McPhee is smitten with a village boy, Sampih (Nyoman Triyana Usadhi), and pays his parents to give him up, ostensibly as a servant, tacitly as a lover. Two other villagers tame the boy's wild energies by teaching him the flashy, androgynous kebyar dance. He'll go on to become a star when the Balinese dancers tour the world.
Ziporyn's score for the two orchestras reflects these adventures, as cultures meet, clash, accommodate. The music is propulsive, frenetic, but only occasionally tranquil. The miked singers sometimes overbalanced the instruments, and the whole panorama felt cramped to me in the modest space of the Majestic. But there was nothing modest about the ambition or the dazzling effect of the production.
Topics:
Dance
, Dance, Cutler Majestic Theatre, Cutler Majestic Theatre, More 
, Dance, Cutler Majestic Theatre, Cutler Majestic Theatre, Evan Ziporyn, Gamelan Galak Tika, MIT, Bang on a Can, Jay Scheib, dance review, Less 
