I like a good time as much as anybody.  You can call me “Good-Time Bruno.”  And in this town, there’s no dearth of happy smiley arty good-timey-ness.  There’s so much abundance, in fact, that the challenge isn’t in the finding.  No…the rub is in our defining what, for each of us, constitutes that shiny good time.

 For me, I take my salsa hot, my beans black, and my arts edgy.  There’s nothing grander than a mind-bending rip through some sonic twister or dramatic labyrinth of emotional complexity.  Give me conceptual meat my brains can chew, baby!  And I’ll gnaw that provocative notion for DAYS, with the enthralled satisfaction of an urban hyena.

 So I’m brimming with excited anticipation at the prospect of Mark Doerries’ second Luminescence Project production at the IU Art Museum.  Following the wintery sound+light delights of last year’s “Dreaming In Darkness,” Doerries returns with a contemporary production of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. John Passion as has never been seen or heard.  Using the Art Museum’s dramatic Thomas T. Solley Atrium for his performance space, Doerries is mounting a theatrical staging of the Passion with singers on four different levels, plus the addition of electric guitars and special lighting. 

Produced as “PASSIONate CONVICTions,” Doerries’ spatial, innovative interpretation of Bach’s Johannes Passion is a stone-cold must-see for anyone who relishes memorable multi-disciplinary arts extravaganzas.  What’s more, admission is free.  Performances will be on Friday and Saturday, February 26-27, beginning at 7pm.   

In conjunction with these performances, the Art Museum’s Gallery of the Art of the Western World will display a selection of artworks addressing the Passion story, and “self-guided tour” info will be available in the printed concert program.  The museum’s Manager of External Relations, Joanna Davis, noted “the IU Art Museum is always thrilled to partner in artistic endeavors that create dynamic public programs.  Audiences will be treated to a fantastic evening of free entertainment, including the Bach performance in our atrium, masterworks on display in our first floor gallery, and delicious refreshments.” 

In preparation for this dynamo event, I questioned Mark Doerries about “PASSIONate CONVICTions” and his artistic goals. 

Moderno: Why the St. John Passion?

Doerries: Bach’s St. John Passion has a very clear dramatic structure built into it.  In addition to the story of the Passion, the first half is structured around Peter, and Peter’s denial of Christ on three separate occasions; while the second half is largely structured around Jesus’ trial and his accusers.  A dialogue happens between Jesus and Pilate, and Pilate recognizes that whatever Jesus has done does not warrant being put to death, but he ultimately decides to go with the crowd.So the chorus in the St. John Passion has several different roles.  Sometimes they function as Jesus’ followers: the disciples.  Sometimes they function as actual characters in the story: some of them are women who accuse Peter of being a follower of Christ.  And eventually they become the crowd who is cheering for Jesus’ execution.The St. John Passion already has these dramatic aspects built in that lend themselves to an experiment combining classical music with contemporary musical style, theatrical presentation, and a spatial performance.  So I’m staging this Passion as a trial where each of the main characters in Bach’s Passion are put into the spotlight to address how they have reacted to Jesus. 

Moderno: Who are the characters we’re going to see in this production?

Doerries:  Peter is the focus of the first half.  He’s first a member of the chorus and a follower of Jesus.  When things get a little too close for comfort and he’s tested, Peter on three separate occasions turns away from Jesus.  The first half ends with the famous aria, “Ach, mein Sinn” (Oh my sin), where Peter has denied Christ for the third time and suddenly realizes what he’s done, and his soul is in desperation to reconnect with God.In the second half we meet Pilate, who has this dualistic relationship with Jesus where he doesn’t see the error or crime that Jesus has committed except that he’s questioning authority.  In some ways the question is: does Pilate try to assist Jesus, and does Jesus turn him down for some larger goal?  Or is Pilate a monothematic or single-minded character who only has one goal in mind for Jesus?  Does Jesus have multiple outcomes that he’s weighing? 

Moderno: You’re also planning to use every possible level of the Art Museum’s atrium, right?

Doerries: The atrium is such a unique space, so we hope to use all four levels of the atrium, including the stairs and landings.  We plan to seat the audience on multiple levels as well.  The instruments or orchestra will perform on a level all to their own.The idea is to use the shape of the drama to guide how we use the shape of the space.  Being a courtroom setting, the Evangelist will be on the highest level as the judge and arbiter looking down upon what’s going on; and he’s also the narrator of the story so he’ll have the highest vantage point from which to tell the story.  The characters below will be amongst the audience because they are among the people.  Jesus, at this point theologically, has come to Earth to be with the people, so the audience and the performers will be in the same realm, interacting.  And this will occur on the lower levels of the atrium.There will be many different vantage points for the audience from their seating areas on the first floor, the mezzanine, and the second floor.  It will be tricky to stage, but I also think the audience – if they like it – can come back the second night and experience it from a completely different location and perspective. 

Moderno: Let’s talk about instrumentation for this production.

Doerries: I’ve put together what I consider a modern Baroque ensemble: it has electric and acoustic guitars, a string quartet and two oboes, and even some drums.  Despite being amplified, it’s still a very small ensemble with only one person on each part.The progression of the production begins with Bach’s original music and text, and the further we go into the story of this trial, the more we add contemporary stylistic elements.  So we start with the more traditional instruments and then add the three guitar parts of bass, rhythm, and lead guitar.  We have a classical guitarist for the lead guitar part, and often he’s playing what the first violin would have played in the original score.  These are very difficult and often improvisatory lines, not only for a violin to play but now for the electric guitar.The original instrumentation of strings and woodwinds will come back to punctuate elements of the story, particularly in the chorales.  So there will be this contrast of dueling worlds in the piece, but hopefully it will come across as one complete style and sound without incongruencies. 

