The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 93

Saturday, November 5, 3 The Sydney Morning Herald "17' S3 Late injury robs student program Sentenced to death by anti-communists for joining the resistance during the war, Greek writer and composer Iannis Xenakis finally found safety in Paris. MARGARET MURRAY met him there to discuss the Sydney production of one of his works. DANCE JILL SYKES INNOVATIONS Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre Student Ensemble Belvoir Street Theatre, November 3 61 ONT look for tradi-I tional music or con- II I 1 ventinnal thines. 1 I I Open your ears, your mind and your Howlett's lighting to suit the Varied dance styles that followed. There was a generous helping tt iap from the first, second and third-year students, neatly choreographed by Dorothy Hall and engagingly executed.

Robina Beard challenged the young dancers with a more sinuous yet straightforward choreographic episode, which they tackled with assidiibus determination and considerable success. There are some promising performers in their early years of training, but it was the fourth-year students who provided the excitement. In a program whichjeost $5, it was irritating to find groups of dancers identified only by their given names chummy, but unprofessional. So I trust I have attached the correct surnames to fourth years Bernadette along, Graham Blanco, Gary Lang, and Russell Page. 1 1 Each performed a solo of his or her own making which, understandably at this stage of his or her career development, tended to be somewhat self-conscious and derivative.

At the same time, they were performed" and presented well, and the more original offerings by the highly athletic Russell Page and Graham Blanco were very entertaining. Ihey were at their best, however, in two contrasting works by Chrissie Koltai. The Corporate Dance is a crisp and pertinent comment on the stresses' and strains of corporate life. Our Blue Dance is set to songs sung by Bessie Smith, and it captures their extremes of raw strength and poignant vulnerability. Beautifully danced, and fleshed but with just the right measure of humour and theatricality, it was most technically complex and interesting item on the abbreviated program.

It deserves to be treasured by these four dancers and taken with them when they graduate, as I'm sure they will, to the professional AIDT group, which was formed this vear. OT WAS unlucky for the Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre Student Ensemble that a rehearsal injury less than three hours before the opening performance robbed the graduating class of a chance to appear. This still left 16 items on the program, but it removed the two most substantial pieces (which will be reworked for inclusion in later performances if the injured dancer is able to continue) and the chance to see how graduate Stephen Page performs as a choreographer. It also took the top echelon of dancers from the arena, and in AIDT's second year of presenting the students without a scattering of graduates, this was a sizable loss. It deprived the evening of potential performing highlights, reducing the level of expertise and experience in what is now no more than a school concert.

As such, it at least offered a satisfying talent-spotting exercise in a slick production that moved fast and smoothly, except for one technical hitch with the sound system. A thoroughly professional approach to presentation has become a welcome hallmark of AIDT performances, with particular credit for Innovations going to its director, Paul Saliba, set-designer, Ronaldo Cameron, and lighting designer, Mark Howlett. All three set the standards in the opening sequences, choreographed by Saliba, which blended traditional and modern movement in a kind of stylised Aboriginality, which worked well. Cameron's handsome front and back cloths made an atmospheric contribution that was skilfully adapted with the help of so jn .1 music. His first electro-acoustic piece was Diamorphoses, which he wrote in 1957 for recording tapes.

He later invented a metallic 19-key instrument for which he wrote Six-Xen for six percussionists. Last November, the first performance of Xas, his saxophone quartet, was given at Lille. He is very concerned that traditional music is disappearing in such countries as Japan, China, Africa and Australia. In 1985 he wrote Nyuyo (Sunset) for traditional Japanese instruments. He is worried that the young in Japan, as elsewhere, are interested only in pop.

He finds the music of Australian Aborigines "very He says with an ironic smile: "I find an affinity with all that I think is interesting." More seriously, he says: "I hope Aboriginal music will be supported by the Australian Government and safeguarded." He becomes dispirited at the conservatism of traditional teaching. At the University of Indiana, where he went for five years in 1967 to set up a research centre, "there were instrumental teachers of outstanding value who told their students 'Don't play contemporary music. It's bad for your hands, your lips, your mind. They'll all be damaged. Xenakis has written books and articles on formalised music and on music as architecture, gained a Sorbonne doctorate and other honours.

He was made a member of the French Institute in 1983, although he rarely attends its meetings. He is "furious" that Richard Nixon was elected another member to replace pianist Arthur Rubinstein "just because he gave Xenakis believes we should all forget about prizes and success. "All composers should think first about their creation and not their success. But we are all good and evil, and thinking about creation rather than success which brings car and money is not taught in schools." As in his music, Xenakis swings from affirmation to negation and plays with paradox. He says that when he listens to his own music, he thinks it must be his own fault if the interpretation is bad.

If it is very good, he thinks it has nothing to do with himself. His strategy for judging with an independent mind is to forget what has gone before. But for creation you cannot be empty, so then his strategy is to forget but not to forget. He says: "Creation is not pleasure but enthusiasm. Concentration and attention are difficult.

If it works, you feel satisfied and calm. Then you have to kick yourself in the pants to create something else. "As in life, you constantly have to make decisions. What is important is to make those decisions in the most total solitude and independence." to go to America via Paris. He stayed in Paris, married a Frenchwoman and gained French citizenship in 1965.

