Saturday, September 17, 2011

By Merilyn Jackson

Aw, come on. Fess up. You know you’ve done it when nobody’s looking — stood in front of a mirror and conducted your favorite Mahler or, at least, played air guitar.

In 2007, Xavier Le Roy turned his “conducting” of a recording of Le Sacre du Printemps into a marvelous dance performance. He’s taken this concept to another level with More Mouvements, not so much choreographing on the musicians in the piece, but allowing the music (or the score) to impel the movement, which looks more like pantomime than dance, especially when the instruments have gone missing and/or are hidden with musical doubles playing them behind screens.

Local new music group Bowerbird has pulled off the coup of bringing this piece to the Live Arts Festival this year, performed by eight musicians who include members of the Klangforum Wien. Helmut Lachenmann’s musique concrète pulls sound from each instrument’s entire body; conversely, the musicians’ movements are mostly upper body.