Moderno: Why do this?  It sounds really interesting, and I personally love this stuff.  But really – why bother messing around with new ideas?  You’re having to create new arrangements and find players to do this…  Isn’t it just a pain in the ass to put this kind of production together?

Doerries: It’s always difficult to do new events or performance styles.  The reason I do it is I follow my own interests.  I want to connect with as many people as possible, and the way I see to do that is to follow my own interests in popular music and contemporary art.  There’s a diverse, young, energetic new audience that doesn’t usually go to see classical music concerts, and I think using the rock idiom is a way to reach and speak to people who have only been brought up on alternative popular music.  I see no problem with doing that.In classical music, we tend to become an insular, inward-looking community of musicians and performers who only seek to perform for each other.  But often my desire is to perform for people who have never been to concerts.  They are the most exciting audiences; they are the ones who – because it’s their first classical concert – get excited about the music, get enthralled in it, and voice their reactions to it.  It’s not passive listening; new audiences actually often provide some of the most active listening.And I’m trying to attract people my own age – people in their twenties and thirties; not to bring them to classical music, but to move them with classical music.  The content of the music doesn’t change by transferring it to a different performing style.  The meaning and content of Bach is always present; it’s just the form and vehicle we use to spread the music changes. 

Moderno: The arts have always been a sideline part of what we value and how we define ourselves as a nation.  Every performing art form in America has suffered audience declines over the last decade.  For you, is this production part of a conscious strategy to regenerate an audience for classical music?

Doerries: Yes.  Numbers in the 2008 report put out by the National Endowment for the Arts are distressing.  Not only has the audience declined but the age of that audience has risen.  We’ve always tried to pretend that not having young people at performances is OK because they will develop a taste for classical music later in life.  And now we know pretty definitively that that’s not the case.  So how do we then entice them?  We won’t succeed by trying to persuade them that they should want to come.  We should have a product that is meaningful to them.I think the biggest reason theater, music, dance, and visual art has declined with audiences in America is that we are out of touch with the culture of America and the changes that have been happening for some time.  Some people might say that art should be outside of culture, or above culture.  But in particular, the way our populace interacts with technology – email, ipods, PDAs – is beginning to fundamentally shift the way we think and the way we act.  And if art is to be the mirror by which we gain some insight into ourselves, then we have to always be engaged with the cutting edge of our culture.  So to stand back and watch our culture change, and not make strides to be current with it is to seal our own fate, to let go of the very people we are – or should be – trying to communicate with.We do Shakespeare in theater not because it’s old and we need to keep doing the classics; we keep doing Shakespeare because – under any performance tradition or in any circumstance – Shakespeare can speak to audiences.  I think Bach is very much like that.  Bach’s content continues to speak to us: the meaning, the text, the music.  But the vehicle needs to change: the way we perform it, the way we interact and communicate with our audiences has to change.Some people my age, including myself, like to go to the symphony or the opera.  We like to dress up, we like the social aspects of it, and we like the music.  But not everyone has an emotional experience by sitting in a chair for two hours watching a group of performers who are basically frozen, barely moving.  And they’re not allowed to talk, they’re not allowed to ask questions, they’re only allowed to clap at certain times, and they’re not allowed to get up and leave if they don’t like it.  And they feel ashamed if they zone out or if they don’t have some sort of emotional experience.  They feel like they didn’t get it. 

Moderno: Certainly the rise of technology has made us a more participatory culture.  Let alone all the allegations that technology is shortening our attention spans (whether or not that’s true), the opportunity to respond or engage in nearly immediate dialogue is overwhelming and very recent.  Even TV shows now often have the “text us with your opinion” component, so the amount of active participation that is invited into our culture has been dramatically increased as a result of wireless and digital technology.  So you’re right; having a very passive, receiver-only experience has become very foreign to our contemporary culture.

Doerries: And I think traditional proscenium performance is a style that hasn’t changed in a long while.  We codified these passive performance etiquettes in the late Nineteenth Century, and since then we have been delivering essentially the same programs, the same repertoire, in the same concert settings.  So something has to change.  I don’t profess to know what is going to entice new audiences to try classical music, but I know doing a performance like “PASSIONate CONVICTions” is at least an attempt to reach people in a new way.  It’s not a matter of getting rid of traditional ways and replacing them with new ways.  The goal is to supplement our traditions by adding new aspects and performance styles in order to make a large umbrella for this music, instead of the small and shrinking one we have.Art is this wonderful two-way mirror that can engage and react to audiences as well as inform or move them.  And there can be many levels of engagement.  By providing a more integrated style of performance, we’re hoping to give our audience more freedom to interact and react to the music of Bach and to our performance.  Some people may not know what to think; some people may immediately love it; some people may not know it’s Baroque music; some people may not like it because they see it as a corruption of traditional Baroque practice; but all people who come will make up their own minds.  I don’t intend to persuade people what to think, one way or the other; but I will say that this is the future. 

Performances of “PASSIONate CONVICTions” – a spatial setting of Johannes Passion by J.S. Bach – will be on Friday and Saturday, February 26-27, beginning at 7pm, in the atrium of the IU Art Museum (1133 E. 7th Street).  Admission is free and all are welcome.  Each concert will be followed by a light reception with food prepared by FARMbloomington, featuring the cuisine of Chef Daniel Orr.  For more information, you can contact the IU Art Museum at 812-855-5445.