Be Here Now is Benjamin Millepied’s new work for LA Dance Project, and Minh and I saw a preview of it at the LADP's studio. Inspired by Seven Pillars, the recent percussion masterwork by composer, Andy Akiho, Millepied's score for the 60-minute dance piece utilizes Entr’acte for strings by Caroline Shaw, followed by seven selections from Seven Pillars. The dancers are remarkable and the music is mind-blowing, but the choreography really missed the mark for us.
Before exploring why were unmoved, I should note that the other 80 people in attendance responded enthusiastically. And the two reviews I've read are positive. So my criticisms are probably not relevant to others.
How does one choreograph dance to percussion? One approach is to capture the feeling of "being moved to move", where the music is so compelling, the dancers can't help but dance. This is a universal human response, and every culture has dance meant to be enjoyed this way. Think African tribal dances, leaps in ballet, and krump. Another approach I can imagine is "the body as instrument", where the dancer is conveying an artistic message from the choreographer. This message is often more intellectual, conceptual, "high-arty".
Unfortunately, the choreography of Be Here Now didn't work for me in either reading. Why?
Why weren't the dancers "moved to move"? If I had to go out on a limb, I'd guess Millepied does not feel the music of Seven Pillars. The choreography makes me guess he appreciates the music, perhaps as "expert" and "complex", but doesn't have a physical response to it. (I could be way off base here, and my sincere apologies to Millepied if I am, but I think this speculation best encapsulates my response to the choreography, so I'll brazenly continue.) For me, so much of the choreography misses the key rhythmic feels of Seven Pillars. Whereas Minh and I would be bobbing our heads to the uniquely heavy groove, the choreography would be light and flowy. Phrases don't start and end along with the musical changes, and they don't break that convention in a way that feels intentional. I don't get the feeling that Millipied spent time with the score, or helped the dancers understand the rhythms, explaining how the zylophone's repeated note is actually playing against the underlying pulse. Instead, the rhythms of the choreography feel simple, and the interpretations of the music's feel, arbitrary. We catch the dancers' eyes cast downward, remembering what comes next, and counting "5, 6, 7, 8". These dancers are not "moved to move".
Perhaps the choreography was created "from on high", without enough input from the performers. I don't see individual dancers' personalities or movement vocabularies. It feels like they're being told what to do. Worse yet, they're being told what to do but not why. The movements don't feel buttressed by an underlying meaning and emotion. Facial expressions are scripted. "Look at one another and smile." This is one of my pet peeves, both in dance and taiko.
Why it doesn't succeed conceptually.
I'm only a beginning composer, but I think a lot about form, arrangement, and phrasing, and these general concepts are shared by both taiko and dance. And as a player, I think about both efficiency and expression, albeit within a more limited scope than dance. For the first half of Be Here Now, I wondered, "Am I missing something?" Is there structure that's just going over my head? Searching for meaning in "the body as instrument", I couldn't find it.
<note from the future: I spoke with Andy and he explained how Millipied really *does* understand the score and loves the music. It left me doubting the reasoning behind my criticisms. After that conversation, I gave up on writing the above review, and now in revisiting it months later, time has further blurred my reasoning. So... to sum it all up... Although I can't articulate why, the choreography of Be Here Now really irked me.>