Peter Quanz
It’s a bold and promising idea: take a Pulitzer prize-winning Steve Reich score, and offer two interesting and highly contrasting young choreographers the opportunity to create new dances to it. It’s the kind of adventurous, artist-nurturing programming that the Guggenheim’s Works and Process series includes amid its more traditional behind-the-scenes-with-the-artists events. This week, it has really come up with a lively group of collaborators. Both Larry Keigwin and Peter Quanz have been commissioned to choreograph a premiere to Reich’s “Double Sextet.”
Keigwin, who must be New York’s busiest choreographer these days, is known for his imaginative, witty, sophisticated dances that at times allude to his club-dancing background and are marked by go-for-broke physicality. Quanz, a Canadian freelance choreographer, is firmly rooted in the world of classical ballet. His Kaleidoscope for ABT was a big, traditional-yet-fresh classical work that made a strong impression, and his growing list of commissions includes Aria Suspended for the Kirov Ballet in 2007. They represent very different areas of the dance world, but both are avid dancegoers who keep up with much of what gets performed on the city’s dance stages.
Each had some familiarity with each other’s work when they were brought together by Mary Sharp Cronson, the founder and producer of Works and Process, to discuss joining forces for this season’s inaugural program. “We knew we wanted some parallel use of something—the same dancers, or same idea or same composer,” Keigwin explained after a recent run through of his piece, Sidewalk. “During a brainstorming session, Mrs. Cronson said, ‘how about Reich?’ Soon after, he confirmed that he would like to participate, and that he’s got this new pc of music, ‘Double Sextet,’ and we could use that. Weeks later, he wins the Pulitzer Prize for it.”
Reich has long been a favorite choice for choreographers. Indeed, he and Arvo Part must be the composers whose scores are most frequently heard in dance events. But here was one of Reich’s latest compositions, a typically layered, fiercely rhythmic one, scored for two sextets consisting of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and vibraphone. (In performance, chamber ensembles have the option of recording one sextet and performing live along with their own recorded track, or performing it with 12 musicians. It has been heard in local performances played both ways.)
Neither Quanz had set dances to minimalist music during his student and early professional days, but then veered more towards classical scores. So approaching the Reich score as the launching point for In Tandem was a particular challenge. “I felt I would be able to approach it in a better way than I had in the past. I’m clearer in how I use structure; I have a more developed vocabulary; I’m more confident in my craft. So I felt that music that really gives you a lot of freedom, like minimalist music, was an appropriate challenge for me. The score is very intricate, mathematically challenging. It’s been a lot of work to find my own emotional core in the music. But it’s been rewarding.”
Both choreographers are using six dancers, but in very different contexts. Keigwin has a regular troupe of his own, so he has created the piece with people who are familiar with his process and whose bodies and capacities he know well. Quanz’s work takes him from company to company—Philadelphia one month, St. Petersburg the next. Having worked with Royal Winnipeg Ballet last spring, and given the freedom to make this piece on whatever dancers he chose, he opted to return there. It’s the closest thing he has to familiar territory, having gone through the RWB School and started choreographing there.
“This is one of the first occasions when I could really make the choice to work with people that I knew, and that’s been a tremendous privilege,” Quanz said by phone form Winnipeg. “What you’ll see in this piece is the closest collaborative process I’ve ever had. It’s a piece I think the dancers feel a tremendous ownership for.”
Both choreographers are keenly aware of the intimate dimensions and unusual configuration of the Peter B. Lewis Theater, where the performances will take place. Quanz will have very limited time to put his dance on the stage, while Keigwin has the advantage of being New York-based, and rehearsing in the theater for the past week. A recent run through of the almost-complete dance had his sneaker-clad dancers robustly roaming far offstage and using all areas of the theater, to exhilarating effect. “I’m always intrigued by pedestrian vs. dance vocabulary, and juxtapositions between those,” he said.
“I like the idea of playing with foreground and background, and I’m hoping this captures that.”
As part of the program, Keigwin and Quanz will join in a panel discussion about their experiences choreographing to Reich’s score, and the composer himself will join in the conversation at the Saturday evening performance.
Steve Reich Interpreted: New Choreography by Larry Keigwin and Peter Quanz
Sept. 11 & 12, Peter B. Lewis Theater, Guggenheim Museum, 1071 5th Ave. (at E. 89 St.), 212-423-3587; times vary, $10 and up
