The Civil Wars: A Tree Is Best Measured When IT Is Down - Minneapolis Section: The Knee Plays

Minneapolis Section: The Knee Plays

The American section of The Civil Wars was a series of twelve brief interludes intended to connect the larger scenes and provide time for set changes. David Byrne was the composer of these mostly wordless pieces, and choreography was by Suzushi Hanayagi. The Knee Plays premiered in April 1984 at the Walker Art Center.

With no singers, The Knee Plays told its story through nine dancers wearing white doctor's smocks. The style of presentation was influenced by Japanese Bunraku puppetry and Noh and Kabuki theater. The designs, by Jun Matsuno with Wilson and Byrne, were modular white squares resembling Japanese shoji screens that moved fluidly to redefine the space for each scene.

Byrne's music, however, took its inspiration not from Japan but from the Dirty Dozen Brass Band of New Orleans. The instrumentation was for a brass ensemble, and incorporated a number of traditional tunes, including "In the Upper Room," "The Gift of Sound," "Theadora is Dozing," "I Bid You Good Night," and "I Tried."

New York Times critic John Rockwell wrote "The 'plot' traces the transformation of a tree into a boat into a book into a tree again, almost as a cycle of nature All of which means little in words, but much in stage pictures."

Wilson coined the term "knee play," meaning an interlude between scenes, for the opera Einstein on the Beach. The term emerges from Wilson's conception of these pieces as connective tissue linking the "meat" of a performance.