Northwest Michigan Folklife Center

Chaotic Harmony

The Heron

Chaotic Harmony

A choreopoem celebrating Gwen Frostic

Co-Artistic Directors and Creators  – Gretchen Eichberger and Anne-Marie Oomen

Composers – Breathe Owl Breathe

She was legendary for her prose and prints.  Gwen Frostic, of Benzonia, Michigan inspired me to create movement.  The ironic part was that she was physically impaired, but her mind soared above  the immobility.

What do we experience when we enter the unconventional world of Gwen Frostic?  That we are all connected?  That the greatest wonders are found in teh inconspicuous and overlooked details?  To that end, the choreography of Chaotic Harmony is not about the spins, leaps,a dn lifts that one would expect from traditional dance, but about the minor and hidden, the tentative and the ephemeral: things of nature so  subtle and evanescent we must pay attention to see them.  in creating Chaotic Harmony (named after one of her books), we honor Gwen Frostic, a woman of cultural and regional significance, but we also create new art by exploring her work with deep concentration.  With permission from Gwen Frostic prints, we selected art and words as springboard for theatrical dance.  We wanted the choreopoem to define the gestures of her imagination.

As to the script, we found her homily-like meditations remarkable: she saw the coming environmental crisis clearly and addressed it, proselytizing for the natural world.  As we gleaned passages and developed the script for multiple voices, we hoped to draw attention to that focus – her call in each of her 18 books that we pay attention to the natural world.  Her quiditty- the essence of a thing and a word she used often – lives in words that require us to truly attend to nature.  Here, we hope to extend her quiditty by giving voice to her role as environmental artist and writer, by making three-dimensional her message.

CHAOTIC HARMONY CELEBRATES ARTIST GWEN FROSTIC WITH DANCE!

Traverse City, MI (and region).  August 4, 2011—“Chaotic Harmony,” an original theatrical dance production,  celebrates the legacy of Gwen Frostic, regional artist and cultural icon.  “Chaotic Harmony,” titled after one of her eighteen books, renders a fresh dance-based interpretation of Frostic’s work by choreographer and director, Gretchen Eichberger and writer Anne-Marie Oomen.  The production will premier as a gift to the community, August 27, 7:30, and August 28, 3:00 at the Meeting House of the Congregational Summer Assembly in Frankfort.

“We decided to use her words and her art as springboard for new thinking and moving,  for something entirely different, for something that would free her message from the shadows—which would let her fly,” says Eichberger, who directed Martha Graham’s “American Document” last year.

In creating Chaotic Harmony, Eichberger and Oomen  hope to draw attention to Frostic’s essential work and to build consciousness about her book-length meditations on nature—the last one published when she was 91. The collaborators will extend Frostic’s concepts through dance and spoken word, making three dimensional her role as an environmental artist who crossed the borders between the romantic and the rational.

“In this age of environmental threat, her words take on new resonance.  In this age of simplified vocabulary, her diction holds a unique literary value.  In this age when we could so easily forget the women who have made a difference aesthetically and culturally in our own region, Gwen is a model we need to rediscover,”  Oomen says of Frostic.

To that end,  Eichberger’s choreography will reflect the great gestures of Frostic’s images  through movement influenced by wabi-sabi and butoh dance traditions.  Dancing with her are well-known regional dancers Hughthir White, Jamaica Weston, Denise Sica, and Cornelia Dhasaleer.  Original music by the nationally recognized trio, “Breathe, Owl, Breathe” will echo the ecosystems that fed Frostic’s writing and philosophy, and include field recordings from her home and studio in Benzonia (where she lived and wrote and made her art). Bill Allen,  collaborative artist and sculptor, developed the art piece for the set.  The multi-voiced spoken text, adapted by Oomen and read by Holly Wren Spaulding, Jennifer Sperry Steinorth, Bill Smith and Tim Joseph, highlights key excerpts from Frostic’s books.  Oomen said of the choral text,  “Frostic’s meditations are challenging.  We combed her books carefully to lift passages not only relevant to her themes but to today’s audience.”

