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IMPRESSIONS: Pam Tanowitz's Transportive "Pastoral" at Bard's Fisher Center

IMPRESSIONS: Pam Tanowitz's Transportive "Pastoral" at Bard's Fisher Center
Catherine Tharin

By Catherine Tharin
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Published on July 8, 2025
Pam Tanowitz Dance in "Pastoral." Photo: Maria Baranova

Pastoral
Fisher Center LAB Commission
Choreography: Pam Tanowitz
Décor: Sarah Crowner
Music: Caroline Shaw
Featuring audio recordings of Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 in F major, Pastoral, performed by:
The Knights (2008), Großes Odeon-Orchester (Odeon 1913), The Victor Concert Orchestra (Victor 1913)
Pam Tanowitz Dance: Marc Crousillat, Christine Flores, Lindsey Jones, Maile Okamura, Caitlin Scranton, Stephanie Tersaki, Anson Zwingelberg, Taylor LaBruzzo (Understudy)
Musicians: Bassoon - Dana Jessen, Clarinet and Bass Clarinet - Bill Kalinkos, Oboe and English Horn - Andrew Nogal
Costume Design: Reid Bartelme
Sound Design: Justin Ellington
Production and Lighting Design: Davison Scandrett

Venue: Sosnoff Theater, Fisher Center at Bard College, 60 Manor Ave, Annandale-On-Hudson, NY

Dates: June 27 - 29, 2025



Pam Tanowitz’s latest dance, the idyllic Pastoral (set to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 in F major, the Pastoral Symphony), a 60-minute work for seven dancers, portrays a bucolic day in the country. Framed by an ever-evolving set design and a multidimensional soundscape, Tanowitz masterfully builds the abstract dance into something idiosyncratic, fascinating, and unmistakably her own. It is little wonder that she is considered a major American choreographer.
 

 Six dancers in various colored jumpsuits both standing and seated, watch a dancer several feet away in an ochre costume her leg is extended while standing in front of a green curtain decorated with a dark green oval.
                  (L–R) Marc Crousillat (seated), Anson Zwingelberg (seated), Maile Okamura, Christine Flores (seated), Stephanie Terasaki, Caitlin Scranton, and Lindsey Jones. Photo: Maria Baranova
 

The work draws on three Pastoral Symphony recordings from 1913 and 2008, whose textures range from scratchy and distant to clear and bright. Composer Caroline Shaw overlays the five-movement symphony with birdsong, car horns, bells, and cricket chirps. Three musicians positioned in the pit deftly play bassoon, clarinet, and oboe. At times, they accompany the recorded orchestral passages; at others, they perform extended solos independently. The clarinetist whistles; the bassoonist uses her mouthpiece like a kazoo.

Throughout the piece, the stage at Bard’s Fisher Center shifts from expansive to intimate, depending on the striking arrangement of two 25’ high curtains that hug the stage sides, three screens (two moveable), crumpled fabric, and light. Each scene is like entering a different room in a house. The choreography suggests images of buzzing insects, flitting birds, and a flock of resting sheep. For an urbanite, a pastoral is a day of repose in the countryside. Tanowitz fulfills this vision by pulling the landscape into the theater. Occasionally, city sounds intrude, reminding us that we can never fully leave the present behind.

A short-haired woman in a blue grey jumpsuit leaping next to a bearded man in a salmon-colored jumpsuit. The right leg is bent while the left leg is long; the right arm is toward the ceiling next to the head while the left arm is horizontal. . The bodies face the downstage right diagonal but the woman's gaze is on the diagonal, while the man's gaze is over his left shoulder.
(L–R) Maile Okamura and Marc Crousillat. Photo: Maria Baranova
 

Infused with offbeat humor and specific in its minutiae, the movement reflects the complexities and nonconformity of nature — a jagged rock formation, the ever-changing rill of a brook, the irregular veins in a leaf. Harmony is prominent, for prey are not killed, the bee does not sting, the snake does not bite, and lightning does not strike, though ominous rumblings are heard.

