Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Cristina Caprioli

Everything about Cristina Caprioli is unassuming. The Swedish Italian dancer, who stands less than five feet tall, performed at the House of Sweden on Sunday wearing a basic black T-shirt and plain gray sweat pants. Her stage presence is so understated that it seems she doesn't know she has an audience. And yet Caprioli, described in program notes as "Scandinavia's Twyla Tharp," is a captivating mover who quietly commands attention.

In one sequence, she tugged at her T-shirt, writhing uncomfortably beneath it. Later, she placed her palm on her chest and it looked as though her hand was sending waves of energy through her undulating torso. In a discussion following the performance, Caprioli said her choreographic inspiration often comes from simple starting points. This was indeed evident in such straightforward, unvirtuosic movements.

A video camera recorded Caprioli's performance and the footage was projected onto a screen behind her with a delay of only a few seconds. The camera captured a side angle that the audience could not otherwise see. These varied perspectives demonstrated how thoughtful and multilayered her choreography is -- even in this brief performance intended to showcase her process rather than her finished pieces.

All of Caprioli's movement was done in silence, which proved a smart and powerful choice. An elaborate musical score would have overwhelmed her work. The dancing and video stood alone quite successfully.

-- Sarah Halzack

The Gay Men's Chorus of Washington presented the world premiere of its latest commission, "This House Shall Stand: Songs of My Family," on Sunday afternoon at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. GMCW Artistic Director Jeff Buhrman conceived the work as a way to explore relationships in gay and lesbian families, and the chorus set up an online questionnaire to solicit stories. Composer Robert Seeley and lyricist Robert Espindola then turned the stories into a cycle of 13 songs for chorus, soloists and chamber orchestra.

Espindola's texts capture real emotion, despite some grammatical gaffes that one hopes will be removed before future performances. The stories provided ample material for Seeley, whose score for "This House Shall Stand" sits solidly in the musical-theater tradition, with uncomplicated textures, catchy tunes and sweeping balladry. The resulting work contains some vivid and affecting vignettes: "At the Window," for example, pairs a heartbreaking tale of a gay man unable to visit his hospitalized partner with an equally moving melody.

Under Buhrman, the chorus sang with crisp ensemble and unmistakable passion throughout. The anthemic number "This House Shall Stand" made a rousing finale.

The concert opened with selections by a symphonic ensemble from D.C.'s Different Drummers, which played under Artistic Director K. Scott Barker with an enthusiasm that provided some compensation for a general lack of polish. The ensemble sounded best in its two most appealing works: Gustav Holst's delightful First Suite for Band and Frank Ticheli's "An American Elegy," whose ruminative harmonies memorialize the victims of the Columbine High School shooting.

-- Andrew Lindemann Malone

The surbahar is often described as a "bass sitar," but that doesn't mean it plays the subsidiary role commonly assigned to bass guitar. As surbahar virtuoso Shubha Sankaran demonstrated Sunday evening at the Gandhi Memorial Center, the instrument has a deeper tone than the sitar but is entirely as versatile.

The Indian-born and -educated musician, a longtime Washingtonian, has composed documentary soundtracks and recorded several albums, including the recent "Resurrecting a Raga." On Sunday, she played "Yamen," a commonly performed evening raga. As is customary, she introduced and then developed the melody during the alap, the lyrical introductory section that can be -- and on this occasion, was -- a raga's main event. Her approach was meditative, yet not without surprises; often she would play a phrase that seemed almost too simple, only to transform it with a sudden twist.

For the final quarter of the 40-minute raga, Sankaran was joined by Manik Munde on the pakhawaj, a barrel drum whose two heads produce very different timbres. The interplay was propulsive, if no more complex than the intricate counterpoint Sankaran played by herself.

Munde and sitarist Brian Q. Silver, Sankaran's spouse, then performed a second raga, "Gavati." Although trained in India, Silver has been experimenting with Persian and Arabic styles of playing and structure.

Rather than gradually heighten the music's intensity, the two players adopted a loping, conversational mode, and Silver's attack was sharp rather than slippery. Both the sitar and the pakhawaj are more versatile than their Persian counterparts, so the music had depth and freedom that seemed entirely Indian.

The concert ended with a brief but lively pakhawaj solo. Munde kept the beat with one hand and embroidered it with the other, switching the pattern several times, always so fluidly that the transition was almost imperceptible.

-- Mark Jenkins