This year is the tenth anniversary of Gwen Frostic’s death.  On Gwen Frostic Day this spring, former Governor Milliken, an advocate of arts and environment, stated about the project,   “What a wonderful tribute to Gwen and her artistic legacy. Nothing could be more appropriate than Chaotic Harmony, a heartfelt act of innovation inspired by her words and art.”  The project has also garnered support from Gwen Frostic Prints, where Greg and Kim Forshee, proprietors, operate the Benzonia-based Frostic studio, and from the nonprofit sponsor, ISLAND, (Institute of Sustainable Living, Art and Design).  A preview of the dances at EMU’s Jean Parson’s Art Center in Lake Ann, gathered generous donations in support the project.

Eichberger gratefully noted: “We need community support for this kind of artistic development, and to help place Gwen on the continuum of artists and environmental writers who evolved around the time of Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold and others.  Chaotic Harmony will reflect both the arc of her artistic development and her ecological philosophy in an artistic, interdisciplinary, multi-faceted performance.  Though we can never know, we hope this innovation would please her, and bring her back to the community in an exciting new way.”

Chaotic Harmony will be performed on  August 27, 7:30, and August 28, 3:00 at the Meeting ousel of the Congregational Summer Assembly two miles north of Frankfort on M-22.  The performances are a free to the public and donations will be encouraged.  For information contact, check website www.ARTmeetsEARTH or contact Gretchen Eichberger at 231-399-0099.

Remember Gwen Frostic and those beautiful art books that you wanted to pick up and touch? Remember those delicate drawings of our lakes? That famous print of the alarmed raccoon. Her powerful meditations? Frostic’s work was inspirational! Inspired by her, we are creating Chaotic Harmony, an original dance with text performance.

Advance praise! Governor Milliken has released the following: “What a wonderful tribute to Gwen Frostic and her artistic legacy. Nothing could be more appropriate than Chaotic Harmony, a heartfelt act of innovation inspired by her words and art.”

NOW, you are enthusiastically invited to attend a
preview sampler from Chaotic Harmony. Anne-Marie Oomen and Gretchen Eichberger lead a group of innovative dancers and performers. An original musical score has been composed by acclaimed Michigan trio, Breathe Owl Breathe.

Sunday, June 12
4:00 pm
Jean Noble Parsons Center for Arts and Science
Eastern Michigan University
5833 Bellows Lake Rd.
Lake Ann, MI

Reception to Follow
Please join us for a taste of this exciting celebration of a Michigan iconoclast.

For more information please call 231-871-0215
Or visit www.michiganfolklife.org

Generous Support provided by Parsons Center Governing Board, Eastern Michigan University, Gwen Frostic Prints, and Institute for Sustainable Living Art and Natural Design.

The multimedia event, LORE will take place on Friday, June 17th at the historic Mills Community House Theater located at 891 Michigan Avenue in the village of Benzonia. The gallery opens at 7:00 pm for viewing of visual art, with a seated performance commencing at 8:00 pm. A reception follows featuring local, organic cuisine provided by Still Grinning Catering.

LORE 2011 will feature the creative work of seven emerging and established Michigan women artists and includes original paintings, textile art, dance, poetry, song, and film.

The LORE artists are Amanda Acker, Kristine Harvey, Susan Barnard, Andrea Maio, Gretchen Eichberger, Melonie Steffes, and Holly Wren Spaulding.

Admission: $10.00
Tickets available in advance at East Shore Market in Benzonia and Oryana, as well as from the artists directly.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Gretchen Eichberger, 231-871-0215

Auditions Set for Original Dance Work

An open call for dancers will be held for an original multimedia
theatrical dance work on  Saturday, April 23 at Eastern Michigan
University’s Parsons Center  from 12 – 4 pm.   The work, entitled Chaotic
Harmony, is inspired by the legacy of iconic Michigan woman, Gwen Frostic.
  Artistic Direction will be under Gretchen Eichberger with the script
written and adapted by noted author, Anne-Marie Oomen.  An original
musical score has been composed by nationally acclaimed Michigan-based
trio, Breathe Owl Breathe.
All artists will be paid for rehearsal time and performances.  Each artist
must commit to twice weekly rehearsals from May- August 2011 in the
Traverse City area.  Spot rehearsals will continue from September to
December.   Performance dates are August 28 and 29 and December 15 with
two additional pending performance dates.
The Parsons Center is located in Lake Ann, approximately 12 miles
southeast of Traverse City.  To schedule your audition, please contact
Gretchen Eichberger at 231-871-0215 or gretchen@michiganfolklife.org

