"In The Beginning, There
Was The Pub..."
Indianapolis, Indiana, might initially seem to be a curious place for a
landmark collaboration in music and dance to receive its first breath of
creative life. But it was at Dooley O’Toole’s Restaurant and Eatery at 10th
and Arlington during the weekly Wednesday night concert by Brian Cunningham
& The Irish Airs that T.H. Gillespie and L.E. McCullough first
met and immediately recognized in each other a mutual simpatico involving Irish
music.
McCullough was a member of The Irish Airs and had a lengthy
performing, composing and recording history in the traditional Irish music
field, along with several notable experimentations in the fields of Celtic World
Beat, Celtic Rock, Celtic Jazz, Celtic Cajun and other fusionistic genres he
insistently propagated upon the unsuspecting record-buying public via a series
of independent-label albums during the 1980s. Gillespie was a versatile
keyboardist/composer/arranger with jazz, rock, gospel and contemporary Christian
roots; recently smitten by the alluring melodic charm of traditional Irish
music, he had begun to write songs that incorporated increasingly Irish musical
components.
In December, 1993, the two gathered at Gillespie’s home
studio and decided to merge their interests and talents to create a full-blown
symphonic piece that would blend traditional and contemporary styles in the
service of relating an Irish or Celtic folktale. McCullough chose and adapted a
well-known ancient Irish adventure legend — Connlaoi’s Tale, authored
anonymously sometime during the 7th or 8th centuries A.D. Gillespie took a half
dozen original tunes in traditional Irish form by himself and McCullough and
used them as a structural base for the story narrative, arranging them for
fiddle, tinwhistle, Irish flute and synthesizer and then tying the individual
parts together with incidental music to form a seamless 27-minute tapestry of
Celtic-tinged sound.
Question: what do you do with a seamless 27-minute tapestry
of Celtic-tinged sound in Indianapolis, Indiana?
Answer: you find
a world-class choreographer to create a vibrant work of modern dance — i.e.,
you find David Hochoy, Artistic Director of Dance Kaleidoscope.
Gillespie and his keyboardist/children’s choir director
wife, Diana, had attended several Dance Kaleidoscope concerts during the past
two years and had a deep respect and enthusiasm for the company’s work. From
its debut in 1974, DK had been one of the most exciting and adventurous modern
dance companies in the United States; when Hochoy took over the troupe in 1991,
it quickly became one of the most polished and professional.
A former soloist with the Martha Graham Dance Company
(1982-89) who has danced and taught throughout the world, David Hochoy is
recognized as one of the most knowledgeable creators and interpreters of modern
dance on the scene today with more than 40 original major dance works to his
credit. He has choreographed to a wide range of musical genres and is especially
enamored of presenting dance with live music. When he met with Gillespie and
McCullough in February, 1994, (at yet another pub, The Aristocrat on North
College Avenue), Hochoy listened patiently to their pitch.
(Mind you, this was all before the showbiz phenomenon that
would be called Riverdance... the concept of blending original dance with
original music to relate Celtic mythology not even remotely considered a
commercially viable enterprise.)
But Hochoy had, in fact, been planning a program of dance
performed to live music, and Connlaoi’s Tale:
The Woman Who Danced on Waves came at the right time. Hochoy
agreed to choreograph the piece and give it a world premiere in March, 1995, as
part of Dance Kaleidoscope’s Making Music Dance concert.
Connlaoi’s Tale was first presented to taped tracks during
a Dance Kaleidoscope guest performance with the Eisenhower Dance Ensemble at
Oakland University in Troy, Michigan, February 10-11, 1995. “. . . a timeless
story about overcoming one’s barbaric nature and embracing the finer
possibilities life holds.” noted the Troy Times; the Detroit Free Press
commented “Hochoy combined striking solo and ensemble choreography to
enchanting effect.” When the piece premiered with live music
(Gillespie, McCullough and fiddler Leslie Krom-Selden) a month later
(March 17, St. Patrick’s Day!) at the DK Making Music Dance show before a
soldout audience of 700, the public and critical reaction was unanimously
positive in a town not generally noted for its acceptance of aesthetic
boundary-stretching.
“Particularly moving is the Celtic-inspired music of T.H.
