CHAPTER 2.1

ANALYSIS OF “FALLING DOWN STAIRS” PROJECT



This project was initially thought as a dance film. Falling Down Stairs is a choreography for fifteen dancers. Facing them, the cellist Yo Yo ma performs Bach Suite no. 3. Mark Morris is the choreographer of the project.

It is very important to understand that much baroque music was totally related to dance forms of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For that reason, the music is full of baroque ‘gestures.


As the name says, the performance includes stairs on stage. In most of the movements, the dancers start the choreography in the stairs, and they fall to the big space to start dancing. However, these stairs are not the main content of the performance. Eighteenth-century music is mainly created by harmonic patterns with a very stable tempo. In my point of view, Mr. Morris could just use the stairs as a metaphor, alluding to baroque music and reflecting on Bach's composition style. The stairs could reflect the solid structure of Bach's music, using different levels to represent the polyphony.


In this project, the composer uses gestures to create a connection between music and dance. He continuously uses aspects of music visualization. In other words, he connects the music and the dance in a very basic way. 

For example, Morris imitates a melodic and rhythmic shape with the dancer's body movements. When there is unison in the cello score, the dancers make the same movement together. However, sometimes, when there are canon structures in the music, the dancers create also these "echoes".


For this reason, Mark Morris has been accused of ‘Mickey Mousing’. The choreographer creates a close imitative relationship between music and dance. Sometimes this connection is too clear, in some way it becomes predictable. For that reason, "Mickey Mousing” has become a despective expression in the industry.


However, Stephanie Jordan, teacher of dance and research at London Roehampton University, writes (Jordan 2000:74):


Mark Morris has proved the point that the rule against overdoing music visualization can be broken, demonstrating through his extreme density of visualization the various ways in which music can be listened to. And, to, through judicious movement invention, he shows thus the ironies and fun of Mickey Mousing. 


One example of this technique is on the prelude. The cello's melody has a lively and free spirit. For that reason, the dancers replicate live and free movements. It really seems that they are improvising.


At first sight one could say that the choreographer over-explained the music, creating a very basic connection between music and dance. However, Mark Morris is explaining the complex character of that melody to the audience.


In some way, this kind of project may help the audience to understand the composition.

We can find another example of it in minute 9:14. At that moment, three dancers approach the camera with formidable and brave movements. Every time that the same musical motive appears, Morris uses this part of the choreography. Jordan tried to explain to us that Morris uses a fundamental connection between music and dance to explain the audience the structural form of the piece. According to her, this work could never be basic.


Apart from the "Mickey mousing" technique, which is based on the score, it seems that Morris didn’t base his performance on subjective thoughts such as happiness, sadness, joy or melancholy. The choreographer based his choreography on the music score and the structure of this. For that reason, it is convenient to think that the personal idea that Yo Yo Ma has about the piece - all thoughts that built his performance- may not fit the choreography.

In minute 7:55, the cellist finishes a music sentence with a descendent arpeggio. The musician smiles trying to create a confident and joyful idea about this section. However, when the music sentence finishes, one of the dances falls on the floor, simulating a death. Morris connected the descendent arpeggio with a descendent body movement, but the choreographer did not take into account the character that the musician wanted to express there.


In the first section of Bouree 1, the cello has fast rhythm patterns. However, the dance does not recreate the same patterns. According to Rachel Duerden (2007), this is due to the fact that musical notes can move faster than the human body's big parts. This happens because the cellist does little movements to make the sound, but dancers move around on the stage.


With this little detail, Morris shows us that it is important to know the differences between these two art disciplines, in order to make a strong relationship.Movement is easier perceived than sound, and for that reason, it makes no sense to create one movement per note in this section.


Apart from the connection between music and dance, it is very interesting to speak about the connection between dancers and musicians.It has not been possible to contact Yo Yo Ma to have more information about it. However, it would be important to know how this project changed the way the cellist played this piece.


In the video, the audience cannot value any special relation of the musician with the dancers. Nevertheless, in minute 2:55, he looks at the dancers trying to follow them. He is not trying to go together, but it seems that he tries to work hand in hand with them, as a chamber musician looks to other instrumentalists. In these kind of moments, the audience can relate that there is not music behind dance or the opposite, two things are happening at the same time.


Sometimes, instead of using the dance to express and explain the music, the choreographer uses it to develop the expression of the dance itself, even if the music is exactly equal. One clear example is on minute 15:00. The dancers move the hand together, expressing the movement of the melody. However, when the cello does the same melody later, the dancers repeat the movements. This time they create a canon with the movements, creating a variety in contrast with the music.


Instead of creating a real live performance, the idea of this project was to make a video. There are some technical features that I would like to speak about.  


The first one, the audio. It is very interesting that in the video it is possible to listen to the sounds that the dancer’s legs make on the floor. This could be easily solved putting just one microphone close to the cellist. However, it seems that Morris tried to create the feeling that the viewer is in that moment in the same hall.


The second feature that leads me to think that the choreographer is trying to approach the audience through the performance, is the camera movement. The camera is moving around the stage during the whole video. Sometimes the spectator can see the dancers, occasionally all the dancers, and every so often, just Yo Yo Ma.


One of the cameras uses the system "steady-cam". This means that the cameraman is using a stabilizer to make the movement of the camera smooth. For that reason, the camera operator can easily move fast on stage, following the dancers. It seems that the cameraman works as a dancer also, built in the choreography.


It is important to explain that this video was made with a Multicam process. This means that the performance is recorded by more than one camera. In the post-production process, Mark Morris could choose what to show on the video at every moment.


Continuing with the recording technique, it is important to emphasize that each dance of the suite is recorded in a separate clip. For that reason, the position of the dancers on stage is totally different between the final part of a movement, and the beginning of the following one. This makes it easier to explain the character of each movement differently. However, it becomes unreal. When the musician plays the complete piece, it is impossible to start the next movement as a starting point. Each movement has a character, and it affects the whole piece.

 

Compared with real live performances, the recording  has another big difference: it is possible to shoot close the face of the musician and the dancers. It would be very difficult for the audience to focus on the face expressions of the artists because of the distance between the spectator and the stage. However, in this project, the face becomes one more tool to express the music. Mark Morris doesn’t develop this tool a lot, the dancers usually have an assertive face through the whole piece. (Min 14:58)