ARTWORK FOR NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL POSTER BY ROSEMARIE TROCKEL

1 993 N EXT WAVE FESTIVAL BAMBILL

BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC Harvey Lichtenstein, President & Exewtive Producer

presellts ill the BAM Ma;estic Theater Novelll/Jer 10,1993 7plll; Novelllber 11-13, 8pIII John Kelly and Company Light Shall Lift Them story, choreography, and direction by JOHN KELLY

with Robert La Fosse as Inspiration; Dargelos (childhood friend) Mary Elizabeth Poore as Mrs. Clyde; Comtesse de Tildanette; A Maid John Kelly as]ean Cocteau; young Vander Clyde; Vander Barbette

music Bill Obrecht filmmaker Anthony Chase lyrics Mark Campbell lighting design Stan Pressner music director Roberto Pace costume design Donna Zakowska directorial consultallt ..Ethan Silverman set desigll ...Tom Pritchard, Billy Jarecki productioll manager Chris Buckley hair and make-up design .. Bobby Miller stage manager Lori E. Seid producer/managing director...Liz Dunn

musicians Dawn Buckholz, cello Anita Miller, Fl'ench hom Marshall Coid, violin Roberto Pace, piano/conductor Jean Kopperud, clarinet Tina Pelikan, viola Sato Moughalian, flute Bill Ruyle, percussion

Cocteau twins: Almon Grimstead and Thomas Benjamin Matthe'ws Audience members, Cirque Medrano, Paris, 1924: DD Dorville, Scott Heron, Joann Passantino set design assistant: Scott Pask lightillg design assistallt: Amy Appleyard trapeze coach: Irina Gold routine coach: Paul LuBera French diction coach: Jacqueline Chambord

Light Shall Lift Them colltaills excerpts frolll the 1929Jeall Codeat/ essay "Le Nt/llliro Barbette" alld frolll the 1966 New Yorker article "Alllllterview with Barbette" by Francis Steeglllltiler.

The BAM presentation of Light Shall Lift Thelll has been made possible, in part, by The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc., The Greenwall Foundation, and Meet The Composer.

The production of Light Shall Lift Them was made possible by a grant from Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Opera for a New America, a project of OPERA America. _ PROGRAM NOTES_

John Kelly and Company would like to extend The Lied Center for the Performing Arts, special thanks to the following funders and University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, organizations for making this production possi­ State University of New York at Purchase, ble: National Performance Network Creation Fund in collaboration with co-commissioning part­ The Greenwall Foundation's Os'car M. ners Miami-Dade Community College, Miami, Ruebhausen Commission, which generously Florida, and Diverseworks, Houston, Texas. supported the development of Light Shall Lift Them; Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Alan Bell & David Ziff, Rachel ChanoH, Meet The Composer, and New York State William Deneen, Olga Garay, Amy Lamphere, Council on the Arts. Michael O'Brien, and Francis Steegmuller. Mary Sharp Cronson, John and Jodie Eastman, Special thanks to our friends at The Show Willam Forsythe, Agnes Gund, Joseph Lexa, Folks Circus Club in Sarasota, Fla.; Arthur and Laura Donnelley-Morton and John Morton, Dorothy Grodafant, Margie Geiger, Bunny Billy Norwich, Patsy Tarr, and all of the Bartok, Hedwig LaLache. Friends and Angels of John Kelly and John Kelly and Company would like to dedi­ Company. cate these performances to the memory of our friend and collaborator Huck Snyder. FILM CREDITS PRODUCTION CAST Anthony Chase Director of Photography John Kelly young Vander Clyde, Barbette, Rick Rodine Camera, Assistant Editor Jean Cocteau Bill Cozy Sound Anne Iobst Alfaretta Sister Alex Wolf Sound Lucy Sexton Alfaretta Sister Tricia Williams Production Coordinator/ Daniel Zippi William Morris Agent Catering Craig Jackson William Morris Assistant Bobby Miller Hair and Make Up Design Kyle de Camp Colleen Gould Donna Zakowska Costume Mary Elizabeth Poore Comtesse de Laurie Olinder Set Dressing Tildanette Scott Pask Set Construction Marleen Menard Chanteuse Tracy Williams Assistant Camera Jon David Weigand Spencer Gould Thomas Benjamin Matthews Production Assistant EXTRAS SPECIAL THANKS TO Colleen MacCallum, Daniela MacCallum ABC Carpets, LaMama ETC Ranger Rex, Doug Landau West Side Films, Inc., Rick Rodine Damiano Ruggeriero, Marcello Farulo Daniel Zippi, Caspar Stracke WHO'S WHO JOHN KELLY creates solo and ensemble muhi­ Robert La Fosse, and in videos and films by media dance theatre works which have been per­ Charles Atlas, Tom Rubnitz, Simon Grome, formed in North and South America, Europe, Cenan Gerede, and Chus Gutierrez. In 1991, he and Asia for ten years. Titles include The made his opera directorial debut in a critically­ Dagmar Onassis Story (1984), Go West Junger acclaimed production of Matthew Locke's Mann (1984), Long Live the Knife (1985), Diary Cupid and Death at Opera at the Academy. He of a Somnambulist (1986), Pass the Blutwurst, has received two New York Dance and Bitte (1986), Born with the Moon in Cancer Performance (Bessie) Awards, two Obie awards, (1987), Find My Way Home (1988), Ode to a an American Choreographer Award, three NEA Cube (1988), Love of a Poet (1990), Maybe It's Choreographer Fellowships, a Guggenheim Cold Outside (1991), Akin (1992), and most Fellowship, and, most recently, the Greenwall recently Divine Promiscue (1992). As a per­ Foundation's first Oscar M. Ruebhausen former, he has appeared with the companies of Commission. He has studied voice with Peter Charles Weidman, Ellen Stewart, Martha Clarke, Elkus at the Academia Musicale Ottorino John Jesurun, Ishmael Houston-Jones, and Respighi in Assisi, Italy. • continued WHO'S WHO

