Symmetrical Lives is an innovative production of J. S. Bach’s Orchestral Suite in B minor that incorporates choreography into the musical performance. Originally produced as a video work in 2021, it was premiered as part of the Balcony Bar series of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with over 5,000 views. It has subsequently been performed live for concert audiences.
Co-created by Zara Lawler, Maja Cerar, and C. Neil Parsons, 2021.
Video excerpt from the first live performance of Symmetrical Lives, Harlem School of the Arts, New York City, 2022. Zara Lawler, flute; Zara Lawler, flute; Maja Cerar, violin; Rebecca Fischer, violin; Colin Brookes, viola; Alexis Pia Gerlach, cello. Choreographed and directed by Neil Parsons.
Video highlights from the first live performance of Symmetrical Lives, Harlem School of the Arts, New York City, 2022.
Photo by Jule Lemberger, 2022.
Candid photos from rehearsals for filming of Symmetrical Lives video, 2021.
In Symmetrical Lives, music is seen as well as heard. The two performers dance while they play, bringing a new perspective to music that is almost 300 years old.
Flutist Zara Lawler, violinist Maja Cerar, and choreographer C. Neil Parsons created Symmetrical Lives as a site-specific modern take on J. S. Bach’s beautiful Orchestral Suite in B Minor. The choreography explores both musical and physical ideas of balance and imbalance, equality and inequality, symmetry and asymmetry, isolation and togetherness, what is hidden and what is revealed. Bach’s exquisite music is presented in a new arrangement by Cerar and Lawler that favors these choreographic choices, where intricate entwining of the musical voices can be reflected in the intimate entwining of the dancer’s bodies.
At once thoughtful and playful, timely and timeless, Symmetrical Lives reflects the arc of the COVID-19 pandemic, while inclining toward physical and artistic liberation. The first movement was shot in two separate apartment spaces, referencing the isolation of Zoom meetings, the second in a New York City park with both performers in the same space but never quite meeting. The following movements progress through locations that become more rural and open, even as the dancer-musicians come physically and musically closer to each other. The final movement accelerates the action to a surprising conclusion.