Photo By Joshua Miller

What do you know about your heritage?  For many Americans, they will begin their answer with their place of family origin, recalling some handed-down lore, wondering at what they don’t know and perhaps even recall some local history—their own as far as they know.  They will leave it at that.   When you cast your vote in this upcoming election, will you reflect on your American heritage?  Does your vote keep up with the legacy that your ancestors intended, or has it changed? How does dance relate to these questions? Can it?  I submit to you that attending American Document a dance–drama inspired by the legendary choreographer and dancer, Martha Graham, would might give you pause and cause all of us to re-evaluate the value and meaning of our American heritage and citizenship.

Martha Graham was a major force in the American art of modern dance.  Her influence can be compared to that of Frank Lloyd Wright’s on architecture and Pablo Picasso’s on painting. From the mid 1920’s until her death in 1991, Graham experimented endlessly with basic human movement, beginning with contraction and release—a legacy that is still felt throughout the world of dance.  Using these principals as the foundation for her technique, she built a vocabulary of movement that would increase the emotional activity of the dancer’s body.  Her works were inspired by a wide variety of sources including modern paintings, literature, the American frontier, religious ceremonies of Native American tribes, and Greek mythology.   Graham’s innovative ideas integrated philosophy and technique into the academic world.

Premiering in 1938, her piece entitled American Document was a tribute to Graham’s own American heritage.  The central questions posed throughout the dance were “What is America?” and “What is an American?”  It was the first dance work that incorporated spoken word.  Texts were drawn from actual historic records such as the Declaration of Independence, Gettysburg Address, and the Emancipation Proclamation, as well as lesser known documents, including words from Puritan minister John Edward’s fire and brimstone sermons and the sorrowful speech of Chief Red Jacket of the Seneca tribe.

Graham indicated that these documents contained the essence of our nation: “Our documents… our legends, our poignantly near history, our folk tales.”   She intended for the work to reflect “Americana that is neither political nationalism nor chauvinistic credo, but, rather, a statement.”

While environmental and financial disaster engulfed our country in the 1930’s there was a subsequent surge of new human expression in the form of modern dance. Martha Graham and her American Document embodied that struggle.  Although, modern dance is not familiar to all audiences, dance is simply movement, and therefore as fundamental as any other form of artistic expression.  To regard it as “high art” and only for the avant garde is to discard it.

Adapting a Masterpiece – A Process and a Challenge

Why and how is this work being performed in Northwestern Lower Michigan?  During an intensive week at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in New York City, I attended a  performance of American Document by the SITI Theater Group and the Graham dancers.   I learned that the Graham Foundation was preparing to launch a   nation-wide invitation to all civic and student groups interested in creating their own American Documents under the project title, The Political Dance Project. If I began promptly, my adaptation of American Document would be the first civic version in the country, and upon my return to Michigan last year, I immediately began the preliminary steps to launch the project.

Personifying my own American heritage in such a production seemed like it might ring true for other Michiganders.  My father’s family settled in the Detroit area making their living from the emerging automobile industry that provided for so many immigrants in those days.   My mother’s family settled in Grand Traverse County, farming acres of land on the Old Mission Peninsula and Garfield Township.  In retrospect, I believe that the understanding of my own American heritage with its immense opportunity for prosperity and abundance of natural resources had brought me to the dilemma that sits in the minds of so many of us.   I fear for future generations and I can only hope that the same prosperity, and now, the concern for the basic right to clean water, soil, and air will be available for them.   Those are the feelings that I and the other dancers have attempted to portray in the choreography of this American Document.

A civic adaptation seemed an ideal opportunity to incorporate the texts by Michigan writer, Bruce Catton.   Upon his mid-life pursuit of becoming an author, he was awarded a Pulitizer-Prize for his civil war novel, The Stillness of Appamatox but it is his boyhood memoir, Waiting for the Morning Train contains a poignant series of remarks that were a true beacon for our American way of life and what it has become.

