The Mozart Project [Live Review]

Image By Tony Spielberg

He's back. That cheeky, lascivious child genius who burnt out young (even for the time) at thirty-five, the master composer whose legend has inspired tributes of all types is again the subject for The Mozart Project, a triptych of pieces that are either directly indebted his work or to the spirit that motivated them.

The three performances were scored by a small orchestra ensemble of four or five musicians, accompanied by a stage show featuring the members of Ballet Austin dancing to choreographed pieces by Stephen Mills. The range between pieces was surprising, and our favorite turned out to be an avant-garde act that combined an emotional delivery with a sustained and careful mood.

The first piece “Wolftanzt” featured the piano playing of Dr. Michelle Schumann, joined here by a quartet of two violins, a viola, and a cello. Wearing outfits that both emphasized movement (lithe gowns for the ladies, sashes of pink on the necks of the men) and constraint (it's a wonder any oxygen was circulating to their legs), the dancers spun and accompanied one another to the skippy pulse of the “Piano Concerto #12,” a composition that pretty well exemplifies more what the imagination might formulate if trying to conjure up ballet at its most prancing and colorful. The stage was brightly lit, the dancers smiled very strongly, and the man next to us snored in spite of it all. More formal and straightforward than the other pieces, "Wolftanzt" also featured the dancers at some of their best. In terms of athletic moves and intense choreography, this piece set a high bar.

After a brief interim, the lights were dimmed again for part two, an original piece by local composer Graham Reynolds called “The Earth Gives Way.” Starting from the vantage point of limited light and a curtain draped over the heads of two female dancers, this piece could not have been much more in contrast with the friendliness of “Wolftanzt.” Also featuring an echoey drum track, “The Earth Gives Way” is ominous, dark, and altogether expressive. In this piece, Mills' choreography had the dancers bending, twisting, and crawling. Incorporating some of the same movements we were privy to with the piece before, “The Earth Gives Way” also allowed its dancers to move about in ways that were more mysterious but also more natural. As the piece progressed, the instruments were cut with distortion to create an insistence that gave the dance that much more oomph, and the set design (using fluorescent bulbs in different iterations) could either cast the figures onstage in swaths of white or obscure them. A thunderous conclusion with the bulbs flashing and the reappearance of the netting was absolutely enrapturing.

Multidisciplinarian DJ Spooky is as prone to scratch records as he is to compose a tough thesis on sampling, so he's a natural fit for a program that aspires to look at the classics through a new lens. Spooky's piece “Echo Boom” takes Mozart's familiar “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” and puts it through the ringer, first by remixing a live score from a quartet and then adding dance accoutrements and at one point even churning into some stringy dubstep hybrid. During the initial playing and the remix, a large screen behind Spooky presented us with a dizzying, side-scrolling set of academic text of some sort (we picked out “Descartes” in there before vertigo took over), which then happily ended as the dancers amassed on stage. Giving us something like urban ballet, this portion of the performance was tough and unforgiving, and while the dancing was strong, it seemed less surefooted and comfortable than Reynolds' piece. However, that might say more about the strength of Reynolds and Mills' collaboration here than anything else - a surprising and dynamic work that was easily the highlight of this late afternoon at the Long Center.

Ballet Austin: [official]
The Mozart Project: [official]
Dr. Michelle Schumann: [official]
Graham Reynolds: [official]
DJ Spooky: [website]