Part 1:

After some blase months in the northwestern Catskills, the discovery of Mount Tremper Arts (MTA) proved to be a delightfully refreshing oasis in the comparative cultural desert of the area – a better-than-Berkshirean arts-in-nature experience.

Their thankfully under-landscaped lawn/garden is crowned by unique horticultural gem: an organic vegetable garden substantial enough to feed on-site a hundred attendees hungry for both its eco-friendly produce and art.

I could not prevail upon my dance-averse partner to attend more than one a day, and thus missed the first of the 3 performances of MTA's season opening celebration, but this was compensated by the second and highlight of the opening, a concert and confirmation that Ethel -- "America's premier post-classical string quartet" and local (via Brooklyn and Julliard), quasi-successor to the Kronos quartet – did indeed merit that reputation.

For folks who are new/underexposed to the genre, Ethel is an excellent introduction to it, especially this set. Terry Riley's "Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector" was an appropriate opener, by a founder of minimalism and the all-night concert. The concept is just one example of the collaborative free-spiritedness that has informed his work for nearly half a century: a supernatural dream redistributor creates a dream exchange by harvesting dreams from some people and implanting them in others.

Phil Kline's 4-part suite "The Blue Room & Other Stories" encompass some of the spectrum of post-modern styles. "The River" is a score of pure mystery; "March" is just that, a la Philip Glass; "The Blue Room" is a captivatingly pensive masterpiece that is a mainstay of Ethel's repertoire; finally, "Tarantella" reveals the insight that the distance from traditional folk to contemporary music, while numbering hundreds in years, may at times be a mere handful of dynamics.

John King's 3-movement "Sweet Hardwood" also traverses several post-modern styles, beginning with the most arresting "Hardwood," showcasing slide violin -- think Jimi Hendrix gone classical with a Western theme. "Spiritual" is the most abstract, with a hint of the Indian influence that characterizes a number of post-modern pieces. "Shuffle," demonstrates that contemporary can satisfyingly draw on familiar music genres, such as the blues, here.

My apologies for being so dismissive of the final work, especially as it represents the sole female composer in the set, but Julia Wolfe's Early That Summer is essentially the theme from Psycho.

I'm curious as to the origins of Ethel's rather outdated, over-simplified name, as well as their unsophisticated album covers, and hope that neither repel the larger audience they deserve. And additional kudos to them for their efforts to promote Native American music.

The third and last performance of the afternoon, MinEvent, a collaboration between Ethel and members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company incorporated more solo work, but Ethel is at its best as an ensemble interpreting intense works with extreme dynamics.

Modern dance often imparts the impression to me (a subject of the obligatory ballet lessons for youth, with a mother who achieved point; and thus admittedly ballet-biased) that the major innovations appear to be rag-doll, robot, and mime movements, within a primarily ballet foundation. (Many modern dancers, including these, commence their training with ballet, so to that extent, I suppose it can't be helped.) And while the dancers were proficient, all I could feel was sympathy for their overheated condition, as evidenced by the Rorschach-type sweat blots on their virtually full-body leotards (one of the hazards of dancing in the summer in a barn without a/c).

One was left wondering what the original thematic idea of the choreographer was, since mystifyingly, there was not even a title to indicate this. I would also like to know how the process of the collaboration actually worked; it seems the most efficient method would entail the dancers submitting a visual recording of their work to Ethel so they could experiment with a variety of improvisations. An explication of the mystery of creativity in collaboration would make for an enlightening intro/ending to such a piece.

Judging by the relaxed, engaged, happy vibe of the MTA audience/community, the attendees of the season opening shared the conviction that folks near and far should make it a point to partake of the organic food and arts offered by MTA every season.

Rene Darien is someone who encourages everyone's daily efforts to green all their endeavors, including going organic vegetarian since meat is one of the top two/three sources of global warming. My other top concerns: NYC being the largest municipal consumer of rainforest wood in the world, and those who ArchBishop Desmond Tutu says are worse sufferers of apartheid than South Africans last century -- the Palestinians.

Part 2:

Review of Seasonal Opening celebration for Mount Tremper Arts July 10 2010

I missed the first performance on Saturday, which was listed as a dance piece collaboration with the writer Ann Carson. I missed as well the first piece by the band Ethel, which was composed by Terry Riley. I walked into the middle of the second Ethel piece. Despite the irritation of having to take off my shoes, something I am loathe to do in case I have to make a quick exit, Ethel struck me immediately as the kind of band I am predisposed to enjoy, a post-modern chamber music band, of a more muscular bent. Over the course of the concert the driving (or driven) rhythms and repeating themes set my internal monitor somewhere amidst a manic carnival march, a great organic unfolding and a white knuckle cross country car trip. Sliding runs and extended phrasings drowned in the tonal ocean or held in sweet relief, expectations were lost in a detuning universe, then salvaged: there was constant stimulation for the jaded aural palate. There was as well, a refreshing and healthy (in my opinion) predominance of base accents, if I remember rightly. (I had no writing instrument with me during the concert and have to depend on memory at this point.)

Since I could not always watch the band comfortably, I spent part of the time watching their shadows on the ceiling, which were variously elongated and bent as they seemed to joust with one another with their bows in the fractured window light which gave the performance an expressionistic overshadow. Indeed, it brought to mind various past shadows of evil--eminences such as Nosferatu or Caligari or Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter. Not that the music had any particular connection to the expressionist genre, but a certain underlying possibility of evil, suggested by the mounting repetitive intensity was present and that is something that most string quartets are lacking, ensconced as they are in their rarified enclaves. No, Ethel seemed a string band as suitable for sailors and truck drivers as it is for the effete patrons of the Lincoln Centers of the world. This truth is perhaps suggested by their logo, which is a tattoo of a heart with their name in the scroll. I could imagine Ethel unloading their equipment in dreary night-time alleys behind Grand Guignol theaters in towns like Detroit, Tulsa, Paris, or Manchester. Fans might engage in post-concert brawls in those same alleys over register changes or tempo assaults with oil cans and instrument cases used as weapons.

As to the dance numbers, as I said, I didn’t see the first, and the second, while pleasant enough, seemed primarily a distraction from the music. What with all the nodding of heads and deferencial posturing, I felt I was watching the grown up Bobbsy Twins themselves, who, having read far too many New Yorker poems, were trying to make a career out of leaf and season motifs. They did however prompt me to ask myself the metaphysical question: What do dancers look at when they stare out into the audience and seem to see no one? Do they probe the void? Are they holding up a mirror to our absent souls? For me the music did a better job of this sort of mental reflection: from the industrial barn dance rhythms pf Phil Kline to swampy blues flavor of John King’s Sweet Hardwood, to the psycho soundtrack of Julia Wolfe, murder and joy mingled with the sublime of endless black asphalt and ocean rain. With the black cello, thumping sometimes like a drum and the high octane of the slippery fiddles remaining in my head, I left well pleased from an afternoon I had initially dreaded. Indeed, when I got in my truck to drive back to Fleischmanns, my partner said I was driving too fast and a little too recklessly. I told her I was thirsty and needed a beer.

Carl Watson is a banjo player and writer of unpublished works. He lives part-time in New York and part-time in a barn in the Village of Butchers.

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