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IMPRESSIONS: Maureen Fleming's The Alchemist's Veil at La MaMa
By Catherine Tharin
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Published on November 9, 2024
Maureen Fleming in The Alchemist's Veil. Photo: Maureen Fleming
The Alchemist’s Veil
I Prologue: Selkie
II Walking on Air
III Birth Song
IV Abstraction in Red
V The Stairs
VI The Gestures
VII The Driftwood
VIII Mother and Child
IX The Imortal Rose
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
Conceived, Choreographed & Performed by Maureen Fleming
Inspired by the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe
Sound Design by Brett R. Jarvis
Light and Visual Design by Christopher Odo
Stage Assistance by Samantha Lizak
Live Piano by Bruce Brubaker
Violin on Film by Tim Fain
October 17-27, 2024
Maureen Fleming, a New York-based choreographer and filmmaker born in Japan, studied with Kazuo Ohno, a founder of Butoh, the Japanese theater dance form influenced by German Expressionism, as well as with the notable Cecchetti ballet dancer, teacher and choreographer, Margaret Craske. Fleming’s performance of Butoh (perhaps a choice due to a childhood spinal injury), and her ability to precisely control her body is breathtaking.
The Alchemist’s Veil at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre features Fleming’s 90 minutes of dance, film and music inspired by the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe. Comprised of nine scenes (trimming the less impactful scenes would benefit the work), Fleming intermixes older works with more recent dances to create an entirely new theatrical experience. Often, there are four layers of information occurring simultaneously, from reflections in the foreground pool, to film projected on two scrims, to live dancing, that suggests an infinite horizon and expansiveness. Fleming takes the time needed for her and for us to fully and thoughtfully experience each scene. The production values are exceptional.
To recorded sounds of waves and soprano voice, Fleming’s projected ghost-like body fills the black foreground scrim as effervescent light-blue swirls form, disperse and reform. Emerging from a black sea, Fleming’s filmed figure, her thin white arms wrapped around her legs and her dark-haired head tilted forward swan-like, floats to the surface. Accompanied by Philip Glass’ compelling Mishima/Closing, mimicking the rippling tide, Fleming sinks and rises like a Selkie, a mythological mermaid creature for which this arresting Prologue: Selkie (2024) is titled. (Selkies are foundational to many cultures’ creation stories.) Recalling Isadora Duncan’s use of the veil, Fleming on stage following the film, whips a dark fabric around her luminous nude body.
The scenes flow one to the next with the understated Bruce Brubaker accompanying live on the piano, while violinist Tim Fain, black spiked hair flying, is captured giant-sized on the scrim. Both musicians are recognized Glass specialists. Other musical selections range from Brian Eno to Arvo Part to Guy Klucevsek.
Walking on Air (2024), introduces a film from 2022 in The Aran Islands. A white-suited Fleming perches perilously on rocks overlooking a roiling sea. Then, dressed in a white, windblown Victorian dress, her long black hair unfurls behind her. Following the film is a live scene. Costumed in the same loose white suit, Fleming pushes against a wind source as pieces of paper careen by.
O’Keeffe’s paintings, projected monumentally on the scrims, are meticulously examined by the camera. Replicating the human eye, Abstraction White Rose No 2 (1927), is traced by the camera in slow motion from the outer petals into a secret womb-like sanctum where the camera lingers. The viewer is held in its buzzing vortex. A multicolored flower, from the Pink and Blue series (1918) is tracked slowly from its base, over a spanning arch, and down the other side.
The Stairs (1996-2024), accompanied by Glass’ Metamorphosis 2, features Fleming’s lithe naked body stretched over numerous high stairs. She appears suspended and shifts incrementally (as do the best Butoh practitioners), requiring the viewer’s utmost focus. Like a magician her head is ‘suddenly’ facing downward, and the viewer wonders when this happened. The movement of her body is synonymous with the camera’s slow gaze over O’Keeffe’s paintings. This signature work is updated, says Fleming “to include a projection of sunlight peering through the slats of an upstate New York barn,” inspired by O’Keeffe who also developed work in an upstate New York barn.
After intermission Fleming bathes in the pool, in The Gestures (2024), to Glass’ Etudes 2 and 9. She dips her body and the water glints off her skin. One imagines her transformation into a Selkie or seal. The skin is not a sheath that separates her from the viewer. Rather, her nudity expresses an animal self in a natural world. A sense of intimacy approaching transcendance, and a desire to share this private feminine cosmos are hallmarks of Fleming’s artistry.
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