In the world premiere of "The Ghost of Montpellier Meets the Samurai" at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, choreographer Trajal Harrell demonstrates the art of the setup. Premising the show on a fictitious meeting among three legendary figures of contemporary performance — the French "nouvelle danse" choreographer Dominique Bagouet, who died of AIDS in 1992; Tatsumi Hijikata, who invented Butoh dance, and La MaMa Experimental Theater Club founder Ellen Stewart — the show spends much of the time building up to what is about to happen.
The performers also keep changing their minds about what the show will actually be. They announce that "The Ghost of Montpellier Meets the Samurai" will not be performed at all. Then, they announce that it will be performed, but in 20 minutes. They say the legendary meeting between Bagouet and Hijikata resulted in two dances, and then the details of that meeting are questioned.
There's almost a clown routine woven into the way that Harrell builds anticipation only to dissipate it. Just when you think the show is about to begin in earnest, the performers host a giveaway of the props, or hold a fake interview, or randomly start wearing pants as shirts and vice versa in a fashion show. They vogue dance (a stylized house dance from the 1980s). They get their makeup done. They sing in the dark.
The trick of the show is that it takes place all along, just not in a linear way. We see the ghosts of Bagouet, Hijikata and Stewart appear and disappear as they are conjured up by the performers — through costuming, through movement, or through what the figures represent.
They are the previous generation of performance innovators summoned up from the grave to inform a new aesthetic.
Harrell infuses the piece with a requiem for the great ones who have passed, which thematically manifests as moments where we see young dancers perform older people. In one section, we see a gorgeous duet between a young man and an old man (indicated by makeup). They are joined by Harrell, wearing a dress, and for a moment of quiet pathos, the three of them become Bagouet, Hijikata and Stewart.
The dreamlike sequence illuminates the truth of Bagouet's tragic death at age 41. Had he lived, what else could he have contributed to the world? All we have now is the legacy of these figures, who each transformed the trajectory of performance through their work. It is their memory that fuels the great works to come.
Sheila Regan is a Minneapolis dance critic and arts journalist.
