Interview: Stepping out with Bach: Choreographer premieres dances inspired by music of baroque master

By Jacob Stockinger
The Capital Times, November 12, 2003

Ever the pioneer, Madison’s highly acclaimed dancer and choreographer Li Chiao-Ping – who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and tours around the country – is finding her future in the past.

Thursday night, Li will premiere the last of the dances she has created based on the music of the baroque master Johann Sebastian Bach – specifically, the six suites for solo cello – as they have been re-interpreted by contemporary composers.

The 1 1/2 hour performance is Thursday night at 8 in the Wisconsin Union Theater. Tickets are $16, $13 for students and seniors with group discounts for high schools and senior centers. Call 262-2201.

The project started last season with a concert by the seven-member, all-female troupe.

Li recently discussed the new works:

Why Bach? First of all, they’re just gorgeous pieces of music.

The second thing is that I thought it would be an interesting project to work with six contemporary composers.

For this concert, there are three dances. They’re all based on Bach pieces, but the pieces have all been reinvented.

We’re all using the original Bach as an inspiration. Structurally, we’ve adhered to the six movements of the original suites. It’s more about being moved by it individually and in our own ways.

Why use Bach? It’s not taught to you in school or anything, but I have always found Bach to be very danceable music, even though in his time the pieces were not meant literally as dances.

Other composers before him were composing real dances that were meant to be danced to. Bach used the same names, but by his time he probably did not mean them necessarily to be danced, and he didn’t expect them to be danced. They were stand-alone works of art that were beautiful to listen to. They were stylized.

The works are something you have to take in their totality. The rhythms are wonderful. The lushness of the tone is also very beautiful and provocative and literally strikes a chord in me.

The musical structure and the melody is very human. It sounds like a voice, a person singing.

I haven’t done Bach before, so I took on all six of them at once.

World premieres: The company commissioned the composers, so both the choreography and the music are world premieres.

I have always liked Bach, but maybe I was never courageous enough to work with it until recently.

When I was trying to get back into shape after my son was born, I listened to Bach. I used it to improvise and give myself a workout.

I use the Yo-Yo Ma recordings. I like his interpretation.

We did the first four last spring. The public responded very well.

I’m definitely relating to the era of the music and its formal qualities. Yet at the same time, I’m really putting a spin on it. You hear the thematic material of the original, yet it is also very contemporary.

They’re all performed live and they’re all very different from each other.

We did one of the works when we worked at three area senior centers – in Fitchburg, Madison, and Middleton. I loved the classes and working with the seniors, and I enjoyed teaching them. It’s the first time we’ve also branched out. Next year, we want to reach into some of the elementary schools.

The pieces: There are three works. “Passiflora Gracilis” (Passion Flower) is by Stephen Vitiello of New York City. It is very dramatic and darker than Bach. It’s very driven. The electronic musicians perform live with a synthesizer and new computer program. It’s based on Suite No. 5.

“Nocturnus” by Amy Denio, a vocalist and accordionist from Seattle. It’s playful. I love her interpretation of the music. It reminds of the night hours and dreams and child-like play. It will use some senior citizens and some UW students, so it’s really intergenerational. It’s based on Suite No. 1.

“Where She Left Off” is the carryover and is by Ryan Smith of Madison. It uses a lot of sampling from Bach. But he also works with electronic means and calls himself a computerist.

It’s interesting what he pulls out of the themes. His music both formal and abstract elements as well as narrative humanistic elements. It’s based on Suite No. 4.

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