popolvuh.nl Popul Vuh Lives

Popol Vuh in Dance Productions

Occasionally the music of Popol Vuh is used for dance productions. 

1. 1983 - Rachel Brumer  -  ‘Oryx’ 
 

Choreographed and performed by Rachel Brumer.
 

Music: 1st and 3d sections, by Steve Reich (‘Tehillim’),  2d section, ‘Tantric Songs’ from the Popol Vuh
A videorecording is made on March 19, 1983 at the Washington Hall Performance Gallery, Seattle by Sandra Eshleman and Robert McGinley during an On the Boards presentation.
 

Source: www.danceheritage.org
 

2. 1989 – Chris Kaufman - Desire
 

Choreography and performance by Chris Kaufman.
Presented by Dance Theater Workshop
 

Videotaped in performance at Dance Theater Workshop's Bessie Schonberg Theater, New York, as part of the Fall Events, Split Stream, on October 21, 1989, by Video D Studios.
 

Cassette 1
Luckless pedestrian (ca. 14 min.) / music, Tom Waits. His (ca. 8 min.) / music, Bobby Previte ; text, from Frederick Wiseman's documentary Deaf and Blind. Desire borne (ca. 8 min.) / music, Popol Vuh.
 

Cassette 2
Up from under (ca. 32 min.) / [part] 1, music, Special EFX ; [part] 2, music, Aram Khachaturian (from Gayane ballet suite) ; [part] 3, music, Jane Kaufman (Berlin meets the Idaho wall) ; [part] 4 titled Overs, no music credit.
 

Source:  www.danceheritage.org
 

Review
 

New York Times,  October 26, 1989
By Jack Anderson
 

Strength expressed weakness and weakness revealed unexpected strength on Monday night at the Bessie Schonberg Theater. Chris Kaufman - a dancer of remarkable authority - offered a program of solos about social misfits. Yet some of her unfortunates proved quietly defiant.
Strength expressed weakness and weakness revealed unexpected strength on Monday night at the Bessie Schonberg Theater. Chris Kaufman - a dancer of remarkable authority - offered a program of solos about social misfits. Yet some of her unfortunates proved quietly defiant.
Although ''Luckless Pedestrian,'' to gritty recorded songs by Tom Waits, included struts and kicks, the character Ms. Kaufman portrayed was obviously weary. Ms. Kaufman, who is thin and short-haired, made it possible to wonder if this person was male or female. But it was clearly someone who believed that if one stopped moving one might also stop living.
Ms. Kaufman wore a long hood in ''His.'' At times, its ends dangled behind her like a cape. She also imprisoned herself in the garment's folds as if it were a straitjacket. That seemed appropriate for this dance of trembling to ominous music by Bobby Previte and the sound of a quavery voice reciting a not always comprehensible text by Fred Wiseman about problems of a mother and a son.
Crawling across the floor to music by Popol Vuh in ''Desire Borne,'' Ms. Kaufman twisted into such contorted positions that she no longer looked human. After attempting to rise, she gasped. Nevertheless, she did manage to rise.
In ''Up From Under,'' a suite of sketches, the characters ranged from a sad faded beauty who might have stepped from a play by Tennessee Williams to a woman who struck erotic poses as if she were an entertainer in a brothel. But the work ended with a struggle to escape oppression.
Some of the solos could be more concise, for compositional tightness would prevent Ms. Kaufman from inadvertently suggesting that she is using social ills merely as a pretext for ingenious movement. That surely must be the last impression she wishes to convey.
Her concern for the underdog and her magnetic stage presence are equally admirable. Given her expertise, it would also be interesting to see Ms. Kaufman in solos created for her by other choreographers and in revivals of important solos from the modern-dance repertory.