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Sasha Waltz & Guests with IN C

Together with Philzuid, they unhinge the sense of time at Theater Heerlen

By Thomas Linden

Even sixty years after its creation, Terry Riley’s composition In C remains a challenge. Today it is considered a kind of foundational text of minimal music. In his notation, the Californian composer provides 53 tonal patterns. Every musician begins with the first, then moves on to the second, gradually working their way through the piece. Yet the performers themselves decide how long they play each figure and when they move on. As a result, the overall duration remains variable. Few compositions have ever granted musicians as much freedom in performance as Terry Riley’s In C.

It is, however, a work that almost demands choreography. Music is organised sound, and sound is movement. Sasha Waltz fortunately could not resist the temptation to translate Riley’s system into dance. Her twelve-member ensemble takes its positions—and immediately the changes begin. At first the dancers appear only as shadows against a red background that later shifts to blue, pink, and violet. Bodies dart and rush across the stage; here and there another transition takes place. One might think the piece has not yet begun—but in fact it already has, for there are no fixed positions. Instead, they are constantly exchanged over the next sixty minutes.

Once the music enters, the performance gathers momentum. The eight musicians of the Dutch orchestra Philzuid lend the evening an acoustic force that becomes the driving engine of the stage action.

IN-C_Sasha-Waltz©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

The dance movements themselves are not spectacular in isolation: turns, brief jumps, small hops, little pirouettes. It is a vocabulary that resembles a playful exploration of the alphabet of movement. The impression arises that the many actions on stage obey a system whose structure remains mysteriously inaccessible to us as observers. One might think of a machine—but that is precisely not what we are seeing here, even if certain movements occasionally recall mechanical parts.

On the contrary, the system of this piece exists only insofar as it opens up a field of possibilities for the dancers themselves to decide which figure to perform and when to change. It is therefore almost miraculous that this choreography reaches its endpoint after sixty minutes.

The audience’s gaze, too, is not directed—as it would be in classical ballet—by the unfolding of a narrative. Instead it is liberated. One may follow individual dancers along their paths through the composition, or widen one’s view to encompass the bustling panorama of the stage. The genius of Terry Riley’s composition lies in the inexplicable fact that synchronous and asynchronous playing coexist without the sonic texture ever becoming tangled. The same holds true for the dance. Encounters between men and women recur again and again on stage; here and there laughter breaks out. There is no doubt that these unceasing physical actions—performed with great precision—give the dancers immense pleasure.

Minimalism represents a complete departure from narration and meaning. Only what can be heard and seen exists. Yet one should not fall into the mistake of believing that reduction yields little artistic reward. Riley’s music creates a powerful pull if one simply allows oneself to enter it.

Sasha Waltz has the more difficult task of producing comparable effects, since the human body responds more slowly than a musical instrument. And yet at some point the ensemble succeeds in dislodging our sense of time, leaving us simply watching this unique web of movement and relationships unfold. Because the twelve dancers act with slight temporal delays, the choreography acquires a lyrical quality that makes the grace of human movement newly perceptible. Repetition plays its part as well, allowing each individual figure to stand out in its own right.

What remains astonishing is the extraordinarily flexible interplay between the individual and the group, between detail and the overall image. Everything remains connected to everything else.

Minimalism can be demanding because it always contains a tendency toward performance. Letting go of one’s own thoughts and surrendering entirely to perception asks a great deal of the body. Accordingly, one feels after the performance as though one has been put through a wringer—yet at the same time strangely refreshed. This was evident among the dancers, the musicians, and ultimately the audience as well. So much energy in the room demands release.

And release came at Theater Heerlen in the form of a spontaneous standing ovation.