Now, nearly seventy years later, during this great shift in climate – both environmentally and socially, the prediction of what is to become of the planet seems to be on the minds of all conscious citizens.  We find ourselves wondering if our great American civilization is destined to fail, for as history repeats itself, all great civilizations have failed.   Catton summarized his prediction for our grand civilization in Waiting for the Morning Train, by reiterating that we were “a generation that lived by applying a steadily increasing knowledge of ingenuity to the exploitation of the earth’s boundless resources; and it was reaching the gates of the golden age only to discover that the boundless stores of resources was beginning to run out.”   It is quotes such as these that are incorporated alongside dances in this work.

By the People

After adapting the script for our place and time, I was faced with the task of finding and securing a dance troupe, actors, and musician who were not only willing and able, but who had a social conscience, and could thereby embody the intense emotion so characteristic of a Graham work.  Northwestern Lower Michigan does not host a plethora of contemporary dancers, nor it is versed in the technique of Martha Graham.  Nevertheless, this was to be a civic production, “of the people, by the people and for the people”.   To have obtained a diverse group of dancers, each unique in their own right and background as kinesthetic artists, was pure luck.  The Interlocutors, (a term given to the main speaking characters in a minstrel show, and which the piece is based around) seemed a fitting role for not just an actor but a true patriot, a person who works tirelessly for the good of all.  Holly Wren Spaulding, a writer, poet, designer, and activist immediately stood out in my mind for her work to bring awareness about the dangers of water privatization and importance of water rights. Musician and craftsman, Tim Joseph, a recent recipient of the Don Jennings award for political activism and significant service and achievement, lives to make a difference for the common man.  To me, this duo represented our Michigan values, and are both deeply rooted in a sense of place. They were cast as interlocutors and will appear in the upcoming production alongside the dancers.  Well-known folk musician Rick Jones of the internationally- acclaimed quartet Song of the Lakes will also be featured as an accompanist.

Between the readings,  a series of dances portray historical events which at the same time depicts Americans amidst their daily quandries, fears, and notions; reacting to promises not kept; embracing new opportunity; feeling powerless as well as accomplished after overcoming strife; witnessing great atrocities and surmounting the unthinkable. These sensations inform the dance, as they also inform our real lives as Americans right now.  Though this is an historical work, it is also rooted in the present moment and is meant to stir reflection on our place in history, our heritage, so that we may move forward, using our bodies as well as our minds to create a humane and decent future for all.

Presented by ISLAND (Institute for Sustainable Living, Art, and Natural Design), American Document will be performed at the City Opera House on Saturday, Oct. 23 at 8:00 pm.  Tickets are $15.00 for adult and $8.00 for students (including NMC) and seniors.

Gretchen Eichberger is a director, dancer-choreographer, educator, musician, and historic preservationist.  She and her family reside along the shores of Lake Michigan in Benzie County.

What can I say about American Document? Directed by Gretchen Eichberger and performed at the Mills House in Benzonia August 27-28—and coming soon to the Opera House in Traverse City—American Document is performed by a dynamic young company, and is as engaging for its story as for its skill.  This evocative dance/text/sound narrative moved, inspired, filled me with the authentic questions and open-hearted appreciation we all hope for from our art and the artists who create it.  However, this piece is more than an outstanding tribute to the choreography of Martha Graham, an American dance icon. It is more than fine and controlled performance.  It is more than elegant aesthetics and high entertainment.  Under Eichberger’s hand and through the skill of the company, the combined disciplines of spoken text and dance meld and point an artistic arrow at the heart of our citizenry in these troubled times.  What does it mean to be an American? What is our nature, our American “heart”? What is the central theme of our spirit as a people?  Eichberger’s rendering of American Document doesn’t answer those questions but opens a multi-dimensional dialogue, a conversation that, because it involves more than one discipline, reaches through the canned phrases of today’s politics towards a truer vision.  By looking at a past artist of the highest order, the work invites her audience to participate in the recognition of our American quest and to examine future possibilities.  As an ensemble, the company engages beautifully with this endeavor and should be praised for such able performances.  That said, it is Gretchen Eichberger who most embodies the work.  In her direction, but also in her presence, physical strength, grace and intensity, there exists a gestalt with the composition, perhaps a personification of her own American story explicated in the choreography.  Here is someone to watch.

