We are now a few months into the Biennale and the Gloria installation at the U.S. Pavilion has maintained a consistently high level of attendance, with over 250,000 visitors since the opening.

Working from Venice for the past two and a half months, I had the chance to assist with the performances and meet some of the athletes. Two of them, Sadie Wilhelmi and David Durante, have kindly agreed to answer some of my questions about their experience at the Biennale.

Dave was a member of the USA Gymnastics team for six years, including a participation in the Olympic games in Beijing.  Sadie is a gymnast with extensive dance and circus background. Before coming to Venice, she performed as a freelance aerial artist with a company in New York and took part in other dance and choreography projects.

Here is what they have to say about their experience at the Venice Biennale:

How did you get involved in this project?

Dave: The IMA and USA Gymnastics are both in Indianapolis. When the project was selected, I was asked to participate based on my background and experience with the U.S. team. Besides performing myself, I am the athletes’ coordinator for the whole project and in charge of the logistics, including finding the performers and runners. I worked with the choreographer and performers who were selected to create the routines. We trained in New York for about four months before coming to Venice at the end of May.  I’ll be here in Venice for the entire run.

Sadie: I got involved through my friend Olga Kaminsky, who is good friends with Dave.

 How long did it take to create the choreography?

 Dave: The choreography took a little bit of time. Initially we did not have the sculptures, so we worked with mats and foam blocks.  Rebecca Davis, the choreographer, was instrumental in putting it all together and bridged the gap between the gymnastic and the dance world.  The performers also had input here and there.

 Sadie: It took us months to put this together. We started in January of this year and it came together during lots of hours of training and rehearsal.

 How many people have performed these routines since the opening of the show in early June?

 Dave and Sadie: We’ve had three guys and three girls for the gymnastics, as well as five runners.  At the opening, we also had Chellsie Memmel, who was part of the team in Beijing, and world champion runner Dan O’Brien.

 Were the artists involved in the choreography?

 Dave and Sadie: They gave us some guideline parameters to work with. They wanted gymnastic movements that one could see during a routine at the Olympics.  The real challenge for me was to take gymnastics and push the limit on what is physically possible on these sculptures, while staying safe and not get injured.

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Filed under: Art, Contemporary, Exhibitions, Venice Biennale

Have you been to see the Hard Truths exhibition?  Spent time with it? I pose the latter question because absorbing what is present in the works  requires time to linger. On my most recent viewing, it was Heaven and Hell on Earth that drew me in for deeper consideration. Depth, density, layers of meaning and complexity. There is so much there.  It takes time and it’s worth it.

"Heaven and Hell on Earth," 1995. Corn husks, corncobs, dried mushrooms, roots, burned wood, clothing, bedding, toys, wire, metal, fabric, Christmas tree ornament, rope, carpet, paintbrush, other found materials, oil, enamel, spray paint, and industrial sealing compound on canvas on wood. Collection of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation.

In the same way, to talk about Thornton Dial, to consider the artist’s place both removed from and edging into the mainstream art world, to put into context his work and view of the world, and relate it to broader truths about American art, culture, history,  and values—it’s an exciting  and meaningful challenge.  But Rome wasn’t built in a lunch hour lecture.  So we’re giving it a day.

This Friday at the Toby is the big event:  Hard Truths: A Forum on Art and the Politics of Difference.  It’s not a straight-forward symposium.  There will be a podium, yes, and a succession of first-rate deep thinkers who will approach the topics of the day from a variety of fascinating perspectives.  But discussion sessions will also keep things very lively.

For example, Julian Bond, American civil rights all-star, will connect Dial’s experience and presentation as a black artist to the history, present, and future of the modern civil rights movement. Bond will then go straight from the podium into a conversation with forum speaker Greg Tate (his talk title: Neo-hoodoo Imaginations and Hollering Bebop Ghosts in the Southern Black Visionary Tradition). Important thinkers from the local community have also been invited, such as Roderick E. Bohannan, attorney with Indiana Legal Services, Inc., who will join Bond and Tate onstage. Audience members will be welcome to join in. IUPUI professor Modupe Labode will moderate these open discussions.  It’s fair to anticipate a slew of audience members with arms up in the air ready for the next available microphone. And each session’s speaker and discussions with take the conversation down another exciting path.

Moving from one talk to the next, we may find ourselves wishing for a moment to return to a topic that was deferred due to time. There will be great opportunities to revisit. First among these: included with the forum ticket is admission to the Dial exhibition. I’m telling you, you need more time in there. Later, after a nice break for dinner, Forum speaker Theaster Gates and ensemble The Black Monks of Mississippi will take the stage (again, included with the forum ticket) to perform And the Whole Yard Said Amen in response to Dial and the day. What happens when you intertwine the sounds and moods of southern gospel and eastern chanting and add a layer of blues? Come and find out. To further celebrate all this, we’ll next move from the Toby to a catered reception in the museum’s Nourish Café. Great conversations will recommence.

Hope to see you there. We need to talk.

Filed under: Exhibitions, Local, Public Programs, The Toby, Thornton Dial

Working with living composers is, hands down, the best part of my job. Young or old, famous or totally unknown, bright-eyed or curmudgeonly, supportive or critical, it is always an eventful artistic road trip.