BILL OBRECHT is making his third appearance at LIZ DUNN has been the Managing Director of the NEXT WAVE Festival having previously John Kelly & Co. since its inception in 1990. She worked at BAM with Laurie Anderson and Guy also heads Liz Dunn Production/Management, Klusevek. Between NEXT WAVE projects, Obrecht Inc., a performing arts service organization that has written scores for the Joffrey Ballet, Hartford provides project development, production, man- Ballet, Berkshire Ballet, Montreal Danse, Winnipeg agement, and booking services to a variety of Contemporary Dancers, and the Serious Fun artists and venues. LDP/M recently curated and Festival, worked with choreographers Charles co-produced the Nations of New York Arts Moulton and Victoria Marks, filmmakers Kathy Festival for the Henry Street Settlement's Abrons High, Michael Owen, Lee Eiferman, and Carol Ann Arts Center. Klonarides, toured with PS 122 Field Trips and had ROBERT LA FOSSE was born in Beaumont, his work produced four times by Dance Theater Texas and received his ballet training at the Workshop. Obrecht also co-wrote, with visual Marsha Woody Academy of Dance. In 1977, he artist Perry Hoberman, the play Return To Sender. joined the American Ballet Theatre as a member Obrecht's concert music has been performed in of the corps de ballet. He advanced to soloist and New York at Merkin Hall, Symphony Space, Alice then to Principal rank. In 1986, Mr. La Fosse Tully Hall, Central Park Summer-stage, and many joined the New York City Ballet as Principal other national and international venues. Dancer. His Broadway credits include Bob Fosse's DAWN BUCKHOLZ is a member of the Soldier Dancin' (1979) and Jerome Robbins's Broadway String Quartet and is also a vocalist and composer (1988-89). He performed with Twyla Tharp's in her own group, Cellovision!, which will be company during its 1990-91 season. His own touring Mexico in late November. choreography has been created for and performed CHRIS BUCKLEY has most recently worked as by Mikhail Baryshnikov & Co., The NYC Ballet, the produc tIon· manager fATor nne eresa De The School of American Ballet Theatre, and Live Keersmaekers's company, ROSAS. Prior to from Off Center (PBS). ROSAS, Mr Buckley was the production manager JEAN KOPPURUD a graduate of The Juilliard at BAM. He has also served as technical director /;School, has toured the United States, Canada, for the New York International Festival of the Europe, Japan, and Australia. In 1987 she made Arts and the International Theatre Institute her Avery Fisher Hall debut presented by the New Festival. York Philharmonic. She currently performs with MARK CAMPBELL received the first Kleban the New York Music Ensemble, Omega, ISCM, Foundation Award, the largest cash award in and Newband and teaches at The Juilliard School. American musical theater history. With composer ANITA MILLER is currently a master student at Stephen Hoffman, he wrote lyrics for Splendora, The Juilliard School. She has worked with Chang & Eng, and The Sweet Revenge of Louisa Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, New Haven May. He also wrote the lyrics for Akin (music by Symphony Orchestra, and New World Symphony Richard Peaslee), co-produced by John Kelly & Orchestra, and was Guest Soloist at the Aberdeen Co. and Music Theatre Group at LaMama last Music Festival in Scotland. She was also the horn year. Upcoming: co-conception and lyrics for Ring player for the touring productions of Cats and Around the Rosie with the Parsons Dance Co. Phantom ofthe Opera. ANTHONY CHASE has been making films and BOBBY MILLER's work has been seen in all doing installations in the performance and night- media: print, film, TV, video, and stage. He is club arena since 1983. A long-time collaborator also a published photographer and poet. His cur- with John Kelly, he has worked on productions of rent book of photographs and poetry, entitled Find My Way Home, Love of a Poet, Maybe It's Benestrific Blonde, is available at Wendells Books. Cold Outside, and most recently Divine Promiscue. In Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte, Chase SATO MOUGHALIAN is currently co-director of "Perspectives in Music & Art" at Columbia featured as both filmmaker and performer, and University, and is active as a freelance orchestral toured Europe, Canada, and the U.S.A. In 1991 he musician in NYC. She has recorded on the CBS received a New York Dance and Performance and Classic Masters la bels and for Musical (Bessie) Award for his film work with Kelly. His Heritage Society, and in 1994 will record own films include Bloodless Pharoah, Rude Girl Romance, an exploration of early 20th-century Picnic, and Welcome to Edenvale. French character pieces, with pianist Yves Abel. MARSHALL COlD has been critically acclaimed ROBERTO PACE has earned critical acclaim as a as violinist, countertenor, and composer with composer, pianist, and conductor. He previously numerous Broadway, opera, television, and inter- national credits. He was the violin/countertenor worked with John Kelly & Co. as music director soloist in Bernsteins's MASS on PBS TV for the of Akin. He is currently composing an opera to be tenth anniversary of the Kennedy Center. I produced by the American Opera Projects. WHO'S WHO

