Review: Song of Songs, Pam Tanowitz & David Lang ★★★★★
The American choreographer Pam Tanowitz returns to the Barbican with Song of Songs, a compelling work that was inspired by, but transcends, the biblical poem of the same name
Pam Tanowitz & David Lang, Song of Songs. Photo: Maria Baranova
Pam Tanowitz doesn’t do literal. Just as in the work that introduced the American choreographer to London audiences back in 2019, Four Quartets, dance co-existed with, rather than portrayed, TS Eliot’s complex poem, so in her current piece at the Barbican, Song of Songs, dance responds to the Hebrew Bible’s best-known love poem, but doesn't attempt to represent it.
It’s an oblique response, framed in Tanowitz’s trademark dance of mesmerising purity, that drinks from a lot of what went before – classical ballet and Merce Cunningham are two obvious sources – but refines and re-assembles it into a formal, instantly recognisable choreographic language.
Melissa Toogod, Zachary Gonder in Song of Songs. Photo: Maria Baranova
Song of Songs was created in collaboration with the composer David Lang. Both choreographer and composer are Jewish, and like the softest of breaths, Jewishness permeates the work, which Tanowitz dedicated to her late father. Short, ethereal quotations from Jewish folk dance come into the choreography – a line of dancers holding hands here, a sequence of hops with raised knees there – blending seamlessly within the whole.
David Lang uses the same approach for his composition, performed live on stage by three musicians – viola, cello, percussion – and three female singers. The first sequence picks keywords from the biblical text with which the singers build a litany: to phrases starting with possessives they add the attributes of the lovers.
A single dancer, Maile Okamura, enters. Wearing a translucent, shimmering dress she moves fast around the stage, between two side curtains made of white strips and around striking blue props: a soft-angled L-shaped bench stage right, a low circular table and a long bench stage left (all designs are by Tanowitz herself with Harriet Jung, Clifton Taylor and Reid Bartelme).
Gradually the other six dancers join her. Throughout, their faces remain impassive, all expression transmitted through bodies and movement. They circle one another, they tag and run away. All touch is brief. Every so often dancers strike a classical pose, say, an attitude at the back, but as soon as you are ready to describe one step it morphs into something else.
And so does the music. From repeating isolated words, it evolves into quoting whole sentences sung as recurring incantations: ‘My sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one’ in solo soprano Sarah Brailey’s crystalline voice.
There is no explicit carnal eroticism in the movement, certainly not of the kind that has made the biblical Song of Songs such an enticing and, to some, scandalous, text. Instead, Tanowitz focuses unrelenting attention on bodies, their surface and their infinite possibilities, in what the American cultural critic Susan Sontag described as ‘an erotics of art.’
Christine Flores, Melissa Toogood, Victor Lozano, Maile Okamura, Zachary Gonder and company in Song of Songs. Photo: Maria Baranova
This focus becomes explicit in the final sequence, when the dancers swap their costumes for shimmering skin-tight unitards, the naked effect broken in one case by a riot of golden sequins. Tanowitz likes her bling.
Song of Songs is a work of extraordinary, breath-taking beauty. It may not bear a linear connection to the biblical text, but it breathes the same air, and is all the better for it.
Age Guidance: 12+
Post-show talk, Thursday 12 October
Pam Tanowitz and David Lang in conversation with Gideon Lester, Artistic Director at Bard. Free to same-day ticket-holders.
It’s an oblique response, framed in Tanowitz’s trademark dance of mesmerising purity, that drinks from a lot of what went before – classical ballet and Merce Cunningham are two obvious sources – but refines and re-assembles it into a formal, instantly recognisable choreographic language.
Melissa Toogod, Zachary Gonder in Song of Songs. Photo: Maria Baranova
Song of Songs was created in collaboration with the composer David Lang. Both choreographer and composer are Jewish, and like the softest of breaths, Jewishness permeates the work, which Tanowitz dedicated to her late father. Short, ethereal quotations from Jewish folk dance come into the choreography – a line of dancers holding hands here, a sequence of hops with raised knees there – blending seamlessly within the whole.
David Lang uses the same approach for his composition, performed live on stage by three musicians – viola, cello, percussion – and three female singers. The first sequence picks keywords from the biblical text with which the singers build a litany: to phrases starting with possessives they add the attributes of the lovers.
A single dancer, Maile Okamura, enters. Wearing a translucent, shimmering dress she moves fast around the stage, between two side curtains made of white strips and around striking blue props: a soft-angled L-shaped bench stage right, a low circular table and a long bench stage left (all designs are by Tanowitz herself with Harriet Jung, Clifton Taylor and Reid Bartelme).
Gradually the other six dancers join her. Throughout, their faces remain impassive, all expression transmitted through bodies and movement. They circle one another, they tag and run away. All touch is brief. Every so often dancers strike a classical pose, say, an attitude at the back, but as soon as you are ready to describe one step it morphs into something else.
And so does the music. From repeating isolated words, it evolves into quoting whole sentences sung as recurring incantations: ‘My sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one’ in solo soprano Sarah Brailey’s crystalline voice.
There is no explicit carnal eroticism in the movement, certainly not of the kind that has made the biblical Song of Songs such an enticing and, to some, scandalous, text. Instead, Tanowitz focuses unrelenting attention on bodies, their surface and their infinite possibilities, in what the American cultural critic Susan Sontag described as ‘an erotics of art.’
Christine Flores, Melissa Toogood, Victor Lozano, Maile Okamura, Zachary Gonder and company in Song of Songs. Photo: Maria Baranova
This focus becomes explicit in the final sequence, when the dancers swap their costumes for shimmering skin-tight unitards, the naked effect broken in one case by a riot of golden sequins. Tanowitz likes her bling.
Song of Songs is a work of extraordinary, breath-taking beauty. It may not bear a linear connection to the biblical text, but it breathes the same air, and is all the better for it.
Age Guidance: 12+
Post-show talk, Thursday 12 October
Pam Tanowitz and David Lang in conversation with Gideon Lester, Artistic Director at Bard. Free to same-day ticket-holders.
TRY CULTURE WHISPER
Receive free tickets & insider tips to unlock the best of London — direct to your inbox
| What | Review: Song of Songs, Pam Tanowitz & David Lang |
| Where | Barbican Theatre, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London, E2CY 8DS | MAP |
| Nearest tube | Barbican (underground) |
| When |
11 Oct 23 – 14 Oct 23, 20:15 Dur.: 1 hour no interval |
| Price | £15-£35 |
| Website | Click here to book |