Vol 5. No. 7 - April 1998 - Jon Anderson
Jon Anderson can add another accomplishment to his list: the lead singer of the popular 70s and 80s prog-rock band Yes has written his first ballet. It will be debuted in SLO this week by the Civic Ballet under the direction of Lori Lee Silvaggio.
How did Anderson, who moved to SLO County two years ago, come into this project?
"Very simple: I met Lori Silvaggio on the street one day near the studio where the ballet practices," explained Anderson, currently on tour in Europe, via phone. "We just bumped into each other and she told me how much she loved my music. She explained that the ballet was doing a program to a song I had written two years earlier and she invited me to come up to the studio to see the company dance to 'Under the Sun'. Well, seeing them perform to it, what they were doing -- it was an exceptional feeling. As soon as I saw them dancing I knew I wanted to do more of this. So I told Lori that I'd love to do a project with her."
As a part of Yes, Anderson has achieved worldwide fame. Over the years the band has seen dozens of personnel changes and in-fighting among the members, but they were reconciled--again--a couple of years ago when they played (another) set of reunion concerts in the Fremont Theatre. The live recordings of the concerts signaled another round of Yes touring--a thrilling prospect for fans of the band.
But Anderson, never one to rest on his laurels, continues to be a prolific solo performer and artist. Since the first demise of Yes in 1980, Anderson has released more than a dozen solo recordings. One of those was "earthmotherearth," and it provided the basis for the new ballet by the same name.
"'Earthmotherearth' is really about loving the Earth, the goddess, the energy of the Earth Mother," said Anderson. "I thing it's sort of a forgotten power, this female energy. In ancient times, the female was the higher being than the male, the more evolved being. And so this ballet is a dance production honoring the Earth."
To create the prerecorded ballet music, Anderson collaborated with local sound-engineer wizard John Bartelt, whom Anderson met when he turned to the Cal Poly Music Department for help scoring a symphony he'd written. Bartelt, then a part of the Cal Poly lecture poool, was handed the assignment.
"It was a sort of ironical," said Bartelt, "because Yes has been my favorite band for about 25 years, so this was a real coup for me, just a serendipitous, wonderful thing. If I did a good job on the scoring then the reward was that I could meet Jon Anderson."
Bartlet did do a "good job" and did meet Anderson, who had Bartelt collaborate on two of Anderson's solo recordings. When the ballet project came up, Bartlet was tapped for the job of taking the original "earthmotherearth" multi-track recordings and remixing and embellishing them. Adding strings, choir, and more vocal tracks, Bartlet created a lush sonic backdrop for the ballet.
"Most of the material comes from 'earthmotherearth' which Jon recorded 10 years ago," said Bartelt. "There are other little bits from four or five other albums, and then some new songs,too."
"Some of the material was written during a six-month stay in Maui," said Anderson. "I went with my wife, Jane, and I started writing music. We had a beautiful place, very private. I put a microphone in the garden which allowed the birds to sing along with us as we were recording some new music. It's really quite remarkable when that happens naturally."
So is this a traditional ballet?
"If you think of ballet as people in tutus and point shoes, then you'll be surprised," said Bartelt. "This is nothing like that. I'd say most of the music is folk rock, but there are classical elements too. There are many, many styles. It's a little bit of everything. I think that's one of the problems with Jon. His only drawback is that he's so varied. If you go to a record store and look at the Jon Anderson section, you'll see he has rock albums and hip-hop, jazz, classical, Cletic, Spanish, Latin, folk -- he's so different on every record.
It also seems rather a coup for the SLO Civic Ballet, a local company celebrating its 20th anniversary, to debut Anderson's first foray into ballet music. According to Silvaggio, this is really a rock ballet, with dancers performing on pointe, barefoot, and even in combat boots. It seems Anderson's clout could have seen the ballet's debut in a larger urban area. Instead, SLO Town residents will have first crack at viewing what may turn into a touring production. The Civic Ballet has already been approached by a promoter who wants to take the show on the road.
"There's no doubt that if Jon had wanted to take this to a bigger ballet company, he would have had the ear of directors of the best ballets. He's Jon Andeson, " said Silvaggio. "I feel very lucky. Working with him as an artist and as a person has put me in awe of him. I've always loved his music, but I never realized what an amazing orchestral and symphonic sense he has.
"Truly, the making of 'earthmotherearth' is a travail of pure love," continued Silvaggio. "The four movements to which Jon and I narrowed our task represent four different passages through which one can cherish our earthly excursion: appreciation of the connection of the physical world and the conscious world in 'Spirit'; appreciation of the physical energy of the planet in 'Spherical Support'; appreciation of the painful, wounding side of existence, and the healing results, in 'Scars and Freedom'; and finally, appreciation of human enlightenment in 'The Meadow and the Mirror.'"
