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'Angel Reapers': Praying with their legs
Rob Strong
“Angel Reapers” is on stage at the Joyce through Sunday.
The Shaker sect, founded in England in the 18th century and transplanted to New England, has inspired many dance artists, from Doris Humphrey to the Finnish Tero Saarinen. Now Martha Clarke and playwright Alfred Uhry have transformed a handful of Shaker hymns into “Angel Reapers,” an hour-long dance-drama both illuminating and heartbreaking.
“Mother” Ann Lee (actress Birgit Huppuch) and 10 of her followers sing and speak and whirl and tremble, collapsing time and foregrounding the emotional agony that accompanies constant self-denial. On the Joyce stage, set with 11 ladder-back chairs, they meet together to testify, recite the house rules and “shake,” channeling their erotic energy into exhausting dances.
The piece is as much a poem as a play or a dance; we watch warily as repression gives way to eruptions of passion, as men in black suits and hats take off their clothes, revealing their ability to control their “stiff.” Other members of the sect resist efforts at control. Luke Murphy and Isadora Wolfe play two orphans who grow to love and desire each other. They succumb to their urges in the middle of the stage, while the praying and singing continue all around them.
That such simple material can be concentrated to such powerful effect is a testament to the skills of Clarke and Uhry, both award-winning theater artists, and to music director Arthur Solari, who coaxes from this group of dancers harmonies the Shakers probably never imagined.
“Mother” Ann Lee (actress Birgit Huppuch) and 10 of her followers sing and speak and whirl and tremble, collapsing time and foregrounding the emotional agony that accompanies constant self-denial. On the Joyce stage, set with 11 ladder-back chairs, they meet together to testify, recite the house rules and “shake,” channeling their erotic energy into exhausting dances.
The piece is as much a poem as a play or a dance; we watch warily as repression gives way to eruptions of passion, as men in black suits and hats take off their clothes, revealing their ability to control their “stiff.” Other members of the sect resist efforts at control. Luke Murphy and Isadora Wolfe play two orphans who grow to love and desire each other. They succumb to their urges in the middle of the stage, while the praying and singing continue all around them.
That such simple material can be concentrated to such powerful effect is a testament to the skills of Clarke and Uhry, both award-winning theater artists, and to music director Arthur Solari, who coaxes from this group of dancers harmonies the Shakers probably never imagined.
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