By Bryan Hooten
The following is part I of a reflection on music, dance and improvisation, growing out of my work and friendship with modern dancer, Madeleine Reber. I took a trip down to Greensboro, NC to give a performance with her earlier this year and this is the story.
Some of the best advice I have ever received as been to “play music with your friends.” Luckily, everyone I play music with in Richmond falls into that category. At the Virginia Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, a summer program for gifted high school students where I teach, I get to play music, meditate, act, improvise, and philosophize with a whole other set of friends. One of those friends is Madeleine Reber, a modern dancer from Ohio who served on the faculty during my first year teaching in the program. During each installment of the program, the faculty put on a variety show, a forum for serious performances and hysterical spoofs. Without even knowing each other that well, Madeleine, percussionist Andy Brockmann and I decided to create a solo trombone, percussion and dance collaborative improvisation. The performance was a hit, both with us and with the students and we re-imagined it two years later when Madeleine returned to the faculty.
After taking up an adjunct position at UNC Greensboro, Madeleine mentioned that she wanted to collaborate again, this time on her home turf. I agreed that this would be a fun project and we booked a slot on the UNCG Dance alumni concert. Packing up my horn, some clothes, and a few CD’s I had purchased at Clean Feed Fest the week before during Fight the Big Bull’s performance there, I hit the road in my newly self-repaired car on a rainy October afternoon. I felt a mechanic’s pride rolling into Greensboro, knowing that the new distributor has doing its job and that the new fuel filter had drastically improved gas mileage. Exchanging hugs with Madeleine and her partner, Mona, even as they scurried about setting up their new home, I unloaded my stuff in the guest bedroom. Mona was ecstatic that I chose Pabst Blue Ribbon from among the possible refreshments, considering she endured constant ridicule from her friends regarding her love of this classic American beer. After some brief catching up and deep-breath taking, Madeline stood up from the couch, turned her feet out and said “Let us now go make art.”
Madeleine had secured a couple of hours for us in the performance space, a gorgeous, elliptical black box theater in the dance building. I stood where I usually stand, up stage right, which may have been the first sign of trouble, and we began improvising together. Our first efforts were less than stellar, too often falling back into our previous languages. I began with something low and drone-like, bringing in some multiphonics after a minute or so. Madeleine would match my sounds with flowing movements and imitated star-gazing. After a few passes we met in the middle of the stage with furrowed brows.
“I don’t want to do anything pretty,” she said.
“Me neither,” I said.
We agreed that the movements and the music should not be totally referential to each other, and that I could probably leave more silence. I tell my improvisation students to do that all the time. Comfortable now with taking a few more risks and being more patient, we tried again.
A breakthrough came when Madeleine, arms stretched high above her head, slowly and stumblingly toed her way from the back to the stage to the front as I belted out a series of blisteringly loud G flats. Suddenly, I had the image of Madeleine, the royal figure, approaching her balcony to great her public while I, the herald, announced her with a fractured fanfare. I rarely think this programmatically about music or the arts and am happy to let sound be sound and movement be movement, but I couldn’t help it this time. The piece evolved from there into Madeleine’s fascinating exploration of tiny rolls and twitches with her neck and shoulders, including some intense work on the ground. My contribution became all buzz, screech and bleating which opened into a menacing, angular march. The improvisation returned to the fan-fare and open posturing before fading into nothing as we both exited the stage.
“That was it!” I yelled.
“Yes, I think it was,” she said.
I explained the whole greeting of the public thing to her and she looked at me in her charmingly quizzical way and said…
“Really? I didn’t get that at all, but I love it.”
We talked for a bit about the dichotomy between her open and closed movements and how they alluded to the oscillating feelings of attention seeking and insecurity. She mentioned that she loved the march theme as well as the idea the she and I could call and respond, each leaving moments of stillness and silence for the other to play with. After a good deal more dialogue about what just happened, we both agreed that we should never try to do exactly that again, ever. To cleanse the palate, we did another improvisation together and strangely enjoyed the cliché-ridden, derivative, truly awful results.
Later on that night Mona, Madeleine and I joined another Governor’s School colleague, Belinda at Natty Green’s, a spot downtown that offered good food and delicious tap beer from its own brewery. A couple more drinks at a couple more places later, I crashed out in Madeleine and Mona’s guest bedroom, home to quite possible the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in.
Tomorrow we would greet our public.
