BAM Blog Questionnaire: It Takes a Village

Steel Hammer—coming to the BAM Harvey Theater this Wednesday, December 2—creatively explores the cost of hard labor on the human body and soul. We spoke with four individuals involved in this collaboration—two singers, a stage manager, and two playwrights—to better understand the process involved in creating this multi-hyphenate work of new music theater.

Steel Hammer. Photo: Krannert Center

How did you get involved with Steel Hammer? What is your contribution to the piece?

KATIE GEISSINGER (singer): I'd seen the concert Steel Hammer at Zankel Hall with Trio Mediaeval in 2009, and was longing to sing it. When Julia Wolfe called because she was casting a local trio, I jumped!

CARL HANCOCK RUX (playwright): Anne Bogart (and SITI Company) contacted me and asked if I'd be interested in writing text for a new piece she was working on based on the John Henry myth. I'd long been a fan of Anne Bogart and Julia Wolfe and was thrilled to accept the invitation. I wrote the "Migrant Mamie Remembers" monologue performed by Patrice Johnson Chevannes.

ELLEN MEZZERA (stage manager): I joined Steel Hammer a few weeks before we went to Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2014 as the production stage manager.

KIA CORTHRON (playwright): Anne Bogart contacted me by email. I think we may have met in passing before that, but never formally. She asked me to be one of the contributing writers.

EMILY EAGEN (singer): I remember first discussing the piece with Julia Wolfe on the phone, and, when she described the connections the work makes between folk music and contemporary music, I got so excited! I can still remember that exact moment.

So Many John Henrys

Photo: Michael Brosilow

By Robert Jackson Wood

It’s been said that you can never sing a folk song twice. Folk songs are living organisms, the argument goes, not reproducible objects, existing to perpetually renew the contract between universal myths and the gritty particulars of our lives. Sometimes, because songs migrate and the oral tradition gets creative, those particulars work their way into the songs themselves and variations proliferate. A Scottish glen becomes a Virginia holler, a silver dagger becomes a pen knife, rosy-red lips become lily-white hands. The details change so that the myths don’t have to.

Such is the case with the “The Ballad of John Henry,” whose 200+ documented versions form the basis of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Julia Wolfe’s work Steel Hammer and its theatrical adaptation, which comes to BAM in December. The story of John Henry is a familiar one: a spike-driving railroad worker of Bunyonesque strength beats a steam drill in a contest to bore through a mountain, only to “die with his hammer in his hands.” That folk music historian Alan Lomax called the legend “possibly America’s greatest piece of folklore” is no wonder: the mythos of the railroad, man vs. machine anxiety, bootstraps individualism—the muscular American imaginary is there in its entirety.

But the details are predictably fuzzy. Was John Henry 5’1” or 6’1”? Was his wife Polly Ann or Sally Ann? Did his hammer shine like silver or gold?

BAM Blog Questionnaire: Will Bond & Jenna Riegel, A Rite dactors

by Rhea Daniels

Jenna Riegel and Will Bond in A Rite, photo by Paul B. Goode

Will Bond is an actor and a founding member of SITI Company and Jenna Riegel is a dancer with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. They are both featured performers in A Rite, an incisive deconstruction of the riot inducing Rite of Spring. The piece is a collaboration between the BTJ/AZDC & SITI Company conceived, directed, and choreographed by Anne Bogart, Bill T. Jones, and Janet Wong in collaboration with the performers. As a product of this collaboration both Will and Jenna may now be referred to as dactors—a term coined by the companies to refer to the all-encompassing skills of the performers.

Did you have any preconceived notions about The Rite of Spring before you entered the studio? Had you seen/heard it performed before?
Jenna: At the time we started working on this I hadn’t ever seen a version. When we started working on it, I watched a few: the Joffrey Ballet version, Pina Bausch. In our workshop that we did at the beginning of the process we watched several excerpts of different versions. I was excited from the beginning that it would be a deconstruction, and about the question of whether it was necessary to even use all parts of the score or if we could use other sound.

Will: I'd seen The Rite of Spring as dance, and I've listened to it many times. SITI actually referenced it once in our production of Who Do You Think You Are, which is a lot about the brain, theory of mind, and neuroplasticity. I had some idea of what our A Rite might be like, but it hasn't turned out anything like that idea.

Trojan Women (After Euripides) Opening Night Reception

 Trojan Women cast members Katherine Crockett, Brent Werzner, and Ellen Lauren (Photo: Elena Olivo)

Last week, SITI Company, under the direction of Anne Bogart, proudly returned to the BAM stage with its thrilling production of Trojan Women (After Euripides). The magnificent actors mingled with BAM Producers Council members in the Campbell Lobby of the BAM Harvey Theater to celebrate opening night.

