You could go to yet another beer bash and listen to “Thriller” and “The Monster Mash” for the umpteenth time to scratch this year’s festive fall itch. Or you could enter into a multi-genre feast for the senses, built around an ancient tale told through avant-garde chamber music, fashion, dance, poetry, architecture and inspired food and wine.
Really, you could do both, because the Saint Louis Arts Alliance is throwing its sophisticated event, Black Angels, on the Wednesday before Halloween.
The nonprofit Saint Louis Arts Alliance was formed in 2013, when Emily Lane realized she was struggling to connect with the wealth of creative professionals in the city who seemed to exist in their own genre-based silos. The idea behind the Alliance, she says, is to connect artists across disciplines while raising funds to help disadvantaged kids gain access to the arts.
Black Angels is its second event, and the first in the visually and acoustically beautiful Theodore Link designed space newly occupied by Link Auction Galleries. The event takes its name from George Crumb’s string quartet piece, “Black Angels.”
“The piece itself is about the conversation between God and a fallen angel,” Lane says. “There’s real darkness and real beauty.”
The performance begins with a trio dancing, and then moves into a spoken word performance that ties in with the scene, she explains. Next, a dancer will move in silence, segueing into the string quartet performing the Crumb piece. St. Louis fashion phenomenon Michael Drummond designed the costumes and the chapel will be artfully strewn with building elements from Junque, the architectural salvage shop. Before and after the performance, attendees can socialize and taste wines from The Wine Merchant while sampling hors d’oeuvres by Samantha Nawrocki from the Libertine.
Brandon Fink, a dancer with the Modern American Dance Company, choreographed the trio. He also serves as the creative director for the Alliance. He says he was inspired both by the chance to work with artists outside his usual sphere, as well as the unique space.
“The most exciting is the collaboration between genres,” Fink said.
He said that he shared music with designer Drummond and then choreographed the piece working from the costumes that Drummond envisioned after listening. Because the space doesn’t have a distinct stage, Fink said, his choreography has to work from all 360 degrees.
“It’s opened my mind to how much beauty we have missed because you don’t see it from all angles,” he said.
Cellist Ken Kulosa is president of the Alliance board, and says he’s thrilled to play ‘Black Angels’—a piece that musicians don’t often get the chance to play, he says.
“It’s been 30 years for me. I’m really excited about getting to do it again,” he says. “It’s a masterpiece as far as avant-garde chamber music is concerned.”
The electrified quartet will be supplemented by a gong, maracas, water glasses and chanting. Kulosa says it will be a performance that sticks with the audience for years.
In addition to raising money and a little bit of hell for the Alliance, the event serves as a kickoff of sorts for Link Auction Galleries. The chapel is said to be acoustically identical to Wigmore Hall, a famous chamber music venue in London—perfect, according to Susan Kime, for Link’s new fine instruments division.
Kime is the president and founder of Link. The musical instruments division, which Lane will head up, is the only one of its kind in the Midwest.
“We felt like that was kind of an untapped market for us and for this region,” Kime said. “The symphony, Jazz at the Bistro—we’re a very musically oriented city. We felt it was a perfect fit for us.”
The chapel will be a perfect place for potential buyers to try out Links’ wares, and the Black Angels event will hopefully get the word out about it.
Black Angels, Oct. 29. 6:30 p.m. Theodore Link Building, 5000 Washington Place. Central West End. Suggested donation $10. For more information, visit stlouisartsalliance.wordpress.com.
