Ziggurat Flashcards
When was Ziggurat choreographed?
1967
Who choreographed Ziggurat?
Glen Tetley
What is Ziggurat about?
Assyrian brick structures whose summit was the meeting of earth and heaven, a place where man could offer his sacrifice for God. It explores the theme of man’s search for the divine and his concept of a God.
Set?
Nadine Baylis.
Projections by Alan Cunliffe.
Music?
Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Lighting?
John B Read
Costumes?
Designed by Nadine Baylis. The dancer’s crocheted their own costumes (unitards)
Female dancers in white camisole unitard
Use of set/ silent screams of humanity motif
Upstage, in between two structures of scaffolding, designed by Nadine Baylis, a male dancer sits USC in a wide, deep second position with arms in an angular second position, bent at the elbow and the wrist. This dancer could symbolise God and man’s search for the divine. DS, a group of male dancers are wearing black, crocheted unitards which they created themselves. They are laying on the floor and pushing up onto their hands with an arched spine, as if looking up to heaven. Their facial expressions are contorted, and mouths wide open which suggests the silent screams of humanity, a key feature of Tetley’s works.
Hybrid of ballet and graham motif
In a diagonal formation, stretching from USR to DSL, the male dancers (wearing a black, crocheted unitard they created themselves, which is provocative and possibly dehumanises the characters) lift the females (who wear a white camisole unitard) in a neoclassical pas de deux, holding around their ribs. The female dancers have their arms in a wide fifth position which could symbolise them reaching towards heaven. Their legs are flexed at the knee line to show a development of the classical, elongated lines of classical ballet the audiences would expect to see onstage. This shows a clear hybrid of ballet and graham technique, which Tetley was taught by Martha Graham herself, as well as the provocative nature of Tetley’s works.
