Diana Tokaji’s Flight out of Mad Gravel

 

To a full house in the Bethesda, Maryland Writer’s Center Reading Room on April 17, 2024, Diana Tokaji explored through dance, poetry, and music how to fly despite obstacles. The  Dresser noted that the obstacles included a tremor in her hands, vocal issues, and the loss of a dance partner through A.I.D.S. What shone through was an indomitable  spirit with the ability to literally move her audience in a very well thought out  and engaging program.

 

Twelve pieces divided in three sections comprised Mad Gravel & Other Life Stories, an hour-long program. “Limping Dance with Ripe Persimmon”  provided an upfront confession of onset disabilities though not all, like limping and stuttering were personal disabilities. Using a colorful flowing scarf, the dancer demonstrated her ability to flow and move gracefully though there are moments like limping and shaking that interrupt.

 

Her introduction to “In the Hut” revealed to the audience that the repetitious poetry of this piece was detrimental to her voice, so she was going to cut it from the program. However, people around her raised a clamor, so she enlisted her Artistic Assistant Margaret Riddle to recite the poetry  while sitting on a stool as she, the dancer, stood behind and used her arms to sculpt the dance.

 

The next several pieces brought birds and trees into view. She asked the audience to picture themselves as a tree and to tell a nearby seatmate what tree. Then she asked everyone who was able to stand up, to cross their limbs with their seatmates, to sway and to feel the sun shining on them. She said (and maybe this was part of a poem) “these woods are improv.” Whether this was a particularly sympathetic audience or her ability to engage is just that powerful, most people in the room readily complied, including the Dresser who has a deep-seated love of trees.

 

The second section dealt with the importance of “small moments,” a “Loss of Words,” and what activities were still negotiable—“Are You Still XYZ?” The XYZ potently refers to dance (among other things)—Are you still dancing? The answer comes in a video within a video. Tokaji is shown dancing with both her dance partners: Linda Ellis Rawlings who is in the main video with Tokaji and Daryl Lloyd who is in a projected video behind them. Lloyd is the partner who died of A.I.D.S.

 

The last section gets the audience involved again as she asks everyone to consider what they would bring in a small boat as part of her presentation of “Poem of Trust. Poem of Fearless.”  Then she presented a taste of her dance opera Mad Gravel and her poem “Post-Assault Prescription When I Fear My Spirit Dying.”  This is the poem which was published by Washington, DC’s Split This Rock poetry festival and which was dedicated to Coretta Scott and Martin Luther King, Jr. Today, the poem profoundly looks at what the dancer is capable of  as she strives for justice that may never be achieved:

 

 

Post-Assault Prescription When I Fear My Spirit Dying [excerpt]

Here in the mud
of my history
beneath the rage
is counsel.

Where grace
expands like the air
under a bird’s wings
all day it seems,

rising
soaring
gliding.

Willingness
to take the air
and ride it
is grace.

Riding,
being lifted
by air
is grace.

I seek grace now
as my rage deepens
exponentially
to hate.

As I see my own dreams –
the day ones
the night –

and witness my capacity
to do to another
real harm.

I return to silence
I am not saying
it is easy.

I return to silence
I am not saying
I will be quiet.

I return to silence
I am not saying
I won’t shout my grief
from the rooftops.

Diana Tokaji’s program had many helping hands including Jess Harris, audio Visual Technician, Denaise Seals of Slingshot Video, camera operator Yegide Calhoun, photographer Angelique Raptakis, costume designer Rachel Knudson, and Artistic Assistant Margaret Riddle. Proceeds from this show were donated to Ella’s Gift: Yoga Therapy Scholarship Fund for Women. There will be a video forthcoming from this performance.

 

Photos by Angelique Raptakis

 

The Breakables of The Glass Studio

 

 The heart is the fragile part

            that allows things to break

   from “The Flaw”

 

 

                                                     L e t  t h e s e  l I n e s  b e  s t r o n g e r

t h a n  t h o s e  b r o k e n  a t  e v e r y  s u p e r m a r k e t ,

b r o k e n  w i t h  p e o p l e  h o a r d I n g

   from “Cognitive Overload Virtually Invites Disaster — 19”

 

 

he broke my mother’s body

                to create something sacred

   from “The Glass Studio: I must go back”

 

 

                                                             …as if it were

 

my body, it broke. But I forgive you for the miracle

of everything you shatter.

   from “Oracle”

 

 

                                         not comprehending

                                   what glass stood for: breakable,

                       unbroken, seamless, flat.

   from “Properties of Glass”

 

The Dresser notes that broken and fragile things are featured in Sandra Yannone’s The Glass Studio, a collection of poetry published in 2024  from the Irish press salmonpoetry. Some of the broken things are massive—New York’s Twin Towers and the people who perished there during the terrorist attack of 9/11, the Titanic ship that hit an iceberg sending its passengers into icy waters, the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where 49 people died and 53 others were injured. While all the poems employ the word glass, over half of the poems in this collection use some version of the word break, including the last poem “The Glass Studio — Glass eyes, glass flowers, glass attics and floors”, which ends “Now go home to your glass house and unpack every glass mirror you forever hoped to break.”