"I'm so proud that Lori has decided to take it on," said Anderson, "and the dancers are the best. I've traveled around and seen a lot of dance companies from all over the world, and [the Civic Ballet of SLO] is every bit as good as a lot of professional companies. They're more professional than the professionals because they love to dance.
--Glen Starkey is one part technique, three parts heart.
By Anne Corbin - April 26
Hi everyone,
Wendy and I had a wonderful time at the earthmotherearth ballet in San Luis Obispo this last weekend. I am not going to email a full review, since I am doing one on the Jon bulletin boards [on AOL] in addition to one that Wendy [Vig] and I are doing together that will be posted on a website (Wendy or I will send you the link when the review is up there).
Suffice it to say that it was really worth the trip - the music was wonderful and the dancers flowed with it. The stage was pretty simple and they at times used a movie screen showing nature scenes in the background, while the dancers did their thing in front of it. It was really beautiful how it came together.
I have included the cover to the program and will be sending 2 more of the pages. That way you can see the songs that were done. The one song not listed was "Magic Love" (from The More You Know), which was their last dance - not very ballet like LOL, but really cool!!
Anne
By Anne Corbin - April 29
It's never easy to start writing about experiences, but I'll do my best :-)
Wendy and I headed down to SLO right after I got my tix for [Yes in] Phoenix and the drive was really lovely. We had my boombox playing Jon and YES all the way down. Our room at the Travel Lodge (the La Cuesta was booked up) had a beautiful view of the hills. We didn't do much, just relaxed, listened to music and then had some dinner prior to changing our clothes for the ballet. We both brought very nice dresses and were probably more dressed than others, but we didn't care, it was to honor Jon :-).
The Center for Performing Arts in SLO is very pretty - it reminds me of the one in San Jose. Our seats were in the Orchestra 4th row (which was actually about 10th or 11th row). We looked around the audience for familiar faces, but saw none. Most of the attendees must have been local people.
Before the lights went down, the stage manager appeared (as he did between some of the acts). He came out and started to explain that everyone was ready at curtain time, but it seemed that Mother Earth might want to control things a bit...(flash of lightning and clap of thunder behind :) then he spoke of respecting the earth, told about Jon's music and the show began.
There were large speakers set up on either side of the stage, and the earthmotherearth introduction started. On the stage was a cloth covering a dancer (the Diva)...as the lights went down, you could see her arms flowing upward, looking like a plant coming out of the ground - very pretty.
There was no orchestra playing - everything was Jon's taped music. Most of the songs were remixes from EME, Lost Tapes of Opio and THE MORE YOU KNOW. The stage was simple, just some platforms with scarves and painted stars on a back drop. The first half of the show, most of the costumes were a pretty turquoise and red and everyone had sparkles on them from head to foot. There was only one male dancer and he was a part of Yin and Yang this movement.
The first movement was called "Spirit" and consisted of the songs EME intro, "Concerto Uno", "Some Would Say", "That Crazy Wind". I feel it is impossible to describe how beautiful the dances went with the music, all I know is I found myself very moved.
Between the 1st and 2nd movements, the Stage Manager came out again, this time wearing some scuba gear and stated that indeed Earth Mother was having her way with us that night. All the while, behind him, they are changing the stage scene. There was a movie screen as the back drop and a clear screen between the front of the stage and the movie screen. Then the second movement (called "Spherical Support") began with three dancers on stage behind the clear screen. As the first strains of "Whalewatching" started to play, I was in tears. The movie screen had a film of whales in the ocean dancing. In front, the dancers were using scarves and as they waved them, the light hit them in such a way that the scarves became a part of the ocean, as the dancers became ONE with the whales. It was so amazing. I was completely mesmerized by this dance. The tears just kept rolling down my face, so moving!
Of course the rest of the movement was magnificent as well. The other songs from this movement were "Harptree Tercera" and "Release/Realize". Then came the intermission.
It was so wonderful to hear Jon's voice over those speakers, for even though he and Jane couldn't be there, they were in voice and in spirit - Wendy and I could both feel that, especially when they began Act II by bringing people in to the song "Time Has Come".
Everyone was talking, so I decided to sing - I definitely got some looks, but I felt that if they could talk through such wonderful music, I certainly could sing it! Anyway, as the song was coming to an end, they showed Jon and Jane on the movie screen doing what I call meditational movement - really cool!! I believe that Jon and Jane were supposed to sing in person, but due to the YES concerts, they did this instead. Of course, that is only my guess.
They kept the movie screen up for the 3rd movement ("Scars and Freedom") and played all kinds of nature scenes behind the dancers. This time the dancers came out in black with red underneath. As the music went on, they showed their scars by pulling down "patches" in the costume to show the red "scars". Kind of dramatic. The songs for this movement were "Concerto Due", "Sad "and "Heaven Knows".