Anne-Marie Oomen is author of three collections of nonfiction, most recently
*An American Map* (Wayne State University Press) and *Un-Coded Woman*, a
collection of poetry,  (Milkweed Editions). She is a teaching writer for
Interlochen Arts Academy and for the Solstice MFA at Pine Manor College
(outside of Boston).  She has earned two Notable Book Awards.

American Document, a dance drama inspired by Martha Graham, will come to the City Opera House in Traverse City on Saturday, October 23 at 8:00 pm.  Presented by ISLAND and directed by Gretchen Eichberger, this production is the first civic version of the work to be produced since it premiered in 1938.

This experimental dance work incorporates vaudevillian structures, folk rhythms, and spoken text to examine the conflict and the ever evolving questions “What is America? and What is an American?”  Martha Graham is regarded as one of the foremost pioneers of modern dance and her influence on dance can be compared to the influence Picasso had on the visual arts and Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.  A performer of astounding productivity and originality, Graham invented a new language for movement and used it to reveal the  passion, the rage, and the ecstasy common to human experience.

The work debuted last month at the Mills Community House in Benzonia.  Writer, educator, and musician, Norm Wheeler attended the Mills performance and commented that “It was brilliant, intense, and moving, reminding us that there is art that we just consume, and then original art that really moves us.”  Eichberger, who also dances in the production, was inspired to direct the work after completing an intensive study at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in New York. In addition to original choreography by the company, the work includes excerpts from Michigan-born and Pulitzer-prize winning author, Bruce Catton’s Waiting for the Morning Train, a memoir that describes growing up in northern Michigan.

The cast includes a multi-talented group of musicians, dancers, activists, craftsman and filmmakers from the region; Holly Wren Spaulding (Cedar), Tim Joseph (Brethren), Hughthir White (Empire), Stephen Kelly (Bear Lake), Brooke Beuby (Clearwater Township), Rick Jones (Interlochen) and James Weston and Jamaica Lynn Weston (Traverse City) and all perform in this timely work.

ISLAND is a non-profit arts and ecology center dedicated to connecting people with nature, art and community. Part of ISLAND’s mission is to support artists, visionaries, conceptual explorers and compelling communicators with dedicated time, space and resources to create new work. It is a great pleasure to work with director Gretchen Eichberger and the very talented cast and crew to bring this encore production of American Document to Northern Michigan. You can learn more about ISLAND at their website www.ARTmeetsEARTH.org.

Tickets for American Document may be reserved by calling the City Opera House at 231-941-8082 or by visiting their website: www.cityoperahouse.org

In the summer of 1938 visionary choreographer Martha Graham premiered American Document, a tribute to her own American Heritage.  The dance-drama incorporated vaudevillian structures, folk rhythms, and spoken text to examine America and the continual conflict between the rights of the individual and society.  The central questions posed throughout the work asks: ‘What is America?  and “What is an American?”

In the summer of 2010 an ad hoc group of dancers, actors, and musicians from northwest lower Michigan created and produced the nation’s first civic version of this work.  The poignant words of Michigan-born, Pulizter-prize winner author, Bruce Catton were integrated into Graham’s script of found text by Walt Whitman, Thomas Paine, Jonathan Edwards, Chief Red Jacket of the Senecas, John Wise, and Francis Ferguson.   Historical records included excerpts from the Declaration of Independence,  the Emancipation Proclamation, and Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, as well the Old Testament’s Song of Songs. Writer, poet and activist Holly Wren Spaulding  and activist-musician Tim Joseph  portrayed the Interlocutors.  Dancers were Brooke Beuby, Jamaica Lynn Weston, Gretchen Eichberger, Hughthir White, Stephen Kelly, and James Weston Lynne.   Musician Rick Jones provided accompaniment that was between each episode.  Musical selections were by American composers Aaron Copland, Mark O’Connor, Samuel Barber, John Newton, Scott Joplin, Edgar Meyer, and John Adams.

The work was performed to celebrate the centennial the Mills Community House, a former girls dormitory for the Benzonia Academy. The work is scheduled for encore performances in the upcoming months.  A schedule of these shows is forthcoming.  Photography is by Robert Bushway.

These are Americans