 

This work is about the fragile proposition of living and finding connection through love. The opening poem “Cut Glass” makes this clear as the “I” narrator, presumably the poet, gives her lover a jar of tap water and sea glass “worn down/by years/of turbulent waves/and rocks.” In a way, this odd gift is like a snow globe meant to be shaken. But unlike the scene of snow falling over an idyllic landscape, this jar when disturbed  floats glass that cuts, has cut the poet marring her once perfect skin.

 

What is perfectly intact is this intelligent and sensitively arranged work of 36 well-sculpted poems presented in four sections, most prefaced by a quote on glassmaking and each ending with a poem entitled “The Glass Studio.” Variety prevails in terms of poetic forms used but also includes a sestina in every section. Other forms include sonnets, prose poems, quatrains, couplets, tercets, a variety of indented and interleaved poems where alternating lines hug the left and then the right margin.

 

A less familiar form occurs in “Cognitive Overload Virtually Invites Disaster — 19”, a pandemic lockdown poem where even the letters of the words observe “social distancing.” Toward the end of “Cognitive Overload…”, comes this line: “W I l l  t h I s  p o e m  b e  m y  f I n a l  l o v e r ?” Here this meta poetic question elevates the plight of the poet by superimposing a capital I (to emphasize the first-person point of view) in the words wIll, thIs, and fInal. It is part of the poet’s cognitive overload. Cognitive overload occurs when the brain gets too much information and stops working. Not all the i’s in the poem are capitalized and the Dresser guesses that not every reader will notice the emphasis the poet is placing on the letter I.

 

Poetry of merit deserves rereading, and, in that rereading, one hopes to discover something new. The Glass Studio is a book to slowdown for, to let its letters, words, forms, and meanings have time to coalesce as the making of a stain glass window might. In other words, Sandra Yannone practices careful craftsmanship in her glass studio.

Of Love and Monsters

 

 

 

The desire to be held looms large in T. De Los Reyes book of poetry And Yet Held. The fruition of that desire comes despite obstacles.

 

                                     …you looked at me from

across the room in a way that made me feel held.

Oh, how I am but skin fragmented by touch, from

which a little flower blooms amidst all the wreckage.

And, having been found, waits to be kissed.

[excerpt, “Debris”]

 

 

                                  …Can you hold me when I am

unbearable and especially then. What I mean when

 

I say thirst is your eyes drinking me in, telling me

you’ll dig through bones and cinders just to be here,

 

wherever here is.

[excerpt, “Forest Fire”]

 

 

                          …Wasn’t I scared of dying

…

collision, accidental fires, earthquakes…

…

I am terror struck by the monster living under

my skin…

And hadn’t you draped your shadow around

my shoulders saying, I will hold you, I will hold

you now and always…

[excerpt, “Umbra”]

 

And Yet Held is a love story with monsters and some of those monsters like the one named in “Umbra” reside in the narrator. In her seven-part poem “Monsters”, the poet deals with an all devouring and wild love which she compares to possibly a one-night stand that made the narrator feel the shame of racism and not being seen. The wild lover makes the narrator feel equally monstrous in a good way: “I am your/ leviathan among the woods” and unafraid of being seen: “No one can stop me/ from holding your hand,/ not even the demons that/ corrupt their heart.”

 

In this time where many poets, writers, and ordinary people speak of loneliness and heartbreak, this beautifully produced book with a hand touching flowers on its predominantly blue cover  (Durham, NC: Bull City Press, 2024) explodes with the galactic light of love:

 

                  …What I love about a ship going

to deep space is the proximity near light

and darkness and the reluctant decay of

days and years. When you kiss me I forget

my name. I forget myself. I recognize only

the skin and bones that house this body.

Permission to disturb the gods in slumber.

