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A Danced Rituel

When Frank Gehry was tapped to be the architect of Walt Disney Concert Hall, home to both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale, he envisioned the space to be “a living room for the city.” And with its Douglas-fir-lined interior, vineyard-style seating with a capacity of 2,265, and Yasuhisa Toyota’s crystalline acoustics, the venue, which opened in 2003, is all that and more.

Performance

LA Dance Project: “Rituel” by Benjamin Millepied       

Place

Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, California, May 8, 10, 11, 2025

Words

Victoria Looseleaf

Audrey Sides, Daphne Fernberger, Courtney Conovan, Jeremy Coachman, Hope Spears, Lorrin Brubaker, and Esa-Pekka Salonen in “Rituel” by Benjamin Millepied. Photograph by Farah Sosa, courtesy of the LA Phil. L.A. Dance Project

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Indeed, cue Esa-Pekka Salonen, the LA Phil’s conductor laureate who took to the podium on May 8 to celebrate the centennial of maverick composer Pierre Boulez (1925-2016), with Gehry’s living room the perfect metaphor. Teeming with sonic glory, the Hall also became fertile ground for Benjamin Millepied’s LA Dance Project, with six members of his stunning troupe shredding the stage—in the best possible way—during Boulez’ enigmatic masterpiece, “Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna,” which clocked in at nearly 35 minutes. 

A choreographic co-commission of the LA Phil with the New York Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris—Philharmonie (where it premiered in March), and LADP (whose participation is made possible by Van Cleef & Arpels), the work, written as an “imaginary ceremonial” to his dear friend and colleague that mirrors a ritualistic procession, made full use of the Hall’s tantalizing acoustics: With dozens of ensembles on stage, in the wings and around the hall, this was, literally, surround-sound at its best!

Organized in 15 sections of varying lengths, alternating between even-numbered polyphonic sections that are unconducted and unsynchronized, and coordinated odd-numbered homophonic sections that are conducted, the inscrutable and highly rhythmic score would not seem to be an ideal one for dance. And yet, the sextet of movers, with a central pair—a divine Courtney Conovan and the commanding Jeremy Coachman—proved as mesmeric as the music.

With Salonen substituting a red glove for a baton—apparently so that the musicians not on stage could see him beating time, turning as he did to address various corners of the Hall where instrumentalists were stationed—the dancers moved beautifully in unisons, as well as holding poses as if marble statuary. At times, the soundtrack, which was composed in 1974-75, and revised in 1987, assumed a kind of Bernard Herrmann/Hitchockian flair—and no, nothing Psycho-esque, but pure, pulsing timbres, textures and piercing strings that proved a perfect backdrop for the dancers’ arm gestures, effortless hopping, and supremely arched backs. 

Audrey Sides in “Rituel” by Benjamin Millepied. Photograph by Farah Sosa, courtesy of the LA Phil. L.A. Dance Project

Conovan, employing insanely luscious, near six o’clock extensions, while simultaneously turning, sphynx-like, as if a Debussyan nymph, seemed to hold the music, whether brass, winds, strings, tam-tams or gongs, within her body. Because hers was a resonating body; a body infused with Boulez’ remarkable soundscape, while her flowy, see-through black skirt added to the mystical nature of the dance (costumes, including variations on cut-out tops and billowingly comfy pants, by Gauchere). 

Even the patter of the performers’ soft-soled shoes contributed to the magic of the night. During one particular double forte passage, the group held their arms in airplane-like unity, creating a tableau that could be ancient, modern or a nod to the future. Then there was the quivering hand motif, with these human birds of paradise either in angst mode, or, one that could possibly help elevate them to the astral plane. 

As the provocative and absolutist Boulez wrote, in part, when conducting the work in 1984 in its first LA Phil performance, “Ceremonial of death, ritual of the ephemeral and the eternal: thus, the images engraved on the musical memory—present/absent, in uncertainty.”

But what was certain, as the parade morphed from one-legged spinning and hand-holding to bearing literal light rods (lighting design by Venus Gulbranson; lighting director, Brice Hilburn), these anti-Siths articulated each and every move, the fantastical array of percussion instruments (more than 60), abetting the dance. 

This corporeal unit also cast shadows on the main stage of the Hall, a most sacred space, made more so by Millepied’s movers, Petrouchkian puppets whirling to Boulez’ beats, although decades removed from Stravinsky’s/Nijinsky’s/Fokine’s prancing puppet.

Courtney Conovan and Jeremy Coachman in “Rituel” by Benjamin Millepied. Photograph by Farah Sosa, courtesy of the LA Phil. L.A. Dance Project

And while it was difficult to not look at the central couple, the other performers—Lorrin Brubaker, Daphne Fernberger, Audrey Sides and Hope Spears—added to the ethereality of the work with their smooth and slithery strides executed on Planet Boulez as interpreted by Salonen and musicians. 

Wriggly satyrs, the performers also seemed to share a kind of Kubrickian scene: Instead of declaring, “I am Spartacus,” though, they were proudly proclaiming, albeit through their bodies, “I am Terpsichore.” 

But the lifts were gentle in this chorus line where, in one passage, Conovan and Coachman noodled through the brass section, and during another, Sides and Fernberger deployed shrugged shoulder motifs. There was also, well, a dollop of Fosse’s jazz hands, while the constant finger-fluttering might have served as a beating heart prayer to the goddess Shiva.

The instrumentation contained bits of humor, as well, its rhythmic essence stemming from both non-Western musical sources and the more familiar European foundations, with the seemingly random and unexpected sounds providing a broad canvas for motion in what could be called a multi-layered dream. 

There was also the perfection of the ending: Conovan, somehow managing to curl up at the feet of Salonen on the podium, might have been signaling her gratitude—to the music, the maestro, and the moment.

Then again, the entire program dazzled: Salonen and pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard opened the concert with selections from Boulez’ “Notations” (composed and revised over 60-plus years, beginning in 1945), with Aimard then tackling Bela Bartók’s fiendishly difficult Piano Concerto No. 3 (1945), his devilish precision and gobsmacking glissandos worth the price of admission. These pure musical pleasures were then followed by a stirring rendition of Claude Debussy’s “La mer” (1903-05).

And, since earlier that day white smoke had billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel signifying, “Habemus papam,” “We have a Pope”—the first American, Robert Prevost, who would take the name Leo XIV had been elected—it seemed only fitting that, after the performance, this writer would gleefully declare, “Habemus ars!” 

“We have art!”  

Victoria Looseleaf

Victoria Looseleaf is an award-winning, Los Angeles-based international arts journalist who covers music and dance festivals around the world. Among the many publications she has contributed to are the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Dance Magazine and KCET’s Artbound. In addition, she taught dance history at USC and Santa Monica College. Looseleaf’s novella-in-verse, Isn't It Rich? is available from Amazon, and and her latest book, Russ & Iggy’s Art Alphabet with illustrations by JT Steiny, was recently published by Red Sky Presents. Looseleaf can be reached through X, Facebook, Instagram and Linked In, as well as at her online arts magazine ArtNowLA.

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