He always wanted to go back to Greece but it was impossible before Prime Minister Karamanlis returned there from Paris in 1974 after the fall of the colonels. The Prime Minister gave Xenakis amnesty and gave him back Greek nationality. Now his life and work as founder of the Centre for Mathematical and Automated Music Studies and as a Sorbonne professor are in Paris, where he lives very privately. But he has kayaked round the Greek islands and camped in Greece with his wife and still goes back from time to time. "I would go back," he says with a laugh, "if the Greeks offered me a dacha." The only regret Xenakis has about his resistance days is that he did not give more time to studying physics and mathematics instead of fighting.

At the age of 12 or 13, he wanted to learn the piano. At 16, he wanted to learn composition to see how Beethoven and Brahms did it. At 20, he wanted to do his own music. Xenakis says: "I was open to all sorts of music and was very interested in music from South-East Asia. I wasn't like some musicians who come out of a conservatorium which restricts thera and ties them down.

I always wanted to be free of a system." But Xenakis had first to find a job in Paris which, along with many other Greeks, he found with the Swiss immigrant architect Le Corbusier for 12 years. At the same time, Olivier Messiaen became his musical guide after Nadia Boulanger and Arthur Honegger rejected him. In his first orchestral work in 1953 Metastasis, Xenakis put a concept of overall proportion and a massing of elements similar to Le Corbusier's, using a massing of sounds rather than a massing of buildings. It was based on the mathematical concept of probability. He then designed the Philips Pavilion for the World's Fair for Le Corbusier.

When Metastasis was first performed at the Donaueschingen Festival, it was considered an outrage by the avant-garde, who had inherited Schoenberg's serial ism. Xenakis had simply by-passed it. There has been much criticism since for "violent" or "brutal" sounds from this gentle man. The ancient Greeks who considered music, art, science and 4 soul without prejudice. Feel you are on another planet.

If you can do this, it will be a big step forward in your own liberation. In art, human nature can make leaps without intermediate phases." This is the advice Greek composer Iannis Xenakis gave to last night's Sydney Dance Company audience. Roger Woodward conducted Kraa-nerg, which Xenakis wrote in 1968 for orchestra and recording tapes. He is sorry he cannot be in Sydney. He has never been to Australia and he knows there are very good musicians there.

The 66-year-old Xenakis is handsome and lithe, with brooding eyes set deep in a craggy face. He wears a camel-coloured jumper and pants and white tennis shoes and socks as he darts like some caged creature about the high-ceilinged studio near Pigalle, his workplace since 1968. The studio is crammed with books on subjects from ancient philosophy to modern astrophysics, desks, drawing boards, electronic equipment, overflowing waste-paper baskets and an upright black piano. Xenakis is not only a composer but an architect, civil engineer, designer, writer and an adept of modern sound-and-light technology. Multiple talents and interests combined with an unflagging sense of purpose, enthusiasm, passion, humanity and modesty have made him perhaps the most original and the most argued-about 20th-century composer.

He consults a huge Greek-English lexicon to find the exact meaning he wants for Kraanerg. As with many of his titles, it is a made-up word. Today it means His humour veers from impishness to irony. His life and work have not been easy. His mother died when he was very young and his father sent him to the island of Spetsos to a boarding school run on English public-school lines and founded by Greeks who returned after making money in America.

Afterwards, Xenakis graduated from the Athens Polytechnic. During World War II, he fought for the Greek resistance and was badly injured. Imprisoned later by an anti-Communist government and sentenced to death, he escaped in 1947, intending i Iannis Xenakis perhaps the most original and the most argued-about 20th-century composer. ARTS NEVS philosophy as inseparable would have appreciated him better. For a long time Xenakis wanted to show Bach on graphs which, he thought, would be "more direct" than notes.

With Metastasis, he conceived the idea of writing music graphically. He experimented on an IBM computer and later designed his own system on which he composed Mycenes Alpha in 1978. Xenakis says anyone can compose on the system without any computer knowledge. It is a mini-computer linked to a large-sized digitaliser table on which you draw your own music with an electromagnetic ballpoint pen. A loudspeaker projects the sound the pen makes and two control screens allow a permanent dialogue between you and the machine.

Highly complex computer programs aid you without interfering with your own musical choices. Nothing is pre fabricated as with an ordinary synthesiser. Thousands of people in various countries from composers to children have made music on it from highly intellectual to naive. The system is not only capable of producing new and extremely rich sounds; its possibilities seem continuous, not only for composers, performers, musicologists and instrument-makers, but also for mathematicians and acousticians. It can be used both as a tool for research and an instrument for learning.

Xenakis thinks that students do not find this kind of training at school or at the conservatoriums. In January 1986, with the help of the Ministry of Culture, a computer workshop was set up at the Science Museum at La Villette in Paris. Each year new training centres are planned in France and abroad. Xenakis has written well over 100 works for orchestra, as well as choral, instrumental, ensemble and vocal companies to rely more and more on corporate backing," Mr said yesterday. "But you try for performances for young people.

