Setting the Stage
If you aren’t familiar with Alexander Dodge, it won’t knock you out of the “in the know” group of dance aficionados following who’s who in the field…or would it? He may not be on the radar for being the best male dancer or choreographer on the circuit today, but take just one look at one of his set-designs and his name becomes one that you will not likely forget.
His designers are winners, so much so that Dodge has received numerous awards including two Elliot Norton Awards and three IRNE Awards. Dodge also won the prestigious Lucille Lortel Award for his work on “Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Toward the Somme,” produced at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. With commissions for 10-12 set designs a year for theater and opera, Alexander Dodge is here to stay.
It is the dance world’s good fortune that Mr. Dodge has arrived in our yard to play. One foray includes a commission to create a new set for the Oregon Ballet Theatre’s “Nutcracker,” expected to be unveiled for the 2010 season. Artistic director Christopher Stowell discusses how this collaboration began: “I discovered Alexander Dodge when a very well known set designer in San Francisco was unavailable to work with me. He gave me a list of names, and I remember sitting in an internet café in Split, Croatia looking at these set designer’s websites. I was looking for someone who had experience in the latest possibilities in production technology but also had an aesthetic that would hark back to a past time. A modern approach to stagecraft, but a classic look and aesthetic describes what I was looking for and Alexander’s style really matched these needs. I was really impressed.”
The artistic director of Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Benoit-Swan Pouffer, has also commissioned Dodge – three times! “3 Thursdays” and “Glassy Essence” are two of Pouffer’s own choreographic works for which Dodge designed the sets. “I've been working with Alexander for the last three years and he is an amazing collaborator. My installation series creates unique challenges for a set designer and Alexander always helps me find out-of-the-box solutions. He adds a layer of inventiveness to my work and also brings out and supports the ideas of choreographers that I bring to Cedar Lake,” says Pouffer.
Dodge’s most recent commission for Cedar Lake includes a set for Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s "Orbo Novo" to premiere July 8 at Jacob's Pillow. Voted “Choreographer of the Year” for 2008 by Ballet-Tanz, Europe’s leading dance magazine, this presentation marks Cherkaoui’s first work for an American dance company. As stated in the program notes: “‘Orbo Novo’ – the New World – explores a construct of the mind … [and] tries to create a universe where past and future meet. The … dancers explore the movements inside and outside their bodies, trapped in this labyrinth [of Dodge’s set] without an obvious exit. They seem out of place and out of time. Prisoners and visitors by turn, they are as much prey as hunter, as much animal as man; like birds in a morphing cage, they seem trapped in their bodies, trapped in reality, trapped in the flow of life…”
Also inspired by a recent three-month stay in China, Cherkaoui had vivid ideas about what he was looking for in a set. Steeped in a matte-based coat of Chinese red, the set is comprised of moving walls that create limitless potential for the division of space, challenging our perceptions of freedom and containment.
Dodge says, “Originally we wanted something that had different sizes that could rise up and down. I initially also wanted to give some reality, tension and humanity to the design in grounding it with the wainscoting you see in the renderings. Ultimately, to our credit, I think we came up with something that is quite simple, no mechanics of having to raise and lower things.”
Cherkaoui elaborates, “Alexander's set design gave me this incredible framework to place choreography in. It imposes limits as it takes up space, but it also created new possibilities since dancers are able to climb and move into all three dimensions—and the walls can be choreographed. It's great to have this ability to play with the shape of the stage thanks to his practical insight.”
Upon meeting Dodge, one experiences warmth, honesty and an immediate affability. There are no pretensions to sift through; what you see is what you get. In speaking with him, one understands that he knows his stuff, but he doesn’t take himself too seriously, keeping a sense of humor running at all times. Stowell agrees, “He is a pleasant and amusing guy to work with.” He is busy enough to keep three assistants on staff.
Dodge spent his childhood growing up amidst architects and architecture students, living at Taliesin West, the winter home and school in Arizona of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. His father, a student of Wright, taught at the school for many years and continues to work for the Foundation. It would prove impossible to leave such a culturally rich environment without some innate sense of space and design. Without intending to follow in the footsteps of his father, Dodge never quite shook Taliesin West off. Combine this upbringing with an undergraduate degree in drama from Bennington College and an MFA in design from The Yale School of Drama and the die was cast; Alexander Dodge would become a set designer, specializing in design for the stage. A wonderful summation of Dodge’s influences can be heard in the words of Nicholas Martin, artistic director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival, “[Dodge] balances analytical, architectural thinking with an almost boundless sense of imagination, aesthetic maturity and understanding of theater.”
When speaking about designing sets for Cedar Lake, Dodge explains that he “really likes mixing it up, especially with music and the contemporality and experimentation that is going on with Cedar Lake.” He notes the differences between working in theater/opera and dance: “With opera and theater, you start focused on the text; with dance, the text is yet to be written. It is more about the choreographer’s mind and you get bits and pieces, so it is a much different process. With Swan [nickname for Pouffer] it is always great because as he works, he will all of sudden say we are throwing everything out and starting with this. [He’ll] make these great leaps to all of these interesting ideas and finally whittle down to the idea of what the set can be.”
Pouffer’s admiration for Dodge is reciprocated. “I will bring something to him and it will spark a back and forth dialogue that spawns other ideas. [This] is very exciting because in theater it is not always like that. When it is, it is truly great, but a living room is a living room; I may get to pick what color it is going to be.”
Dodge moves to a 3-D model fairly quickly because he feels it is easier for everyone to read. “It is really helpful because you can manipulate the set, take pictures, get patterns, and see what the possibilities can be. It was especially important in working on the set for ‘Orbo Novo’ because the set is not meant to be static in any way, and is designed specifically to be maneuvered by the dancers. A rendering gives a snapshot of what a moment in the piece can look like, which is useful in its own right, but the model allows the freedom to work towards the fluidity of the piece.”
The flexibility that Dodge’s set for “Orbo Novo” offers is also central to Pouffer’s “3 Thursdays,” where the audience sees the set from multiple angles. Instead of the set being manipulated by dancers for a seated audience whose only access is a designed viewpoint, the audience is meant to move around the set. “This environmental piece was interesting because the space itself, not the set, was to be made fluid,” says Dodge. A fairly large reflective table, set center stage, mirrored by one hanging upside down from the ceiling became the focal point for multi-media images. For the repeat viewer, each performance would create a very different experience, depending upon where he/she was standing at any given moment.
As a collaborator, Dodge notes, “I always like it best when all the designers have a very fluid discussion. It’s more fun when you have engagement because often times ideas springboard… One of the things I like about contemporary dance is that things can be much more abstract and epic, which is really exciting. There is a curiosity and willingness to explore, to see something different, because no precedent has been set.”
Asked whether he wants to continue to design for dance, Dodge replies, “Yes, very much so. Absolutely. I get to use my brain in a completely different way.” How very lucky for us!
Katie Langan is a Professor of Dance and Chair of the Dance Department at Marymount Manhattan College.