Dance and theatre can sometimes be difficult bedfellows — usually, one overshadows the other. It's not often choreographers and theatre directors are able to collaborate equally — one is usually short-changed. On The Tosca Project, ACT director Carey Perloff and ballet choreographer Val Caniparoli are trying to buck the odds and create an evenly integrated fusion of movement and experimental theatre.
The new piece is scheduled for a workshop presentation at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and will feature actors from ACT and dancers from San Francisco Ballet, as well as several prominent modern dancers including Kara Davis and Nol Simones. SFB alum Muriel Maffre is also contributing. The project was inspired by the history of the Tosca Cafe, a well-known cafe in North Beach that's been frequented by opera singers, Beat poets, Russian �migr�s and an eclectic cast of characters since the 1920s.
"It's been tremendously fulfilling to shepherd The Tosca Project through concepts, workshops, and performances," says Perloff. "The presentation at YBCA is a major step in this process." Caniparoli adds, "When Carey and I first started discussing the project, we knew that this was going to be an incredible collaboration, featuring artists from different disciplines, backgrounds, and styles. I have loved seeing these completely different artists working in a room together."
The idea of a movement-theater collaboration was the inspiration from the beginning, but Perloff and Caniparoli couldn't find an idea that warranted this kind of research. Perloff notes, "We knew at the start that we wanted to do something that would speak directly to our audiences. We asked ourselves, in what context do people gather together? Where do people come for safe haven? Where do they bring their dreams? Where do they fantasize? Before we'd answered these questions, I went to talk to Jeannette Etheredge from the Nureyev Foundation about the project, and she suggested we meet at the bar she owns in North Beach, Tosca Cafe. As I was sitting there on a sunny afternoon, it was dark inside the bar, with the sun streaming in the front window, and the ghosts of that place were tangible. I went to speak to Jeannette about this project because I knew of her incredible affinity for dancers and actors, that was not the surprise. The surprise was looking around the bar and suddenly seeing the piece so clearly before my eyes in that magical setting. I remember calling Val on the way out and saying, 'I think we should make the piece about this bar.'" The piece depicts the history of San Francisco, using the caf� as a lens to examine what was happening, decade by decade.
Caniparoli, who has an extensive background working with regional ballet companies, found the process challenging. "It's different than ballet, because you're not using a specific piece of music for structure. Finding the thread that connects the choreography to the text is difficult." Perloff and Caniparoli are using interviews, sound fragments and musical excerpts to create an aural landscape that will help shape the structure of the piece.
One of the early challenges Perloff and Caniparoli faced was the different ways dancers and actors work, says Perloff. "Dancers who are used to being told how to hold every finger at every moment are suddenly being asked to create something that is from their own soul, without being told what to do, and actors who are used to doing that are asked to look in very specific ways at their own physical language. The first day, the dancers sat on one side and the actors on the other, and we thought, oh, this is never going to work, and within half-an-hour the blend was so moving, and so brave."
"There are a lot of differences in the way each is trained, how they approach the work," says Caniparoli. "Dancers usually have a piece of music, actors usually have a script. Even the way we work with the unions is different."
"All it takes is a sound," says Perloff. "A coin in a jukebox, a burst of steam from an espresso machine, and suddenly we're back in another time and place. Those transitions and triggers, that's what we're working on with the piece. In some very visceral way, it is rooted in this particular place we find ourselves in here, in the history of this town."
The Tosca Project at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum, 701 Mission St., SF, Oct. 26-28. Tickets: (415) 978-2787 or www.ybca.org.