TINA PELIKAN plays principal viola for the ETHAN SILVERMAN has directed new plays and Long Island Philharmonic and the New England revivals at many theatres including: LaMama, Bach Festival. An avid performer of contemporary Ensemble Studio Theatre, Manhattan Class music, she has played with the Bowery Ensemble Company, Naked Angels, Limbo (New York); and Musical Elements, and is a member of The Mark Taper Forum, The Odyssey (Los Abandon Ensemble. She can be heard on Opus Angeles); and The New End (London). This is his One and Mode records. second collaboration with John Kelly, Robert La Fosse, and Stan Pressner, having directed MARY ELIZABETH POORE has been enjoying Osiris for the Guggenheim's Works and Process Series. success on the concert as well as the opera stage, performing diverse roles with such companies as DONNA ZAKOWSKA has worked as a designer Virginia Opera, Mobile Opera, Michigan Opera in film, theater, circus, and puppet theater. Her Theater, Glimmerglass Opera, and Orlando work in film has been primarily with Woody Allen Opera. In July 1993, she created the title role in and John Turturro. She designs the Big Apple the world premiere of Libby Larsen's new opera Circus and is currently designing Steve Reich's Mrs. Dalloway with Lyric Opera of Cleveland to opera The Cave, which opened BAM's '93 NEXT great critical acclaim. Ms. Poore received her WAVE Festival. bachelor and master of music degrees from Indiana University. JOHN KELLY & COMPANY is a not-for-profit STAN PRESSNER has created lighting for The theater ensemble that supports and produces the New York City Ballet, The Lyon Opera Ballet, Bill work of acclaimed multi-media artist John Kelly T. Jones/Arnie Zane & Co., John Kelly & Co., and his collaborators. Both solo and group work Ralph Lemon & Co., Meredith Monk/The House, are included in the Company's repertory. In addi­ The Universal Ballet of Seoul, The Atlanta Ballet, tion to an international tour of Light Shall Lift The Boston Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, The Them in 1994-95, other Company plans include a Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble, Stephen Petronio CD recording/music video project, creation of a & Dancers, Blue Man Group, and Netherlands new solo choreographic evening, and a Company Dance Theatre, among others. TV credits include revival of Find My Way Home, Kelly's haunting Two Moon July for the Kitchen and PBS, Night 1988 re-telling of the Orpheus myth, set to Music for WHYY-TV Philadelphia, and Airdance Gluck's opera, Orfeo ed Eurydice. For informa­ for Live from Off Center. Mr. Pressner is the tion about John Kelly & Co. and its activities, recipient of a 1988 Bessie Award, and 1988 and please contact: 1991 American Theatre Design Award nomina­ tions. Liz Dunn, Managing Director; John Kelly & Co. 425 W. 23rd St., Suite #lE; New York, NY 10011 TOM PRITCHARD/BILLY JARECKI, though tel. 212-691-1970 fax 212-691-9417 best known as the creators of Pure Madderlake, an adventurous and at times irreverent flower store in New York City, work in a wide variety of JOHN KELLY & COMPANY media: architecture, interior design, photography, receives public support from: landscape, and event and theater design concerns. Art Matters Inc., Dance Ink, Foundation for With Flowers Rediscovered well-established as a Contemporary Performance Arts, Mary Flagler classic in the field of flower books, their second Cary Charitable Trust, Chemical Bank, Greenwall book, Trade Secrets (Clarkson Potter), vehemently Foundation, The Harkness Foundations for bent on reforming an "archaic" and deadly-dull Dance, Jerome Foundation, Meet The Composer, flower trade both here and abroad, will appear on Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, National Valentine's Day, 1994. Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Philip Morris Companies Inc., Fan BILL RUYLE has played in numerous ensembles Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Peg including those of A. Leroy, Scott Johnson, Guy Santvoordt Foundation, James E. Robison Klucevsek, Peter Zummo, Jon Gibson, "Blue" Foundation, Lila Acheson Wallace Theatre Fund Gene Tyranny, and the Manhattan Marimba at Community Funds, Inc. Quartet. Bill composes music for dance and con­ cert performances and is on the faculty of the and the many wonderful individual contributors Music Advancement Program at The Juilliard who support the Company's activities as Friends School. and Angels. LORI E. SEID is a freelance stage manager who has JOHN KELLY & COMPANY worked extensively with artists such as Karen Finley, BOARD OF DIRECTORS Dancenoise, David Rousseve, Diamanda Galas, Ann Pamela Auchincloss, Cee Brown, Stephen Clark, Carlson, Lisa Kron, Blueman Group, and Meredith Liz Dunn, Terris Gallowhur, Craig Jackson, Hebe Monk. She is a recipient of an OBIE Award and a Joy, John Kelly, Phyllis Kind, Tom Levine, Bessie Award for sustained achievement. •Michael O'Brien, John Wessel, Philip Yenaw.ine Barbette as The mesmerizing attraction graduated high school at the age photographed by Ba rbette's persona and perfor­ of fourteen. His dreams of Man Ray. mance effected upon Cocteau does becoming a circus performer now Critic Verano Pilcher's not limit itself to the confined began to penetrate reality more review of Barbette's ael, banks of personal correspondence. sharply. Actualizing the dream, he fram which John Kelly's Cocteau's enthusiasm floods over responded to a Billboard help light Sholilih Them the levee of private espousal with wanted notice. derives its title, describes the 1926 La Nouvelle Revue The advertisement had been the transvesti trapeze Franryaise's publication of his essay placed by the Alfaretta Sisters­ "Le NumCro Barbette." In its "World Famous Aerial Queens." artist as 'a statement public pages Cocteau gushes, "one A double trapeze and swinging slung between twa is ashamed of mastering one's own ring act, one of the sisters had mysteries.' craft so badly when confronted recently died and a replacement with such artists ....That shows was sought. The young man from what lowe to the Barbette act: a Austin demonstrated his skills and remarkable lesson of professional­ acquired the vacated position. ism on the stage." "Alfaretta asked me if I'd mind John Kelly, creator of the dressing as a girl. I didn't; and NEXT WAVE Festival commis­ that's how it began." " sion Light Shall Lift Them, fre­ The new-born Alfaretta Sister quently tells a story from his own soon reached the conclusion that life resonant with narrative and his act, if properly showcased, aesthetic identities paralleling could transcend a mere covert cir­ those of the Cocteau/Barbette rela­ cus turn and become a sensation. tionship: "In 1979, I was hired to Not daring to breach the circus' sit above the staircase of the Anvil code of honor and reveal himself and draw all night. I saw Tanya to audiences as a male in female Ransom lipsynching Nina Hagen. guise, he broke with the circus and It was an absolute revelation to moved into vaudeville. me." For both Kelly and Cocteau, Experiencing what has been the setting of a drag performance branded its "Golden Age of provides the backdrop for an Female Impersonation," vaudeville epiphany. embraced this latest entry at the Barbette was born Vander Harlem Opera House in Clyde in Round Rock, Texas, September of 1919. "It i a real December 19, 1904. In a 1969 shock," proclaimed Variety. interview with Cocteau biographer Adopting the nom de transvesti Francis Steegmuller, he reveals the "Barbette," Vander Clyde now EXT WEEK," writes Jean Cocteau in a letter to Paul immediate and indelible impact performed an elaborate version of Collaer, "you'll see a music-hall act called that the circus produced upon him his circus turn upon the stage, as a child: "the first time she Ihis doffing his coiffure for a finale. Barbette... I myself have seen no comparable mother] took me to the circus in Soon signed by the William display of artistry on the stage since Nijinsky." Austin, I knew I'd be a per­ Morris agency, Barbette