The ballet puts human movement to the choral work composed by Eric Whitacre, based on a series of poems written by Charles Anthony Silvestri about his relationship with his late wife, Julie, her diagnosis of ovarian cancer and the grief Silvestri experienced after she died. "The Sacred Veil" is choreographed by Sophia Smith, and it's performed with a live choir. Smith says she became familiar with the story of "The Sacred Veil" when she was working on a virtual choir project with Eric Whitacre in 2020.
Sophia Smith: The album came out right about that time. The virtual choir was released, so I was very involved with what was going on in the Eric Whitacre choral world at that time, and I listened to the last movement first and was really struck by the breath of life in the music and just how powerful and comforting those words were. "Time to add your voice. Time to die. So time and number." And so by the time I finally got to sit down and listen to the entire thing through, it spoke to me in a way that I almost felt as though I didn't have a choice. I had to make this. I had to tell this story. And over the next two years of just sitting on concept and working through all of these ideas that came into my head, slowly it became very apparent that I almost couldn't put it down. It wasn't a matter of choice for me. It was a matter of creating something that was demanding to be created.
Kyle Kellams: It sounds as if there's almost a — I don't know if the right word is duty — to bring this to three dimensions, to bring this to the stage. But when you're working with this, there's also, I'm imagining, a responsibility in a way.
Smith: Yes, it's a very powerful work and requires so much attention to detail and attention to the story to bring it to life with integrity. Julie and Tony, the people that this story revolves around, are real people. Tony is living, and his input and his presence in the adaptation of the story into ballet was essential to its creation. So in that way, there is a lot of responsibility to make sure that Julie's memory and her life and her words are honored deeply. But also, there was so much exploration and so much room for play and so much room to experiment and grow as a choreographer, and once I had the cast in the room together with all of us, to find what is the language of movement behind this language of music. Where do we marry the two together? How do we honor the music and the words in the music that's coming from inside our bodies?
Kellams: What is it like working with the artists who are on stage that are taking your choreography? What kind of discussions did you have in the creation?
Smith: Well, these artists are incredible. There are about 30 musicians involved and nine dancers. And over the two times that we've produced this, we've now worked with about 40 musicians and a dozen dancers, and I'd worked with more than a dozen dancers over two years before I started staging it, to be brought to the stage in Norman last year. And through all of those conversations and times spending in the studio all around the country, this language started to come to life. And a little bit of what that looked like is, I usually sit down with someone before we started working on any little section of creating anything that was in my head and say, this is what the story is. I would talk them through the poetry of the first movement — that is birth or death, whenever there is death or there is earth, water, sort of a — Tony describes it as a 10,000-foot overview of everything he had learned about grief, and I would start with that movement. It establishes who all of the characters are, what the forces at play are, and then we dive into the story. And that was the essential conversation before learning any little piece of movement, even if it was just, I want to see if these steps fit together the way they do in my head. Even if that was all this little session of working together was going to be, that conversation was essential. And so both times that we have now staged this, our first rehearsal was two hours sitting around a table together, listening to the score, reading the poetry, reading the notes from the album that were written by Eric and Tony, and also going through all of my notes. Over the two years prior to creating this, I had listened to every moment of interviews that Eric had done about this work. I had done so much research, and at one point I found Julie's obituary. At another point I found little blog pieces that some of her family and friends had written throughout her battle with cancer and around the time of her death. And sharing what I learned from all those interviews and those writings with the cast as we went through the story was essential. It is impossible to walk into a rehearsal for something as profound as this and as personal as this without a deep understanding of it, in order to respect the artists and the life from whence it came.
Kellams: It represents real people and it covers so many emotions. And I guess in some way, for an artist or a choreographer, there is a chance to perhaps in small ways make it personal, because many of us have gone through joy and grief and laughter.
Smith: Yes, it's funny that you say that. It is very personal to me. I think for anybody who's had any level of experience with illness, cancer, infertility, loss of anyone, grief at all, this piece speaks to those things on such a nuanced and personal level that you find a place for your story to live inside of it. And for me, a couple summers ago I spent a good amount of time in the hospital with my grandfather while he was going through his battle with cancer. And it was in those weeks that I found connections into the sixth movement of this work, where Julie's diagnosed with cancer, and the 11th movement of this work, where she dies. "We all live, unravel, struggle ends and my name to your address. Your struggle ends as my" — two pieces I had prior connections to, but that's when they became so real and so personal to me. And so there are little odes to that experience that are set into those movements for sure. And I think, especially with the dancers, there are things we're able to put into the story that aren't in the music. The music doesn't always give an opportunity to talk about how Tony was feeling, watching Julie go through everything. It's there in some movements, but in others it's missing. There's a lot surrounding the birth of their children that isn't in the music, and it's portrayed beautifully, but there's other bits of acting and bits of storytelling that we can do with human faces and human bodies that aren't there. And so with each set of dancers that's come into this, there's been layers of that personality added to it and layers of their own experiences that have been brought to the table. And it's very funny how every single time a new dancer gets introduced to this work — whether it was someone I worked with years ago on a little phrase or the dancers that I'll be bringing it to the stage in Eureka Springs — they always find a way that this means something to them. The number of dancers I've had tell me after working on this, "You wouldn't have known this, but my mom passed away last year, and so this has been really meaningful to me." Or, "You wouldn't know this, but I've been really struggling with my mental health, and hearing about her resilience and her story has given me a different perspective on life." That's kind of the why behind creating this entire piece, why it's important, why it means so much to everyone who sees it.
Kellams: Sophia, I've got to ask: you've been immersed in this work and with other artists and collaborators. Has it changed anything, any of your perspectives on life or just everyday occurrences?
Smith: Absolutely. Well, over the last six years that I've been working on this, "The Sacred Veil" has changed the way that I view the world around me. I look at small interactions as meaningful things now. I look at changes of season as blessings instead of, "Oh no, now it's snowing," or, "Oh goodness, now the pollen's falling." It's a beautiful thing to be on this world, to be a part of the earth that we inhabit, and to share those experiences with the people around us. I often feel as though when we look at life, we think of life as something that is long and that comes in many phases and many seasons, if we're lucky. But working on Julie's story showed me that even if life is finite, there's so much beauty in it. Even if the years of your life can be measured in a small number of decades, the impact of your life can be so much greater than that. That number could be infinite. And so I think Julie was a woman of incredible resilience, incredible faith, incredible wisdom, and interacting with her words and her story so often over these six years, I often feel as though there's a little Julie voice in the back of my head sometimes that notices the little things about people that I wouldn't have seen before I started interacting with this quite so much. But even just in the past year, this work has changed what I think is possible for art. I think that what we've done with "The Sacred Veil" is something that the world of art hasn't seen before. The piece itself is so powerful and so raw and so personal that the music doesn't need dance. Let me be very clear. The music stands alone on its own, and it is a beautiful and powerful testament to life, to joy and to grief. But in the collaboration with Windsong Chamber Choir and with our musicians and the dancers, what we've been able to create is an experience that is moving, is touching, is grounding, is somewhat painful, but is also extremely cathartic and therapeutic. And that is not something that's common in art. I know I find myself — I consider myself incredibly lucky to be the one that gets to create dance out of it.
Sophia Smith is the choreographer for the ballet adaptation of "The Sacred Veil" by Charles Anthony Silvestri and Eric Whitacre. The ballet will be on stage at the Inspiration Point Center for the Arts in Eureka Springs on Saturday, April 11, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 12, at 2 p.m. More information at operaintheozarks.com.
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