Two dancers push a screen designed with naturalistic shapes while five dancers, backs to the audience, three standing and two seated. Their jumpsuits are in colors of blue-gray, chartreuse, salmon, and ochre.
(L–R) Stephanie Terasaki,  Lindsey Jones, Marc Crousillat, Christine Flores (seated), Maile Okamura, Anson Zwingelberg (seated) and Caitlin Scranton. Photo: Maria Baranova
 

Costumed in handsome jumpsuits in hues of coral, ochre, blue gray, and chartreuse (some half one color and half another), by Reid Bartelme, each performer is distinctive. In a central trio for the assured Marc Crousillat, Christine Flores, the dance’s steady compass, and the lithe and attentive Anson Zwingelberg, the dancers skim onto the stage, navigating through one another with hops and arabesques. The trio returns with slight changes, such as Flores jumping confidently into the arms of Crousillat and Zwingelberg.

A trio of two men and one woman: The men are upstage facing one another while the woman is downstage of them facing stageright lunging with the right arm horizontal.
(L–R) Marc Crousillat, Anson Zwingelberg and Christine Flores. Photo: Maria Baranova
 

One towering curtain opens, decorated with abstract Matisse-like white leaves against a forest green naturalistic form. Crousillat, hobbling with a leading forced-arch foot and a long leg behind, pursues the fleet-footed Maile Okamura.  Lindsey Jones chugs in a backward oval, one arm circling. Later, facing the audience, her off-center body falls to the side, propelled by a repeated push that slices through the group. At another point, she slowly unfolds into an arabesque on forced arch. She swivels as recorded traffic sounds drone, then lifts her leg to passé, fingers touching the crown of her head. Dancers clasp their arms around their shoulders, bounce upright in fourth position, and wriggle their shoulders. Flores kneels as a large green screen is pulled by the dancers to center stage. Later, she executes a slow split behind a curtain with one leg and half her body visible. A seated cluster of dancers casually tucks their legs to the side, and holds cupped hands upward, as if making an offering to the sky.

The company of seven face the diagonal and in unison jump with legs shaped like a diamond.
(L–R) Caitlin Scranton, Maile Okamura, Anson Zwingelberg, Christine Flores, Lindsey Jones, Stephanie Terasaki and Marc Crousillat. Photo: Maria Baranova
 

A pale green panel drops quietly to hang above the action while a huge swath of hunter green cloth extends onto the stage lip, which dancers drag farther in. One curtain closes as the exceptional company comes together in a stepping, grapevine-like jig. In unison, Jones and Caitlin Scranton, tall and commanding, double kick and boomerang their legs, then stop abruptly with arms extended horizontally. Okamura adds a velvety undertone as she battement-turns into arabesque and drives backward. Occasionally, the dancers tap their thighs or jump in place with knees bent and toes touching to form a diamond.  A roll of thunder resounds in the  fourth movement of the symphony, underscored by eerie bluish light. After the storm, Crousillat carries an orange square screen that masks his body. The sun has returned, and we hear tree frogs and birds in both recorded and live interpretations in the final movement.

The light on stage is dark but the cast groups, five seated, legs folded to the side or knee facing up or leaning, and two standing looking at the deep green curtains decorated with naturalistic white shapes.
Caitlin Scranton (standing), (L–R), seated) Maile Okamura, Marc Crousillat, Lindsey Jones, Christine Flores, Stephanie Terasaki (standing) and Anson Zwingelberg. Photo: Maria Baranova
 

One tender motif that recurs is an exchange between Jones and Zwingelberg: their entwined arms form diamond shapes as they both bend to the side. She slowly lowers his lengthened body to the floor. In a dance where the performers barely touch, this is a rare and potent moment. Then, she gently lifts him, and to return the favor, he carefully lowers her. The hanging screen ascends and disappears.
 

The bearded man stands in front of an oblong orange shape while a chartreuse shape hangs above.
Marc Crousillat. Photo: Maria Baranova         
 

The movement structure of Pastoral, prioritizing abstract shape, rhythm, and spatial design, draws out meaning and emotion. The off-kilter phrases shift direction quickly, with groupings scattering and forming new configurations. The space expands and contracts like the inner workings of a telescope. Pastoral invites reflection rather than dictating it, leading each viewer to a place of quiet completion.

A woman on releve extends a leg on the diagonal, four dancers are upstage from her: two are touching hands and two are bent forward with arms clasping their shoulders.
(L–R) Maile Okamura, Anson Zwingelberg, Christine Flores, Caitlin Scranton and Stephanie Terasaki. Photo: Maria Baranova

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