embarked Championing the music-hall act to Valentine former." Emulating the act that upon a European tour. Ex-patriot most impressed him, the wire act, Paris society of the 1920's wel­ Hugo, Cocteau writes, "Barbette is a young the young boy spent endless hours comed the freshly arrived talent. American who performs on the trapeze dressed diligently mastering techniques of Coctea u biographer Frederick as a woman. Ten unforgettable minutes. A balance on his mother's back yard Brown paints the period as a time galvanized clothes-line. when "It was chic to be dressed by theatrical masterpiece. An angel, a flower, a A bright and precocious Coco Chanel,... to like Barbette, bird. We all found him a knockout." child, he excelled in school and ... to admire whatever Jean Cocteau wrote and, better yet, to have with Cocteau were "resolved right him as a dinner guest." then and there." At the time of his first meeting Kelly's Light Shall Lift Them, his with Barbette, Cocteau functioned as BAM debut, exploits his acclaim as an an epicenter in a highly vital experi­ artist identified with drag roles. mental artistic climate. Achieving Immediately begging dragophobic widespread visibility and attention as notions of aesthetic validity, Kelly a published poet and collaborator in qualifies that "though drag comprises such stage presentations as the Ballets only a small portion of my total out­ Russes' Parade and the Swedish put, it continues to get much of the Ballet's Maries de la Tour Eiffel, attention." Creating a performative Cocteau stood as an arbiter of taste structure in which he portrays both on the French scene. Cocteau and Barbette, Kelly simulta­ Publicly and privately the French neously indulges his identification poet embraced the with the historical figures American trapeze artiste. and his own history as a With Cocteau's impri­ performance artist. matur firmly affixed, With a score by Bill Barbette's celebrity was An o brecht, the work is an assured. Cocteau's identi­ original orchestral, vocal, fication with Barbette dance, film and circus demonstrates an exchange angel, arts commingling and muse-like in scope and exploration of the tone. So seminal was Cocteau/Barbette materi­ Barbette's impact upon a als. Deriving its title Cocteau that Brown from a sentence found in declares an investigation a 1930 Theatre Arts of the relationship key to flower, Monthly review of any understanding of Barbette's act, Light Shall Cocteau's aesthetic. Lift Them serves for Identifying himself a Kelly as "a direct parallel as an artist with "other between my experience possibilities," John Kelly's and w hat I imagine performance work fre­ bird. Cocteau's experience quently employs drag as must have been like." As an aesthetic choice. Kelly writes in the NEXT Aware of Cocteau since WAVE Journal, "Cocteau high school, Kelly confesses to having the artist has fostered what remains of always felt "a kinship with Cocteau's Barbette the artist." And it is there work and what he was after." With that Light Shall Lift Them turns to long-held artistic impuJses towards inhabit the mystique of Cocteau and creating a theater piece concerning Barbette. Cocteau, Kelly's urges were stifled due to what he describes as "a lack of angle" and concerns over "not simply - JOE E. JEFFREYS constructs his reiterating the material." identity through a rebus. An author and Barbette provided Kelly with the critic, his work has appeared in The Village ideal counterweight with which to Voice, The Drama Review and New York balance his Coctelean identity. Spying Folklore. Member of the art collective Big a Man Ray book of Barbette pho­ Dicks Make Me Sweat Productions, he is completing his dissertation, "An Outre tographs that employs Cocteau's "Le Entree Into The Para-Ridiculous Histrionics Numero Barbette" essay as a forward, of Drag Diva Ethyl Eichelberger: A True Kelly states that his issues and con­ Story," for New York University'S cerns over creating a work dealing Department of Performance Studies.