If there is any doubt regarding the creative genius of The Big Muddy Dance Company Artistic Director Kirven Douthit-Boyd, this past weekend’s collaboration with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra at Stifel Theatre should settle it.
Only one-third of the Stifel’s stage was available to The Big Muddy, because they were sharing it with the orchestra. Douthit-Boyd choreographed the accompanying ballet with precision and intention. So much so that the slither of dancing room the thirteen-member troupe was allotted seemed to defy confines of physical space and make provisions for them to have full agency to use their bodies.
The weekend of shows marked the second collaboration between SLSO and The Big Muddy.
“In 2021 we opened our season with a great project with them, which was my first collaboration with The Big Muddy and their director and choreographer Kirven Douthit-Boyd,” said SLSO Music Director Stéphane Denève. “I so loved it that I said, ‘let’s do some more, please.’”
The added layer of movement lent itself perfectly to the moment of artistic intersectionality offered by SLSO through their presentation of Adam Shoenberg’s “Picture Studies.”
“It is a piece inspired by artwork – four paintings, three photographs and one sculpture – and I think that it was the perfect colorful music to ignite the great imagination of Kirven,” said Denève, who also conducted the weekend of shows. “I am very excited that we have all the talent of The Big Muddy to collaborate with us on stage tonight.”
Shoenberg was also in attendance for the performance. The stunning interpretation received a four-minute standing ovation.
The first two movements of “Picture Studies” had whimsical, romantic beginnings that resembled the sound of springtime.
The second transitioned into a pace heavy on staccato that gave a hustle and bustle energy. The dancers responded in kind by keeping pace and augmented the experience with leaps and turns that required every inch of their designated stage space. By this point, it became clear that Douthit-Boyd kept the strengths of every troupe member in mind with his choreography. The Big Muddy company members reflect the diversity of dance – and he also gave each of them an opportunity to express elements from their respective backgrounds. Classical ballet, contemporary, modern – even hints of jazz and African were on display as they powered through Shoenberg’s 30-plus minute piece.
It was also obvious that SLSO and Denève’s take on “Picture Studies” had a permanent grasp on the audience. They were transfixed. The music shifted dramatically with each movement – from somber, to foreboding and suspenseful, to hopeful and optimistic – but listeners sat as still as the sculpture that inspired “Picture Studies.”
The strings of the third movement juxtaposed against the woodwinds was absolutely breathtaking. The way they filled the Stifel was like fresh air filling one’s lungs upon stepping outside for the first time on a beautiful morning. Meanwhile The Big Muddy dancers paired up and expressed the essence of romance with beautiful extensions and lifts that exuded grace and elegance.
Other highlights from the subsequent movements included the thunderous climactic music of movement four that The Big Muddy complimented with choreographed interpretive masculinity. The tenderness of movement five that devolves from an elegant and simple expression of wind and strings to a haunting monolith of sound. The movement then reemerged with a compelling call and response between strings and percussion that featured a jazz-infused clarinet solo. The horns of the final movement floated atop the strings while the xylophone filled the space between them.
Remixing ‘Romeo and Juliet’
SLSO went solo for the second half of the show, which featured selections from Sergei Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet.”
Denève condensed the two-and-a-half-hour work for the sake of time. He also – like so many other music directors who perform the work – took some creative liberties.
“I wish I could call him and ask him, ‘why did you put the suite in that order?’ Because, it kind of doesn’t make sense,” Denève said about Prokofiev, who died two decades before Denève was born.
Denève calls his take on the work, “The Romantic Suite.”
“I tried to follow the arc of the narrative of the Shakespeare play,” Denève told the nearly sold-out audience. “It is a very romantic story. It is a very tragic story.”
Performed in C Major, Denève’s take on the classic composition included a handful of moments of extended silence towards the end, to give audiences an opportunity to sit with what they had experienced musically within the suites. Listeners were so overwhelmed that they found it hard to resist the urge to applaud. For “Romeo at Juliet’s Grave,” they could no longer fight it – and were lovingly hushed by Denève.
When the work concluded with “Juliet’s Death,” they couldn’t seem to emerge from their seats fast enough to offer their second standing ovation of the night. Denève used each section of SLSO to successfully navigate the audience through every range of emotion expressed through Prokofiev’s famed composition.
“Even though they die at the end of the story, their love is eternal,” Denève said before he and the orchestra presented the piece. “And it continues somewhere else.”