I believe that the 4th movement ("The Meadow and the Mirror") was the one where they used some very large chimes. They were hanging pipe chimes and during one of the songs, the dancers went by and hit those chimes along with the ones playing in the music.
To me, this movement was of all the hope and celebration of the future. In fact, during one dance, the stage was dark and the cast was dancing with those fluorescent sticks (you know, glow in the dark). During the dance, they would come together with the glowing sticks spelling out HOPE, then WILL, then KEEP THE FAITH. As those words appeared, the audience applauded and shouted.
The songs for this movement were "Take a Little Time", "EME", "Change We Must", "The Heralding", "Say" and "In My Dreams".
For the very closing number, they did "Magic Love" from THE MORE YOU KNOW, which as I said in my email was far from a ballet dance. The style is modern and the kids did a great dance to it - they were all grinning from ear to ear as they got to shout and chant a bit with the song too. It created a great build up to the end, which received a standing ovation (after Wendy and I started it:).
All in all, the night was wonderful and I will be so sad if it wasn't caught on video.
After the ballet, Wendy and I went and scoped out the Froggin Peach, but it was too crowded, so we went to "Lennys" for a snack and headed back to our hotel for sweet dreams of a magical ballet floating away on the memories of Jon's voice.....
Anne
"Take a little time out take a little Faith in" JA
From Robin Kauffman - May 4
Good news! I was just scanning the Opio web page and found that they added a page about the ballet. On that page I found this:
"The entire creative process, from first meetings with Jon Anderson, Lori Silvaggio and the technical staff, through rehearsals and the actual performance on Earth Day is being chronicled for a video that will be released in early summer. The video is being produced by the Grover Beach based Writers' Studio, which bills itself as 'pound for pound, the world's most creative studio.' The video will be offered for sale by the Civic Ballet."
YAY! Hopefully Opio will provide us the info on how to get it.
From: "Peter Hellmann" (hellmann@w-4.de) - April 1
I caught a piece of Real-Audio file from the Internet, with a song of Deborah Anderson. the song is called "Lonely Without You". She has a real nice voice. Does anyone have the complete song or does anyone know where I could get it ? thanx.
*******************
From: Henry Potts It was released as a single last year on the MoWax label (MW075CD). She's
recording an album now. ******************* From Rob Allen (robmtsd@aol.com) (Rob MTSD) - April 2 I got my copy through CDEurope. Very interesting package, I wonder how
people identify it in the stores. No artist or song names on the package,
at all.
From: Nic Caciappo (nicbeat@earthlink.net) - April 1 The Japanese edition of The More You KNOW will have a hidden bonus
track titled "10 Million". Also coming soon is an album I have waited forever....(aaahhhhhhhhh):
Scream For Help original soundtrack by John Paul Jones with two songs
featuring lead vocals by Jon, "Silver Train" and "Christie" I don't know the exact dates for these. I think KNOW is available
now and the other will be in a couple of weeks. Just look around and you'll
find it. --
From Robin Kauffman - April 17 I was browsing through some music books at the mall the other day when
I came across a Billboard book just published about new age artists. It's
title is "The International Guide to New Age Music." I
decided to check it out and see if Jon was included not really expecting
to find him listed when, lo and behold, I found that they not only included
him but also one of my photos! What a surprise! I was pretty psyched. It's
the photo that Jon used to promote Toltec. Anyway, I thought some
of you might be interested in getting this. The author is Henk N. Werkhoven.
The publisher address is
From Chris (ckraatz@m2.sprynet.com) - April 21 On Tue, 21 Apr 1998, "Kevin McNamee" >Does anyone have Jon's new album yet? I have The Promise Ring
which I like immensely, but I did not particularly care for EarthMotherEarth.
Is the album any good? The album was released last Tuesday on the Purple Pyramid label. previously,
it had been released in the UK on the Eagle label. The US and UK releases
are otherwise identical. this is really a very fine album, not like anything
Jon's done before. It has the usual kind of Jon-ideas going around, very
uplifting, thought provoking, healing, and very very danceable. Most songs
have a fresh and contemporary sound to them, with much more variety than
Promise Ring or earthmotherearth. Jane sings on many of the
tracks and sounds very good. Jon's wonderful angel voice, of course, shines
all the way through. I got this album about a month ago and have listened
to it about twice a day ever since - I guess that counts as a recommendation
:)
From Robin Kauffman - May 3 Just had to post this. When Jon appeared at the Hard Rock Cafe in NY
with the rest of the band for the press conference, he had a recent addition.
He has a mustache and beard! I don't know about you guys, but I don't want
anything hiding THAT FACE!!!! It surprised me because he didn't have it
when we saw him in London in early March. Hope it's only temporary.
Jon related CD's to be released
Jon in New Age book
The More You Know
Jon at Hard Rock
Concert photos copyright ©1997 Roxi Cook
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