“If you sing the music enough, sometimes you stop realizing how it is that you begin and end together. As a matter of fact, there are many times when I have no idea how we all get off at the same time. It’s just a kind of thinking together–it’s really very weird and wonderful. That comes with familiarity, not only with the music but with each other.”
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It was summertime, the city wanted to celebrate something, and it was the bicentennial of the French Revolution. The ad hoc cultural committee convened included among its members Alexandra Nelson, Oriana’s managing director, and Shirley Mordine, director of Mordine & Company, the resident dance troupe at Columbia College. “Nothing concrete was coming out of the committee to involve the smaller Chicago performing groups,” says Chin. “Shirley thought maybe we should put something together–just do it.” Chin made a tape of a cappella music from a variety of composers, all of whom had some connection to France–Copland is American, but at the time he composed these motets he was a student living in Paris. Each of the three dance groups connected with the committee chose some music from the tape and choreographed a new work to it. The result was a lunch-hour performance at Daley Center Plaza in which the Oriana Singers accompanied Mordine & Company, Ballet Chicago, and JHCDT.
For that performance Randy Duncan, artistic director of JHCDT, chose two Copland motets from the tape because they were unfamiliar pieces by a composer he loved. “They were very spiritual,” he says, “very quiet and beautiful and stirring.” When Harriet Ross, JHCDT’s associate artistic director, saw the dance Duncan had choreographed, her response was, “We can’t lose this–we have to put it in the repertory.” To expand the piece, Duncan added a third motet to the original two; it’s now the middle section of Copland Motets.
For Copland Motets, some degree of coordination is necessary. “Randy has designed into his piece places where it stops [between motets]. And it’s up to the dancers to be ready to go on when we go on. But it’s also up to us to make sure there’s just enough time–not too much and not too little–when those places happen.” Though the Oriana Singers and JHCDT had one rehearsal together at the beginning of February, they will not rehearse together again until the day their engagement opens. “I try not to worry,” says Chin.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Charles Eshelman.
