Back to the 'Garden' with awe and delight

Linda Belans

Who hasn't been devastated by a first great love? We freeze the memory in time and space, wondering if we'll ever feel that way again, and all the while indulge in the fantasy of a do-over. If only I had said … The French call it l'esprit de l'escalier, the witticism you wish you had uttered as you climbed the stairs in a dramatic exit.

Few of us ever get a do-over. But Martha Clarke has with “Garden of Earthly Delights,” which opened the American Dance Festival's 30th year in Durham.

Clarke first presented the work at ADF in 1985. Based on Hieronymous Bosch's eponymous triptych, it forever changed the way we viewed and defined dance. We fixed it in our memories and anchored it with the smell of incense that wafted through Page Auditorium. At least that's what I remember.

Clarke created an atmosphere that sucked us in, made us gasp, horrified us, melted and broke our hearts, and mucked around with our dark side. She revealed the Garden of Eden, spun loose the seven deadly sins and took us to hell. Musicians cavorted with dancers, and performers flew over our heads past row J. In all its deliberate scenic spareness, it was on an operatic grand scale unlike anything we had ever seen.

“Garden” was the first piece Clarke created as she flung herself free from Pilobolus after seven years with the troupe. She integrated the Pils' trademark cantilever partnering and took it to levels the troupe hadn't yet discovered.

She called it “a work in progress.” And that's what she calls the 2007 version as well. What is she searching for? What would she alter? How have we changed?

From the original creative team, Clarke retained only costume designer Jane Greenwood and composer Richard Peaslee, who reworked the score. The results are reminiscent of the original, but somehow different.

Some of the original esoteric images recur. Bare branches form a morphing motif as gondoliering sticks, whips, masks, swirling and evocative imagery. The onstage musicians (Wayne Hankin, Egil Rostad and Arthur Solari) fill the otherwise empty space with the sound of wind.

Enter those iconic creatures Clarke created long ago, loping effortlessly on all fours, clad in impossibly sheer flesh- colored unitards, which Jeffrey Wirsing designed. Bathed in Christopher Akerlind's chiaroscuro lighting, they're breathtaking again.

The serpent, legs wrapped behind her on the menacing tree trunk, smiles seductively as two hands reach underneath and through her crotch to present the apple to Eve. Dancers stand aloft rolling bodies, traversing the river of waves. Hankin, twanging his jaw harp, doesn't miss a note as a woman clasps her body upside down to his chest, her crotch serving as an arm rest. Bodies intermingle organically everywhere.

One of the most hauntingly painful and successful segments is the duet between the cellist (Rostad) and dancer Gabrielle Malone (in the role originally danced by Clarke). “See me, notice me, love me,” her body screams as she tries in vain to interrupt his playing. It has a brutal finish.

Brutality lurks, stabs and drives the nearly 90 minutes of uninterrupted dance. In the gluttony segment, people torture and kill each other for a potato. If Bosch has captured the true human intention and spirit, it's not a stretch at all to understand what drives us to war.

There is much to marvel at with this reimagined version. And much to ponder. Clarke once again chose to create an imagistic version of Bosch's painting, and in the process, spareness reigns where his work is claustrophobic. The intimacy of Reynolds Theater diminishes the impact of the other worldly atmosphere that Page supported. When the dancer's leg comes close enough overhead to reach out and touch, we shift from heaven and hell to the programs on our laps and the gleam of the rigging.

As for the flying, this version soars with better technology for the angelic and the demonic, although the sound of the machinery, like the uncamouflaged rigging, proves distracting. Throughout the evening, I couldn't help wondering what it must have been like for Clarke to have those Boschian images living inside her head for more than 20 years, and wanting to immerse herself in them again. And what does it mean for us to revisit them all these years later?

We take a big risk when we tamper with memory. The cascading effect can be treacherous, forcing us to ask, Who was I then, and how have I reconstructed my past? And will the work ever be finished?