lewis and clark corps of discovery torrent

The arrogance of 19th-century English imperialism was evinced in the “Nile” section, and the disintegration of American Indian cultures as an eventual result of the Lewis and Clark expedition after the Louisiana Purchase was portrayed in the “Missouri” section. In a sparkling torrent of specific details, the text catalogued the lies and broken promises of explorers, colonizers, and missionaries that aided the wreckage of cultures in Africa, Cambodia, and North and South America. And soon they will begin to think like you do. After a while the people will begin to forget what they once knew, what they believed in. Apple’s voice advised, “If you want to take over a territory, any territory, if you want to colonize it, or better still, convert it, all you really need to do is eliminate the language, erase it, eradicate it. Thematically, the tone was set during the introduction, in which the recorded text indicated that language, not military arms, is the weapon of conquest. The dancers performed with consistent strength in a range of styles that included abstract interpretation of ideas as well as literal mime of the narrative. Eisenberg and the Shale dancers locked movement and meaning together. Fowler’s startling score included a brass-ensemble “operetta,” contemporary jazz, traditional Cambodian music, and an environmental sound work. Each medium supported and strengthened the others, and all three worked together to create a moving piece of work about man’s instinct for conquest.Īccounts of river expeditions on four continents formed the framework for Apple’s recorded narrative, which built a case against the deception and betrayal used by Western colonizers. Part of the “Dance Park” series in Los Angeles and sponsored by the Los Angeles Area Dance Alliance, the piece was conceived of and produced by the three collaborators, with recorded texts and music by Apple, recorded music by Fowler, and choreography by Eisenberg, danced by the Shale Company. The Amazon, the Mekong, the Missouri, and the Nile, by Jacki Apple, Mary Jane Eisenberg, and Bruce Fowler, was more than the sum of its parts and should go down on record as a performance piece that proved the potential of interarts collaboration.

Among the hundreds of collaborative spectacles supported over the last five years by the Inter-Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts, a large number have been unfortunate alliances of artists who apparently cared little about the mechanics of collaboration, merely grafting their creations together, making expensive monsters out of mismatched parts.

Lewis and clark corps of discovery torrent