Composer Steve Reich was a boyhood hero of mine, so when we had the opportunity to work with him on Double Sextet, his Pulitzer Prize-winning 2008 piece that ends our concert at the IMA, I was full of nervous excitement. We’d been warned about his uncompromising vision, mostly via fifth-hand rumors that were some variation of, “He’s really demanding, and will freak out if he isn’t happy with what you’re doing.”

Reich was much more hands on than was typical for composers of his stature. Although he wasn’t ever actually in the room with us until the day of the premiere, we sent him rough recordings from our rehearsals at every step in the process of preparation, from the day of our the first Double Sextet rehearsal. He would offer us comments in detailed, illuminating emails, and we would try to respond to these concerns in further recordings.

Here’s an example, from a January 2008 email:

“Winds, strings and vibes from 409 – 432 are a bit ‘blocky.’ Try to always have the music ‘leaning forward’ vis a vis the beat and not right on top of it, hammering it. Light and always moving ahead (not rushing) wins the day.”

And another:

“When strings and winds come in at 537 its a bit too ‘espressivo’ – just a bit cooler will do it. Held notes have no crescendo – just evenly held. Think baroque.”

Both emails created heated arguments, and we went back and forth several times with Reich until he was happy.

Why does Reich get so involved in this process? Forty years ago, Reich’s house band, the Steve Reich Ensemble, was the only group performing his music. They evolved a distinctive sounding “house style” with its own unique energy. Compositions like Drumming and Music for 18 Musicians were developed without much recourse to the printed page. This intense, collaborative process led to a certain energy and style of playing that have become inseparable from the music, and Reich perhaps feels that it is his responsibility to pass this down to all ensembles that are encountering his work for the first time. This can ensure a sort of “legacy” for performances of his music during the composer’s lifetime, but what about well into the future?

And those rumors of Steve as an unreasonably hard taskmaster? Hugely exaggerated. After this exhaustive, intense process of preparation we were all a little jittery about what the composer might say when he heard us play the piece live. At the end of the Double Sextet dress rehearsal, at which the composer was present, Reich’s only reaction was, “Wow, fantastic. I really have nothing to say.”

Filed under: Public Programs

It was a Sunday afternoon in the home of a long-time IMA patron on one of winter’s bleakest, iciest days that we heard a wonderful performance of Franz Schubert’s great 1827 song cycle Die Winterreise, or A Winter Journey. The cycle comprises 24 songs about the painful feelings of a lover’s rejection, personal loss, loneliness and confronting mortality.

Now that it’s spring, we’re days away from a concert of another sort: Grammy-award winning contemporary music ensemble eighth blackbird will perform at The Toby Saturday, March 26 in a concert co-sponsored by Ensemble Music Society and the IMA. So what’s the connection besides the truism that spring always follows winter?

One striking aspect of that wintry afternoon was the spectacular contemporary art everywhere in the home.  Wherever we glanced were paintings and sculptures by well-known artists. The collection was fabulous. So the guests were listening to a great collection of early 19^th century music while enjoying paintings and sculpture from 150-175 years later.

What would you think if the contrasting periods were switched?  Does the art you enjoy at the IMA or have on your walls at home match your “art for ears?”  Are you willing to go to a concert and be as surprised and challenged as you are when you enter the fourth floor galleries at the IMA?

I remember thinking once I was quite sophisticated and knowledgeable about modern music, so I expounded to a friend, “John Adams and Philip Glass—how pointlessly simpleminded.”  Then I went to a conference in LA where we heard excerpts from Adams’ then somewhat new opera Nixon in China. That evening changed my perspective on an entire group of modern composers and deepened my belief that music loses so much when it’s recorded.

When eighth blackbird first came to Indianapolis almost three years ago, I experienced a tinge of anxiety before the concert because this group included extensive percussion and used video projectors with amplification in the program, again extending my personal boundaries of “classical” music, and as well as for many in the audience.  The audience reaction by people of all ages was enthusiastic.  You have to be willing to jump in and try it out.

So look beyond the dozens of recordings of Vivaldi or Pachelbel on iTunes and come to The Toby on March 26.  Be open to change and discover exciting music by Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Missy Mazzoli and others.

Filed under: Public Programs, The Toby

Sometimes manna drops from the sky.  As when I get an e-mail from an agent in Chicago seeking concert venues for 23-year-old Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds.  This fair fellow composes delicate pieces for chamber ensembles, tinted with a hint of electronica.  I tell the agent: you had me at Iceland.

Angelic sounds from the mystical country that produced Bjork, in the month of January, in The Toby, made by a musician headed for Istanbul and London once his US tour is done?  A poetic no-brainer.  So it stands to reason: you must join us at the IMA for Ólafur Arnalds this Saturday evening.

Here’s a sample from Arnalds’ new record, …And They Have Escaped The Weight Of Darkness:

I find these sounds delicate as a paper-thin sheet of ice on a lake.  Resplendent as white fondant on a winter wedding cake.  Patterned like lace, or bird tracks in the snow.  At the concert, there will be long-haired ladies playing cellos.  And moody sweetness with the lights low.  A little peace; a fairy-tale feel.

Read what one concert-goer had to say about the show in Detroit on Wednesday night.

Oh, I’m supposed to also tell you that you can enter a sweepstakes to win a trip to Iceland, courtesy of Iceland Naturally.

So, tomorrow, our crack IMA public programs team will fire up the lights and sound in The Toby, tune up the Bösendorfer, provide plenty of smoothies and beer (as requested in the rider), tear the tickets, and then let Arnalds’ sonic sheen wash over us all.

Filed under: Public Programs