Above: Dorrie Garland and Dervia Carey-Jones of Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance
Monday November 26th, 2019 ~ In the early afternoon, I went down to the NYU/Tisch studios where Cherylyn Lavagnino was running a rehearsal of her latest creation, Monsters of Grace, set to the aria “In The Arc of Your Mallet” from the almost-forgotten Philip Glass opera Monsters of Grace.
Here is the text of the aria, drawn from the writings of the Persian poet and scholar Rumi (1207-1273):
“Don’t go anywhere without me.
Let nothing happen in the sky apart from me,
or on the ground, in this world or that world,
without my being in its happening.
Vision, see nothing I don’t see.
Language, say nothing.
The way the night knows itself with the moon,
be that with me. Be the rose
nearest to the thorn that I am.
I want to feel myself in you when you taste food,
in the arc of your mallet when you work,
when you visit friends, when you go
up on the roof by yourself at night.
There’s nothing worse than to walk out along the street
without you. I don’t know where I’m going.
You’re the road, and the knower of roads,
more than maps, more than love.”
It seems very…contemporary, doesn’t it?
And here are some photos from the rehearsal, courtesy of Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance:
Dervia Carey-Jones, Dorrie Garland, Kaitlyn Yiu, and Lila Simmons
Corinne Hart and Dervia Carey-Jones
Kaitlyn Yiu and Dorrie Garland
Kaitlyn and Dorrie
Cherylyn’s choreography strikes me as ideally suited to the music; the ballet has the feeling of ritual…a feeling I love.
My thanks to Cherylyn and her beautiful and generous dancers Dervia Carey-Jones, Dorrie Garland, Corinne Hart, Lila Simmons, and Kaitlyn Yiu for this engaging studio experience.
~ Oberon
Oberon's Glade 
Leave a comment