By Steve Sucato

For GroundWorks DanceTheater’s very first collaboration with CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra, the company has created a dance-on-video work to accompany the live performance by CityMusic musicians of composer Olivier Messiaen’s poignant masterwork, “Quatuor pour la fin du temps” (Quartet for the End of Time). The work is part of CityMusic Cleveland‘s Justice, Equality, Hope Chamber Music Series program Transcendence, which will be presented on Sunday, February 27 at The Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus.

Composed by Messiaen while a French army World War II prisoner-of-war at Stalag VIII-A in Görlitz, Germany, the 50-minute “Quatuor pour la fin du temps” for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, debuted at the prison camp on January 15, 1941, for an audience of some 400 prisoners and German officers.

He started the composition with movements that referenced passages from his earlier works and added five new movements written in the camp. Each movement of the score relates to the apocalyptic Book of Revelation vividly depicted in The Cloisters Apocalypse, an illuminated manuscript from around 1330.

Messiaen later said of the Stalag VIII-A performance, “Never was I listened to with such rapt attention and comprehension.”

GroundWorks DanceTheater Executive Artistic Director David Shimotakahara, the video project’s director/choreographer, here talks about this unique collaboration with CityMusic Cleveland, and the creation of a dance-on-video work to Messiaen’s music.

How did this video project come about?

CityMusic Pianist Donna Lee proposed the collaboration. Donna told me she always wanted to see something done with movement to that piece of music [“Quatuor pour la fin du temps”]. She had it in her mind it would be a wonderful dimension to add to their performance of it. CityMusic Cleveland Executive Director, Eugenia Strauss agreed, and she contacted me about it. I am truly grateful to them both for this creative opportunity.

Who is working with you on creating the video?

In imagining movement to Messiaen’s music, I didn’t know what the video should look like. I enlisted Kuo-Heng Huang, who was the videographer for Antonio Brown’s 2020 work INSIDE for GroundWorks, to help develop the look of the video.

Where will the video be shot?

We will be filming it at Cleveland State University’s Black Box Theatre*. We are going to try to film so it feels like the movement is out of time and place. It will be shown on a 16’ wide by 40’ high fabric video screen as a backdrop to CityMusic’s quartet of musicians [Miho Hashizume, violin; Keith Robinson, cello; Daniel Gilbert, clarinet and Donna Lee, piano] playing live.

What was your choreographic vision for the video?

I got imagery almost immediately from listening to the music, it’s so rich. I had this idea of how the viewer is coming into this world we are creating in the video as if coming into the midst of a mourning ritual, where there is a collective outpouring of grief.  I felt there was a way through movement to imagine a kind of internal journey experienced in the process of dying, involving memory and pivotal moments in time.  In thinking about the title, “Quartet for the End of Time” – and in that moment of passing from one state to another, of crossing a boundary, what do we find? This idea speaks to universal themes about connection, shared experience, transition, and the acceptance of loss.

Are you using any unique prop elements or costuming for the video?

Yes. It felt appropriate have some kind of fabric piece, which might be used for different purposes – a connecting line, a boundary, a shroud. The dancers will also be wearing black overgarments that reference ritualistic and formal robes found in many cultures.

How is the video imagery being worked into the live performance of the music?

Six of the score’s eight sections will have video dance imagery.  For conceptual reasons, I didn’t want to have every moment of the score visualized. Throughout the piece, I thought we could fade in and out of scenes fluidly like the feeling of opening and closing one’s eyes.  Videographer Kuo-Heng Huang and I are trying to capture imagery and action that lives in the space between the conscious and unconsciousness.

This is your first time working with Groundworks’ four new company dancers, how do you feel the company is jelling via this project?

Because of the urgency of the project, they just had to dive into it together from the outset. There is a wonderful energy in the studio. Their personalities, and the chemistry between them, is just lovely.

Transcendence will also include a performance of Jungyoon Wie’s new composition “Songs of my Grandmother” and features commissioned artwork by Gina Washington. It will be presented at 5 p.m. on Sunday, February 27 at The Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus, 3649 East 65th Street, Cleveland. Admission is FREE (Reservations requested). For reservations and more information, visit citymusiccleveland.org/current-season/transcendence.

*GroundWorks is very grateful to Holly Holsinger (Chair), DeAndra Stone (Director of Dance), and Cleveland State University’s Department of Theatre and Dance for helping to produce our dance-on-video for Transcendence, and for their ongoing support in making our work possible.

COVID policy: Proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or negative COVID test from within 48 hours of the event is required. Masks are required at all times during the event.

Photos: (top left) GroundWorks dancers Victoria Rumzis (front) and Maddie Hanson. Photo by Dale Dong; David Shimotakahara in studio rehearsing with GroundWorks dancers. Photo by Teagan Reed; “Good Trouble Should Make Radical Change” artwork by Gina Washington. Courtesy of CityMusic Cleveland.