Dream’d in a Dream at BAM Harvey Theater

Seán Curran Company met the electrifying Kyrgyz folk music ensemble Ustatshakirt Plus at the foothills of the Kyrgyz Republic’s Tien Shan Mountains during the company’s cultural exchange tour in 2012, as part of DanceMotion USASM, a program of the US Department of State produced by BAM. In Dream’d in a Dream, named after Walt Whitman’s hymn to “robust love” in Leaves of Grass, that auspicious meeting bears creative fruit, featuring nine dancers and six musicians in a brilliant collage of American and Kyrgyz styles. Twangy jaw-harp multiphonics, energetic playing on the lute-like komuz, and other traditional sounds directed by composer Nurlanbek Nishanov back Curran’s ebullient choreography, lending a contemporary accent to an ancient musical language.