Body Vox Makes Portland Sing.

The foxy moves of Roland and Hampton

ON A RARE sunny January day, in a studio with a well-sprung floor and a ceiling high enough for aerial work, the city's newest dance company was engaged in some contact moves, falls to the floor, sculptured poses, complicated lifts, and a bit of cavorting, folk dance style. Portland native Jamey Hampton called out a rhythm and Ashley Roland sat cross-legged on the floor intently watching the performers (minus a large python and four dancers otherwise occupied that morning).

Roland and Hampton began their long collaboration in 1983 when Roland, whose explosive dancing has been captured many times by photographer Lois Greenfield, joined Momix, where Hampton, following a five-year stint with Pilobolus, had been dancing since 1981. Together, they founded ISO Dance in 1987. They relocated to Portland in 1997 and were married in 1998.

Now Body Vox, which they co-founded the same year, was rehearsing Carmina Burana on the top story of a building containing a brew pub, located in Portland's trendy Pearl District. The company was officially formed after its members worked on Carmina for the Portland Opera, which premiered the work in the spring of 1997 and revived it last month. The production toured Orange County in 1998 and future performances are planned in Nebraska, Michigan, and Minnesota. Soon, this company, made up of some of the city's most talented and experienced dancers, most of them formerly with Oregon Ballet Theatre, would rehearse a new production of Leos Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen, to be premiered by The Portland Opera at the end of March.

They had already begun rehearsals--one day a week--of what Roland refers to as their "regular" work, in this instance a concert of the couple's sleek, contemporary choreography that will be shown in Portland in June. In addition, Hampton and Roland, independently and together, continue to add to a considerable body of work created for ballet companies, music videos, trade shows, and the 1998 Oscar Awards.

Unlikely as it may seem, it is because of an opera commission they almost didn't accept that the Momix-ISO veterans established Body Vox. While historically a number of ballet companies have originated in opera houses--San Francisco Ballet and the Pads Opera Ballet are cases in point--it is arguably unprecedented for a hip, contemporary company such as this one to emerge from such a traditional venue. Nevertheless, the experience of working on Carmina with such dancers as Eric Skinner, Cristina Patricelli-Betts, Ann Egan, Robert Guitron and guest artist Gregg Bielemeir led the pair to add a new contemporary company to the city's blossoming dance community.

It also hooked them on opera choreography.

"I love opera," Hampton said during rehearsal. "It's a great genre to work in." The couple does admit to its disadvantages. "You have to work with the opera director and musical director and both are above you," Roland said. "When there is a question of tempos, either the choreography suffers or you change it."

Nevertheless, they have developed an excellent working relationship with Portland Opera director Robert Bailey, which bodes well for the future. And when Christopher Mattaliano, director for Carmina, saw their first run-through, he liked it enough to rethink his own take on Orff's oratorio.

While some choreographers, George Balanchine among them, have fought with directors and felt that with little stage space in which to perform the singers get in the way of the dancers, Hampton and Roland find it highly stimulating to perform with them. "In Carmina," Roland says, "the singers, orchestra, and chorus produce phenomenal energy. And the live voice is inspiring and drives you to a new level."

So why yet another Carmina? So many choreographers have worked with this all-too-familiar score--Mary Wigman, John Butler, and David Bintley are just a few--that it's logical to ask why anyone would want to reinvent this particular wheel of fortune. Pacific Northwest audiences, like audiences everywhere, do not lack for opportunities to see choreographed productions of Orff's lasciviously bombastic score. All three of the region's ballet companies have them in their repertoires--Toni Pimble, artistic director of the Eugene Ballet Company, will revive her version this spring.

Bailey, who has directed the Portland Opera since the early eighties, quite frequently making use of the city's pool of dancers and choreographers, "wanted to do I Pagliacci," he said. "But I didn't want to pair it with Cavalleria Rusticana. I looked at many possibilities, but I wanted something with [the same]guts, passion and earthiness." Bailey discussed this dilemma with conductor Joseph Rescigno, describing how the Dallas Opera had paired Carmina with Pagliacci with considerable success, because while the two works are different in style and content, the action in both is driven by fate.

Having made the decision to mount a new Carmina, Bailey "wanted to make the dance part of the core of the evening's drama itself. Hampton and Roland saw it that way immediately and Jamey was key to the process of tying the two works together." Ultimately this was done in a number of ways, with Alan Moyer's set and James Scott's costumes used for both productions, and with a change in program order.

"I originally thought we would do Carmina first, but Silvio and Nedda [the ill-fated lovers of Leoncavallo's opera] appear in Carmina and become the central figures of the dance."

Hampton, who came close to turning down the commission in July of 1996, in part because Moses Pendleton had done one for Pilobolus, now bridles when asked if the world needs a new Carmina. "Why another Swan Lake or Nutcracker?" he asks. "It's ours. Ours is full of elegance and levity, informality, full of life."

He did, however, find himself daunted by the sheer power of Orff's opening chorus. "I thought it was too big to choreograph and I wasn't ready. I finally advanced to the second section, and the first section was used for the transition between the two operas."

The strong link between the two productions is part of what makes this Carmina unique; it's difficult to imagine one without the other. So is the choreography, which can be sensuous, passionate, witty and distant, in a mixture of styles and techniques so tightly conceived and well-performed by the original cast of dancers that Los Angeles Times critic Lewis Segal, reviewing the Orange County performances, called it "a hymn to impulsive, uninhibited creative expression." Contributing to the informality are such touches as shadow puppets created by Imago, a Portland-based physical theater company, for an irreverent take on the song about the roasting swan, and a seven-foot-long python as a dancing partner for two of the women.

How, one may ask, did the snake get there? "Adam and Eve, of course!" Hampton says, "And don't forget, we also use large, juicy red apples!" In 1997, Roland danced with Lynne, the original snake and a pet of Patricelli-Betts. She now performs with rented replacements, and admits she is still scared, but says, "There is something profound, something about a beautiful woman dancing with a snake that puts fear, an edge in the minds of the audience." Edginess frequently plays a role in Roland's work, such as Vixen.

Directed by Keith Warner and featuring multi-level ramps in a set designed by the highly innovative John Conklin, Vixen contains some very different problems for the choreographers to solve. "But limitations very often create inspiration," Roland comments. "Unlike in Carmina," Hampton says, "the dance is very segmented, which presents real difficulties. We're really more interested in operas in which the dance moves throughout." Most of their choreography will be for the various animal characters and their human foibles and there will be some aerial work, including a section for three men performing in hoops. By early January, the couple had made a lot of work to show Warner, but had no idea how much of it would be used. While Bailey is delighted with Carmina, he thinks Vixen "is really more up their alley--it's playful, whimsical, and non-traditional."

"We're living in a time of transition," Bailey added. "None of the arts will remain the same and I think we're going to see more cross-fertilization in opera and dance, also spectacle and musical comedy." Hampton and Roland are ready to be part of those changes.