Read on for more about the event and check out the full web album here!

The Making of Trojan Women: Part 4

At the Getty Villa. Photo: Craig Schwartz

The fourth part of a blog series about the creation of SITI Company's Trojan Women.

Day 24 – Brent Werzner (Poseidon)

We started rehearsing the play inside, from the top, before we moved outside to try our first run-through. As always it is a challenge to find myself back in the theater and working Poseidon’s prologue after last working in the amphitheater. It takes some winding up before hitting a stride today. I enjoy what Anne [Bogart] brings to my attention, examining the “knitting” of the moments. She challenges me to be more aware of my breath, my choices. During this first portion of rehearsal we really examine the moments when the Trojan Women learn their fate as decided by the Generals of the Armies of Greece­—what was decided by the drawing of the lots, and also Kassandra’s vision.

Now we’re outside. (I understand one of the final conversations at the pool yesterday was a discussion on how it had been a great day and how we should really do a run-through tomorrow.)

Cue dramatic drums.

The Making of Trojan Women: Part 3

J. Ed Araiza, Katherine Crockett, and Ellen Lauren. Photo: Craig Schwartz

The third part of a blog series about the creation of SITI Company's Trojan Women.

Day 20 – J. Ed Araiza (Menelaus)

Today we did not Za’ar, or even work on the music/singing/dance, but after more discussion we went straight outside after a short break and AGAIN looked at the beginning of the play, the very important entrance of Poseidon and then the “SETing” of the chairs by the Chorus. This has been a long discussion—a real investigation into what the rules are, what is the world we are setting up, and WHO is setting it up. It began perhaps as a simple question of where does Poseidon enter from and how does the stage get set, and by whom and why?

Then, where does the Chorus enter, what is he doing, and does Poseidon see him or enable him or control him?

Then, where and why does Hecuba enter and is it more “FORMAL” or character driven?

Then, how do the Women enter—from where and why and how?

But now… I really do believe we have a real and “true” beginning and it is a beautiful yet simple image.

The Making of Trojan Women: Part 2

Leon Ingulsrud, Ellen Lauren, and Makela Spielman. Photo: Craig Schwartz

The second part of a blog series about the creation of SITI Company's Trojan Women.
 
Day 8 – Katherine Crockett (Helen of Troy)

In Viewpoints today, Anne [Bogart] asked us to add vocal articulation. I found this particularly interesting as it allowed for the experience of finding a new relationship with the text without a predetermined one associated with word meaning. Am curious to explore and experience this again.

Next, we continued our Za'ar dance training [ensembles led by women], which I lead. It is challenging to find ways of teaching such an intense and particular art form when it is something that I too am just learning how to do. Also, since it is fundamentally an individual and improvisational expression where the participant is moved by the inner spirit and the rhythm of the music, there are many variations to explore. They all seems to revolve around the spiral and circular movement of the body and head in particular, and today we added this circular head movement to a spinning of the body. I still feel disoriented and “high” for quite a while after this, as I think several people felt. Maybe practice will make it easier, or maybe it is just about succumbing to this disoriented state and letting oneself lose control for a bit. Also, this dance is very demanding on the back muscles and we are all feeling a bit sore.

The Making of Trojan Women: Part 1

Katherine Crockett and Ellen Lauren. Photo: Craig Schwartz

During the 10-week residency at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles where Trojan Women (SITI Company, directed by Anne Bogart, BAM Harvey Theater, Nov 28—30) originally premiered, the cast took turns emailing diaries to each other, to the company members not directly involved, and to the board and staff. Here and in subsequent blog posts, excerpts from these entries about the process of making Trojan Women.

Day 1 – Ellen Lauren (Hecuba)

How extraordinary to have on day one around the table the expertise of the Getty’s staff, classicists, ands scholars. Ken [Lapatin, associate curator of antiquities at J. Paul Getty Museum] speaks of the layers of Troy excavated, and he's so breezy and engaging, with the modern irreverence that can only come with a deep knowledge of his subject. Anne brings up that it seems from her reading she is finding that a central metaphor is the idea of an earthquake having leveled Troy, not fire. And that the play is a series of aftershocks so that finding where those all are in the text is key. It’s not lost on anyone that "earthquake" here in LA is a particularly potent image.

welcometobobrauschenbergamerica

bobrauschenbergamerica

Stuffed chickens, backyard bathtubs, roller skates, pilled blankets: these are just a few of the homespun discards featured in Robert Rauschenberg’s work. As a young artist in New York in the 1950s, Rauschenberg would roam the streets around his studio, picking up everything from yesterday’s funny papers to worn out car tires and use them in his assemblages. In line with many of his Black Mountain contemporaries, Rauschenberg sought to close the gap between art and life by incorporating into his artwork the textures of American detritus.