Day 287: Contemporary ballet and OSU
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day
287 — Contemporary ballet and OSU
15-May-1972
(Montag–Mon.)
TRANSCRIPT
Nothing much new.
Went to the ballet. Was very interesting. Modern
dance can be extremely communicative, perhaps even
more so than classical ballet. Very interesting and
exciting.
REFLECTIONS
Contemporary
ballet. I don’t go
to the ballet as often as I like, but I totally
respect and enjoy watching the tempered movements of
both classical and modern ballet. The skill,
training, perseverance, practice, techniques, and the
art of ballet and modern dance is as equally
demanding as that of any professional instrumentalist
or singer. As with the opera, the underlying music is
often what I personally focus on to understand the
action. As with the opera, I am not an aficionado of
ballet or dance, but I appreciate it, enjoy it, and
love to experience its artistry. I am often
fascinated by modern dance and ballet.
Ohio
State University — Ruth. I may as
well tell this story as it has some relevancy here.
When I was a doctoral student and TA at The Ohio
State University years later, I was given the
opportunity to collaborate with a graduate dance
major at the university and write a contemporary work
for her to perform in a dance concert. What I
remember most is that her dance concept was based on
“minimalism” and consisted of a series of many
“static” scenes, with minimal movement and static
poses. Thus, I knew that the music would be
minimalistic as well. I don’t remember who suggested
the subject theme (whether it was myself or her) but
I based the music on the Book of Ruth from the Old
Testament.
Composing Ruth. The text
came from The Book of Ruth. I composed and recorded
the music in OSU’s Electronic Music Studio, that was
under the direction of my doctoral advisor, composer
Thomas Wells. I recorded a singer singing the
biblical text and then proceeded to manipulate the
voice using musique concrète and electronic music
techniques to produce the composition. It was a
tribute back at my Vienna days and composition under
Prof. Kaufmann.
Dr. Wells was the director of the electronic lab as
part of the composition department at Ohio State.
When speaking of teachers, I also owe Dr. Wells a lot
of gratitude for his direction and assistance during
my tenure at OSU. I also feel, as with Ms. Boulanger,
that I let him down by not seeing my degree to its
completion.
Minimalistic
Ruth. The final
work was pure minimalism, with its sparse composition
designed to match the minimalistic dance poses and
movements on stage by the solo performer. There are
many spaces, pauses, and “scenes” in the work and in
the music. As a result, the music does not work quite
as well on its own, because without the visual dance,
the music feels very sparse. “Ruth” was performed to
a full-house in the OSU auditorium and was received
well—the music/dance combination produced an eerie
drama to the work.
John
- - - -
