves against their murky encasings.
The only sound was the of the occasional bird and the
hammers from a nearby construction site. It took a very
long time; this birthing process set up its rhythm.
For ‘Bay Entrance’, choreographer Andrew Ilsley had
visited a tackle shop. A huge, jammed-full cargo net
had been suspended between laurel trees. Amid cries
and shouts, it began to rock and shake with such violence
that you feared for safety of the dancers who clawed,
fought and struggled to free themselves. Repeatedly
they pulled each other down until finally one of them
hoisted himself high enough to climb towards the sun
beams which filtered down onto this seemingly primal
urge.
Before reaching ‘In the Circle’, the “witnesses” paired
up by holding two ends of a stick and guided each through
a sensory experience, taking turns turns trusting the
partner with eyes closed. It was the one part of the
afternoon which seemed a little precious.
Victoria Lucchetti’s ‘Circle’, took place in a sensitively
and elaboratedly constructed environment. Saplings had
been connected with tiny sticks, webs spun with branches,
delicate fences woven out of whatever happened to have
fallen the night before. Nature had been re-arranged
but you had to look closely to notice. It was then that
you also noticed a few bodies half-buried in the soil.
The focal point was a lean to pyramid which opened its
top as an arm emerged. Eventually the sticks collapsed
into a perfectly circular pattern, and the standing
dancer slowly sank into a fetal position into what had
become a nest.
 A
few steps further on stretch fabric enmeshed and moaning
figures tried to free themselves from the constraints
in ‘On the Path’ (by Annie Hallatt). One was in white.
The one in black, tied to a tree, looked like a mummy
trying to come back to life. The one in green rolled
down the hill, picking up earth and leaves and sticks
until becoming almost indistinguishable from the environment.
While all the episodes interpreted the idea of emergence
with great skill and individuality, maybe the most moving
was Lakshimi Aysola’s ‘Clearing.’ Throughout the afternoon,
Bill Cauley’s extraordinary soundscape had punctuated
the silences with his flute, tambourine and violin playing.
At this particular point, he stood on a slight rise,
looking up against the top of a hill which went straight
up into the sky A half buried figure was nestled in
the hollow of a tree stump to his right. Cauley started
to blow into a clay whistle, and the birds answered.
Again and again, he seemed to be calling for something
until three masked, black clothed figures emerged over
the horizon, and Cauley switched to a whispering tambourine.
The trio started down the steep, sandy incline, shedding
the cloak and later the mask. As each ended on the tree
stump above the curled up perfomer, she descended and
set the one below rolling down the hill. At the end
four earth-encrusted, white clad figures rested in a
pile on top of each other.
The final scene gathered all the performers in a circle.
They formed their arms into what seemed like a nest.
For a while nothing happened. Then ever so slowly a
gently floating figure descended from what must have
been from a sixty foot height in the trees. It was Karl
Gillick in ‘Tree Top.’ The dancers welcomed him into
their arms, and everyone returned to “the deck.’
“Summer” continued with a communal meal and a night
time closing ceremony, ‘Pathway’, by Halprin which I
did not attend. The other performers were Oshana Biondi,
Cindy Davis, Melinda Harrison, Taira Restar, Shenwood
Chen, Frank Hediger, Loring Vogel, Rick Lepore, Eeo
Stubblefield, Lian Wilson and Dina Garbis.
Walking back in silence as the shadows were becoming
longer, I couldn’t help but thinking about the beauty
of these simple yet so carefully thought out and realized
interpretations of the idea of birth. I also thought
about the centrality of woods in human thought. The
Greek gods walked in them. So did Krishna. As—in his
fashion--did the god of Genesis.
I also realized that beyond their natural beauty, Halprin’s
woods have acquired some of that sacred nature. In the
last thirty years so much thought, so much creativity
has emerged from that place. Above all, I thought of
Tracy Rhodes. He was an immensely gifted San Francisco
dancer who participated in Halprin’s circle of healing
for men with HIV. Tracy spent a whole night in those
woods, by himself. Shortly afterwards he died. I almost
could feel his presence.
copyright Rita Felciano 2003
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