![\"Malashock](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/1996-Tribes-3.jpg\" "\\"1996")
<\/a>All of this in addition to his most famous work\u2014colorful paintings, huge murals and stained glass windows. Chagall was also considered the preeminent Jewish artist of his time, something that would drive him away from the blatant anti-Semitism of his native Russia to the more hospitable climate of France, where he would live most of his life.<\/p>\n
Thus, Chagall is a most fitting subject for this year\u2019s 17th annual Lipinsky Family Jewish Arts Festival, in particular the world premiere of an ongoing dance work by John Malashock, artistic director and choreographer of Malashock Dance, continuing June 12 and 13 at the Lyceum Space downtown in Horton Plaza.<\/p>\n
The work, which is actually the first three dances of a piece that will eventually contain 19 dances, documents the extraordinary life Chagall enjoyed over nearly a century. Malashock\u2019s long-time collaborator Yale Strom has composed an original score for what the duo describes as a dance\/musical. Both Malashock and Strom are Mission Hills residents.<\/p>\n
Although he died in 1985, this is not Chagall\u2019s first involvement with dance. He created the original sets and costumes for Stravinsky\u2019s famous ballet \u201cThe Firebird,\u201d as well as \u201cAleko,\u201d a ballet by Leonid Massine at New York Ballet Theatre during the few years he lived in America. Inspired by colorful Mexican folk art, Chagall received thunderous applause for his sets, fairly overshadowing the dance itself. Fellow muralists Diego Rivera and Jose Orosco were in the audience to cheer him on.<\/p>\n
Malashock and Strom focus on the more human and personal elements of Chagall\u2019s life in their 16-minute piece. \u201cChagall\u201d covers the influences of his life, such as the place he was born in Vitebsk, which is now in Belarus, as well as his two wives and the lover who bore him a son who is still living today.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were trying to use a lot of fantasy so that it is less strictly a biography,\u201d Malashock said. \u201cThe six dancers create a whole mix of images for him. The first dance is about his village life, the second is about his love relationships in which his first girlfriend introduces him to her best friend and he gets involved with both. Finally he meets Bella, who became his wife and muse.\u201d<\/p>\n
For his part, Strom points out that Chagall as a young boy played the violin, which was his first art form, a customary pursuit for a Jewish boy in Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see that motif in much of his life\u2019s work, such as the klezmer music he heard from musicians on the street and at weddings, cantorial music from the synagogue and the Roma music of the gypsies,\u201d Strom explained. \u201cThe whole work has a carnival feel.\u201d<\/p>\n
To set the mood, Strom and his Hot P\u2019Stromi of klezmer musicians will perform a 20-minute set, featuring his wife, Elizabeth Schwartz, on vocals. Strom stresses the rhythms of the score, with the drummer and the percussion taking the foreground.<\/p>\n
Rounding out the evening will be a reprise of Malashock\u2019s very popular 1996 dance \u201cTribes,\u201d with which the company also toured. It centers on the coming together of fantasy tribes \u2013 different people who are invented, not any race in the classical sense of the word.<\/p>\n
But it is \u201cChagall\u201d that makes this program special, as it parlays the forerunner of surrealism and a cubist in the expressionistic style so unique that Picasso paid his own special tribute: \u201cWhen Matisse dies, Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color really is.\u201d<\/p>\n