Big business is only interested in the glamour companies, like the Syrincv Dance Company." The Marionette Theatre has given 300 performances this year, he said, i The 1988 program has attracted 31,000 patrons. Box office receipts have totalled about $195,000 and $6,000 in sponsoi-ship has been raised. Peter McGill said yesterday that he is working on plans to reconstruct the company and that he intends petitioning both the NSW Arts Advisory Qwncil and the Australia Council for project funding, in lieu of a general grant. THE Marionette Theatre of Australia is in perilous financial straits. The company's administrator, Peter McGill, has announced that the Minister for the Arts, Mr Peter Collins, has written notifying him that on the advice of his Arts Advisory Council, his' Ministry will cease granting the company general funding.

Funds have already been cut off, "as of September 30," although the Minister's letter was dated October 19. The Australia Council has also served notice that it will not be granting Federal funds to the company next year. "Governments seem intent on forcing OCXXXDOCXIXIXXXXX300CXDCOCXIXIXD SIS WTWWSPIMP" fii 1X14? NEW SOUTH WALES STATE CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC othe; A professional outdoor theatre company based in Sydney and touring nationally, invites applications for the position of: CO-ORDINATO! FOUNDED 1744 An Important Early Ming Blue and White Dish The successful applicant will have experience in ASSOCIATE DIPLOMA IN CHURCH MUSIC- I The Conservatorium is considering the reintroduction of this course in subject to minimum student numbers being obtained. 1 The course is 2 years full-time or up to 4 years part-time. For further information and application forms, telephone 230 1222 or 230 1235.

Applications close 30 November, 1988. Auditions will be held on 14 December, 1988. Classes commence in-February, 1989. jc IRVING SCULPTURE GALLERY LECTURE SERIES 1988 TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8 6 p.m.-7.30 p.m. (Light refreshments will be served) PUBLIC SCULPTURE: The Pleasure and the Pain A lecture by GRAEME STURGEON Director, Art Bank and author of "The Development of Australian Sculpture 1788-1975" Tickets $12 and $8 concessions.

To reserve tickets, please call (02) 692 0880 IRVING SCULPTURE GALLERY tne co-ordination ot Tunaing submissions, budgeting, financial management, publicity, tour management and will possess typing skills. A commitment to collective management and collaborative processes as well as an enthusiasm for the promotion of outdoor theatre is essential. The Co-ordinator will join the company from early December for a minimum period of one year. Applications in writing should be forwarded to the collective by December 1 8, 1 983. P.O.

Sox 518, PADDINGTON', 2021 N.S.W. Phone (02) 332 2S71 -a 1 ft 2 AUCTION: To be held at The Doncaster Room, The Australian Jockev Club. Alison Road, Randwick on Thursday 17th November. 1988 commencing at 7.15pm VIEWING: At the above address on Tuesday 15th November, 1988 between 10am and 5pm and on Wednesday 16th November between 10am and 8pm. For catalogue and enquiries please contact Sotheby's offices and representatives: Svdnev: 13 Gurner Street, Paddington.

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to 4 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday Mrs Nola Bramble, Language Resources adviser, will be available Wednesday through Saturday to assist you. Language Book Centre offers an enormous range of language learning materials as well as fiction and non-fiction in other languages and professional advice from their multi-lingual stiff.

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1989 Funds for this program are made available by the Australia Council 'Clonuirf Bciich' Oil Camas James Jacksnn 50 6Ccm FINAL WEEK OF OUR austalianchambEr orchestra presents ROMANCE Soloist: HARTMUT LINDEMANN (Viola) Directed by CARL PINJ TELEMANN: Don Quixote Suite BARBER: Adagio for Strings BACH: "Chaconne" from Partita No.2 for unaccompanied viola HUMMEL: Don Giovanni Variations HINDEMITH: Trauermusik SUK: Serenade for Strings Parramatta Cultural Cetitre: Tuesday 15 Ncnvmber, 8pm 683 6166 Garrison Church, Hie Rocks: Friday-18 November, 8pn 212 6618 ENQUIRIES 261 2733 (Mon-Fri) ANNUAL COLLECTORS EXHIBITION 76 Fine Australian Paintings when students meet faculty at the Sydney Conservatorium in its GRADUATE COURSES APPLY NOW for the following course GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN MUSIC (PERFORMANCE) (1 year FT or 2 years PIT) In Orchestra Instruments, Keyboard, Voice, Conducting (String players may also audition for membership in The National Ensemble '88) also in ACCOMPANIMENT, REPETITEUR and OPERA (1 year FT) MASTER OF MUSIC (PERFORMANCE) (2 years FT) and study with the Conservatorium's distinguished teaching staff supported by visiting artists who have included VALERY KLIMOV, IGOR OZiM, GRAHAM ASHTON, THOMAS INDERMUHLE, NICOLAI EVROV Enquiries: Dr Ron Smart (02) 230 1255. Closing date: 21 November, 1988. FINE ART GALLERY mm 180 Jersey Road, Woollahra N.S.W. 2025 TcUphone (02) 32 4605 Hum 6pm MonJav S.injrd.iv.