Gillespie and L.E. McCullough,” wrote Rebecca Bibbs in the Indianapolis News.
“David Hochoy stretches the imagination by taking what sounds like traditional
Celtic music and coupling it with more contemporary moves. . . while Ricardo
Melendez is powerful as the warrior prince Connlaoi the Redhaired, Karen Gay
Beam’s earthy Druid steals the show.”
“The most successful new musical-dance venture was the
Irish story, Connlaoi’s Tale, composed for Dance Kaleidoscope by T.H.
Gillespie and L.E. McCullough,” opined Julie Goldsmith in the Indianapolis
Star. “The ballet opened with a joyful duet for Sikes and Melendez, and the
sweetness of the music was great Irish luck for them.”
What truly moved audience and reviewers was the drama David
Hochoy and the DK dancers instilled in the work. Connlaoi’s Tale was more than
an academic exercise in genre-bending; it gave life and urgency to a story that
resonated across time and space summoning primal emotions in men and women,
young and old.
A
few months later in October, 1995 (back again at The Aristocrat), the Hochoy-Gillespie-McCullough
team agreed to assay a second Celtic myth, this based on the Arthurian legend of
the Holy Grail and incorporating the vocal brilliance of tenor Steven Stolen, a
frequent DK performer and nationally-known voice recitalist. The resulting
medieval-classical-Celtic union, The Healing Cup: Guinevere Seeks the
Grail, also featured the Orchard Park Children’s Choir
conducted by Diana Gillespie and premiered in March, 1997, again to a volley of
press and popular acclaim.
“The Healing Cup ended the evening brilliantly,” wrote
Naomi Ritter in Nuvo. “What can one admire most:
the originality of this love-and-death triangle of Guinevere, Arthur and
Lancelot, the ensemble dancing of the court figures, or the interweaving of
Christian, pagan and even Jungian flavors?”
If you have two of a thing, why not make it a trilogy? Once
again during an Aristocrat lunch rendezvous, Hochoy commissioned a third piece
that would complete the Myths for a New Millennium project, as it
had come to be known. Gillespie and McCullough asked Indianapolis jazz violinist
Cathy Morris to collaborate as
composer and performer, and Skin Walkers premiered in April, 1999,
to the usual applause and affirmation.
“Coupled with exquisite lighting, the music and dance
traversed many pathways in many directions with a vision that defied
stereotype,” wrote Susan Raccoli in the Indianapolis Star. Stated Nuvo’s
Naomi Ritter, “Laura Glover’s lighting made Hochoy’s hectic movement as
many-splendored as the music. Performing live, the two composers plus electric
violinist Cathy Morris created just the irresistable seduction of what
McCullough sees looming: ‘The strains of familiar music calling us to an
unfamiliar dance.’”
Crucial to the artistic success of the Myths for a New
Millennium pieces were the imaginative audio-visual elements contributed by
costumer Cheryl Sparks, lighting designer Laura E. Glover, sound
designers Milo Miller and Michael Lamirand and set designer Rob
Koharchick, who devised a full stage set for The Healing Cup. Once David
Hochoy received the “first draft” of the music on tape and created a basic
choreographic outline, he called in Sparks and Glover to enhance the overall
theme by fleshing out the piece’s visual aspects. Then, Hochoy would go back
to Gillespie and McCullough and suggest a tightening of the piece — an added
drumbeat here, a stronger melody cue there, a longer pause or shorter transition
in one spot or another — that matched the flow of the choreography.
“Even though we start with melody and build the score
around specific tunes, the pieces all have to be danceable,” says Gillespie.
“The score has to have a parallel rhythmic dimension that allows the dancers
to be expressive in their idiom. In essence, you have to see the dance when you
hear the music.”
Now that the active phase of creating and premiering the
Myths for a New Millennium trilogy is finished, the next phase is its
dissemination — which explains the CD you’re listening to right now.
Irish/Celtic music is enjoying an explosion of renewed popularity throughout the
world. Yet, Myths for a New Millennium is the only work in this
idiom to appear during the last decade that fully merges myth, music, dance and
drama.
Surprising
what develops from a chance meeting in an Irish pub. . .
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