Permission to scatter, as if hundreds of fish

in the warm sea, as if an exploding star.
[excerpt, “Near Light”]

 

 

T. De Los Reyes, a Filipino poet and designer, is author of Woeman, a poetry chapbook. She has been published in such journals as Crazyhorse, Hobart After Dark, and Pleiades.

 

 

Esther: A Double Feature in Justice for Jews

 

Why does the story of the annihilation of Jews with a happy ending survive over centuries? In this time of rising Antisemitism, the Dresser raises this question after partaking of Opera Lafayette’s 90-minute concert production of Esther on February 8, 2024, at the John F. Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.

 

What particularly highlights this question is that Opera Lafayette is presenting in this production the work of two baroque composers—Jean-Baptiste Moreau and George Friderick Handel. Handel (1685 –1759), best known for his monumental oratorio The Messiah, was a Christian of German birth. The French born Jean Baptiste Moreau (1656 –1733) was also a Christian who started his life in music as a choirboy, worked in the court of Louis XIV, and contributed original music to the last plays of Jean-Baptiste Racine including Esther.

 

What the Dresser gleaned from the pre-show talk was that Racine’s play was written for the daughters of impoverished nobility in King Louis XIV’s court. These young girls were being educated by Madame Maintenon, who wished to instill a  level of moral receptivity.

 

The dual-composers production pleased the Dresser—the baroque music is wonderful. The singers, especially soprano Paulina Francisco as Esther and bass-baritone Jonathan Woody as Haman sang with notable authority. Francisco provided a smooth ease to the ornamentation required by the music for Esther. The musicians playing mostly contemporary instruments (e.g., violins, cello, double bass, oboe, bassoon, trumpet) and some period instruments (e.g., harpsichord and violone) played with noticeable gusto.

 

May 3 and 4, 2024, Opera Lafayette continues “The Era of Madame de Maintenon” with its fully staged production of Jean-Joseph Mouret’s Les Fêtes de Thalie. Kudos to Opera Lafayette for reviving an obscure opera like Esther which has relevance to contemporary concerns. 

 

 

 Portrait by Pierre Mignard, 1694

 

 

Sanctuary Road

 On February 4^th, 2024, the Dresser attended Virginia Opera’s production of Sanctuary Road by composer Paul Moravec and librettist Mark Campbell. The Center for the Arts, a George Mason Arts Venue, hosted this production. The story of Sanctuary Road is based on historical texts by William Still, a conductor of the Underground Railroad who aided close to 800 people in escaping slavery. In Still’s memoir The Underground Railroad Records (published 1872) are the stories of the people he helped. Some escape stories like the one of Box Brown, a man who nailed himself into a crate and got the crate mailed to Philadelphia where Blacks were free, were already familiar to the Dresser from other contemporary theater works. Nonetheless, these stories are important for the American public to hear since the racial fallout from the American Civil War, a war to end slavery, continues into the 21^st Century.

The original Sanctuary Road was presented at Carnegie Hall in 2018 as an oratorio. This production had the underpinning of oratorio with a large chorus sitting in chairs on stage. The musical harmonies are rich and satisfying—something one would expect from an oratorio. The players, all excellent vocally,  performed in front of the chorus or around them. One through-line story was about a man running from his place of enslavement and thus he is seen running behind and through the chorus at several times during the production. 

 

The production was well done. The large orchestra conducted by Everett McCorvey never covered the singers’ voices. There were surtitles but the words were enunciated well and were understandable.

 

Moravec’s pleasing music is tonal and accessible. Surprisingly for the subject matter, Sanctuary Road seems to derive its inspiration from European classical music. No suggestion of spirituals. No gospel. No jazz. And no hint of African rhythms. Moravec, who is white, is a Pulitzer prize-winning composer for his work Tempest Fantasy which was inspired by William Shakespeare.

 

Sanctuary Road moves to Dominion Energy Center, Richmond, Virginia for two more performances on February 9 & 11, 2024.

 

Photo by Dave Pearson Photography

ModernMedieval at the National Gallery of Art

 

This is the time of the year when the Dresser craves an old church concert of medieval music where the acoustics can be felt as well as heard. The next best thing occurred on December 10, 2023, at Washington, DC’s National Gallery of Art West in one of their garden atriums when ModernMedieval presented a cappello music celebrating Advent, Christmas, and winter solstice. Singing was mezzo soprano Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek (artistic director), soprano Martha Cluver, and soprano Chloe Holgate.

