The time is right for company’s Kansas City debut.
When an artist, musical ensemble or dance company appears on the Harriman-Jewell Series, that appearance might have been years in the making. Clark Morris, executive and artistic director of the Harriman-Jewell Series, is always on the search for the best performers to bring to Kansas City, but sometimes that involves planning years in advance.
Such is the case with Jessica Lang Dance, a company Morris has been following for several years and which will open the Harriman-Jewell Series’ 2016-2017 season with a performance at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts on October 1.
“I’ve been going to New York and viewing her work and watching her company develop,” Morris said. “I’ve been trying to find the sweet spot when we have an opening in our schedule and also where the maturation of her company has reached an important level. I really feel like we’ve done that with her and her company. When I was in New York recently, we got to see excerpts from some of her new work, and it was really incredible. It brought tears to my eyes.”
Lang is being recognized as one of the finest choreographers of her generation, but it’s been a lifelong journey to her current success. She started dancing when she was three years old, growing up in a suburb of Philadelphia.
“I danced all the way through my childhood and decided around the age of 14 that it was something I wanted to pursue,” she said. “That’s when I ended up taking on some serious training.”
After graduating high school, Lang attended The Juilliard School, where she graduated with a BFA in 1997. Fresh out of Juilliard, she joined Twyla Tharp Dance. After touring with the company for two years, it disbanded, and Lang was presented with the opportunity to take a new direction in her life.
“It was a really good thing for me because through that two-year experience, I realized I actually didn’t want to be a dancer, that I missed the creative process,” she said. “I had been exploring the creative process when I was at Juilliard and thought maybe it was something I could do. The commissions came quickly, and I just decided I didn’t want to be a dancer. I wanted to create dance instead.”
And create she did, choreographing works for companies around the world, including Joffrey Ballet, Sydney Ballet and the Kansas City Ballet. In 2009, she came to Kansas City to stage “Splendid Isolation III” and also created “A Solo in Nine Parts,” commissioned by the Kansas City Ballet.
Lang’s choreography is a combination of classical technique and beautiful line, as well as a true understanding of modern dance.
Commissions came in rapid succession for Lang, but in 2011, she says she started to question her purpose, whether she was achieving her potential.
“I really wanted to figure out if working with the same group of dancers would change my work,” she said. “We’re a very young company, but we were founded with really seasoned dancers. Now we have a mixed group of ages with a broad span of experience, which is really nice. They’re some of the finest dancers I’ve ever worked with.”
Jessica Lang Dance will perform several works in Kansas City, but two will serve as the centerpiece of the program, “Tesseracts of Time” and “Thousand Yard Stare.” Both are substantial works that deal with complex and important themes.
“Tesseracts of Time — A Dance for Architecture” was a collaboration with architect Steven Holl. It was first performed at Chicago’s Harris Theater for Music and Dance on November 6, 2015.
“This is a really wonderful piece,” Lang said. It explores architecture through dance and Steven’s idea that architecture’s relationship to the ground exists in four different ways: under the ground, in the ground, on the ground and over the ground. It got great reviews in Chicago and was named best performance in 2015 in Chicago by the Chicago Tribune.”
“Tesseracts of Time” will have special interest to Kansas Citians, as Steven Holl designed the Bloch Building expansion of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The building won the 2008 American Institute of Architecture Honor Award and made many lists for the best new building of 2007.
“Thousand Yard Stare” is another new work by Lang. Its name comes from a 1945 Life magazine story’s description of a traumatized soldier’s mental state. Lang says that the work focuses on “war and those affected by it, most importantly veterans.”
“I set it to one of Beethoven’s late string quartets, Op. 132, when he himself was battling with his own illness and facing what he thought was certain death,” Lang said. “I think you hear that in the music. I did a lot of research, working with music therapists and talking to some veterans who were kind enough to share their stories.”
For the costumes, she had the veterans listen to the Beethoven, and then gave them black ink and white paper and asked them to draw what images came to their minds.
“Then my costume designer, Bradon McDonald, transferred those images to textiles and made fabric that essentially became the back of the costumes,” she said. “So, from the front the dancers look like they’re in fatigues, and from the back, you see the underlying soldier’s tale, what lies beneath the skin.”
The Harriman-Jewell Series’ presentation of Jessica Lang Dance highlights the Series’ historic commitment to dance and the best in modern art. It promises to be an exciting and revelatory evening.
For tickets and information, visit www.hjseries.org or call 816-415-5025 for assistance.
–Patrick Neas