 

Among the baker’s dozen of musical selections were several chants by the mystic nun Hildegard von Bingen; numerous anonymous pieces ranging from 13^th to 15^th Century, including the deliciously odd “Ivy Is Good”; one traditional English carol (“O Little Town of Bethlehem”) notably arranged by Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek (this arrangement allows for pauses that made the well-known carol seem new); the modern carol “In the Bleak Midwinter” composed by Gustav Holst and Harold Darke based on the poem by Christina Rossetti and arranged by Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek; and one recently composed piece based on the oldest known English poem about winter (2019: “Winter Wakeneth” by Andrew Lovett).

 

Here is the poem in Middle English in which it was originally written. Some scholars date this poem to 1310.

Wynter wakeneth al my care,
Nou this leves waxeth bare;
Ofte I sike ant mourne sare
When hit cometh in my thoht
Of this worldes joie, hou hit goth al to noht.

Nou hit is, and nou hit nys,
Al so hit ner nere, ywys;
That moni mon seith, soth hit ys:
Al goth bote Godes wille:
Alle we shule deye, thah us like ylle.

Al that gren me graueth grene,
Nou hit faleweth albydene:
Jesu, help that hit be sene
Ant shild us from helle!
For y not whider y shal, ne hou longe her duelle.

The poem deals with how short life is. Oddly for its time, it mentions hell but not heaven.

What the Dresser loved about this concert was the languorous pacing that allowed for breathing and reflection. ModernMedieval’s next concert is in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 15, 2023, hosted by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. They are worth going out of your way to hear them. Check their website  for other upcoming concerts.

Opera X: A Space Exploration

 

The Dresser loves seeing opera as a simulcast broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera. This is how on November 18, 2023, she saw X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, the opera by composer Anthony Davis, his cousin—poet and librettist—Thulani Davis, and his brother Christopher Davis who wrote the story/book for this work. Why the Dresser loves the simulcast experience is because during the intermission (and there were two twenty-minute intermissions in this three-act, over three-hour opera) the audience is treated to interviews that provide a wealth of information that you do not hear if you attend the live performance. Another benefit is that the cost of admission is a fraction of the ticket price for a good seat live at the Met. Also, the camera close-ups are much better than what a viewer with binoculars can hope to see.

 

Overall, the Dresser was glad she saw X. The first act which tells the story of the young Malcolm Little (X) with its rhymical layered jazz,  big chorus, dancing, beautiful costumes, and spaceship was as exciting as the Dresser expected, given the preview she had seen. During the first intermission, host Angela Bassett (who played Malcolm’s wife in the film Malcolm X) revealed that the space ship had a connection to Marcus Garvey, a Black separatist who organized an American Black nationalist movement that included a shipping line named the Black Star Line that was supposed to ship Blacks to Africa. Somehow, Garvey’s beliefs about the future for Black people plays into Director Robert O’Hara’s abstract Afrofuturistic production. Does it work? Well, while the Dresser was willing to suspend disbelief in Act I, not so much in Acts II and III.

 

Act II deals with Malcolm’s imprisonment for various crimes like stealing and the friendship with Elijah Mohammed that leads Malcolm to become a Muslim activist. Act III deals with Elijah Mohammed’s disapproval of X’s outspokenness. Act III ends with X’s assassination. While Act I swirls with action, variety, and color, Acts II and III are more black and white with reality and therefore do not integrate plot-wise with that hovering space ship.

 

Director O’Hara’s choice of cast also required some suspension of disbelief. In this production, Malcolm X is cast as baritone Will Liverman who is a short, compact man whereas the historic Malcolm X was tall and thin. Malcolm’s wife Betty (who also plays Malcolm’s mother) is soprano Leah Hawkins, a Rubenesque woman who seems bigger in body and voice than Liverman. Their performances are perfectly professional but there is no spark between them since they do not look like they belong together. The Dresser, however, loved the casting of high tenor Victor Ryan Robertson in the roles of Street and Elijah Mohammed. In the role Street, Robertson is reminiscent of Sportin’ Life in Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess. As Elijah, Robertson projects an exceptional otherness as a holy leader that feels right for the role.

 

What the Dresser liked best about this production of X was the libretto with its short words and repetitions and the music which conductor Kazem Abdullah said was difficult but which he brought across so well. The passages with haunting saxophone solos made the Dresser think of shadowy film noir. A seatmate pointed out that influences ranged from Thelonius Monk (Epistrophy), Leonard Bernstein (e.g., West Side Story’s “When you’re a Jet”), and Stravinsky (Rite of Spring).

 

X runs through December 2, 2023, at the Metropolitan Opera.