With more than 80 performers involved, "Spirit -- The 7th Fire of Alaska" will be one of the biggest productions seen at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts this year. It may also be the most impressive from the perspective of a specifically Alaska art event.
Billed as a "multicultural rock and dance spectacular," the show includes modern dancers from Alaska Dance Theatre, traditional dancers from the Alaska Native Heritage Center, champion Native American dancers from the Lower 48, a rock orchestra, vocalists, video, lots of drums and the Alaska Children's Choir.
Based on a pre-existing piece by award-winning composer Peter Buffett (whose work is heard on the soundtracks of "500 Nations" and "Dances with Wolves") it includes no dialogue. But it does have a plot.
"It's a very powerful story," said Steven Alvarez, the show's artistic producer, artistic director, one of the drummers and the guiding force in bringing it all together.
Alvarez recalled seeing Buffett's "Spirit: A Journey of Dance, Drums and Song" when it was aired on PBS during a fund drive in the 1990s. The mix of Native American and contemporary dance with a compelling pop score connected with his musical and artistic instincts.
"I thought, 'Whoa! What's this?' The fusion of contemporary music with traditional dance, I was mesmerized by it. I connected to it spiritually and artistically as someone who likes to produce."
Alvarez has been involved in music and theater projects in Anchorage. A professional percussionist, he's a member of the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra and has been a featured solo singer with Anchorage Concert Chorus, produced well-received stagings of shows like "Tommy" and "Rocky Horror" and is an integral part of the award-winning Native/rock band Medicine Dream.
At the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. in 2004 he saw a live performance of Buffett's work in person. By this point "Drums, Dance and Song" had evolved into "Spirit -- The 7th Fire."
The new version had "a much more detailed storyline," he said. "I knew I'd love to do something like that."
In 2010 he collaborated with Kristen Vierthaler, now executive director of Alaska Dance Theatre and its dancers for an original local creation, "Dance in Pursuit of Dreams." "It was something similar, but not on the same scope," he admitted. "And it didn't satisfy."
Buffett's vision was what he wanted, but with an Alaska flavor. So in January 2014, he contacted Buffett's organization to ask about the local production rights, costs and availability. He explained his credentials in Alaska theater and music productions, his collaboration with Alaska Dance Theatre, his position as education director at the Alaska Native Heritage Center.
"Within a day they wrote back," he said. "They said my timing was perfect. That they were in the process of trying to figure out a way to make the show more accessible for local productions."
Discussions quickly ensued, although with a little confusion. "I was thinking '7th Fire' and they were thinking about 'Drums, Dance and Song'; '7th Fire' didn't include the modern dancers, but I wanted to keep them in there with the Native dancers."
That misunderstanding was easy to clear up. More difficult was the fact that the Buffett organization no longer had the so-called "production assets" that would usually be part of a deal, no script or music charts.
"It was such a big task to take it on tour, such a monumental thing, so many moving parts, that to sustain it on the road was untenable," Alvarez said. So they'd put it -- "7th Fire" -- away and hadn't thought of it shortly after the Washington premiere.
What they could provide were recordings from the original production. These, however, would need to be put in a form where musicians and directors could use them for Anchorage and any future revivals.
"They told me, 'We can grant you these rights for free -- if you send us your production assets,'" Alvarez said.
That seemed like a bargain, but it involved a lot of work.
"What I got from them were the studio files for music in all kinds of different formats, CDs, DVDs, even VHS." Alvarez listened to the recordings, pulled the music and tapped compositionally-talented friends to help recreate the score.
Happily, the projected images used in the story were intact. "Peter sent me the hard drive with all the video," Alvarez said. "That was crucial, because the video imagery is like another character."
In the original show, the plot involved a contemporary Native American frustrated by his work who is visited by the spirits of his ancestors. In the Anchorage version, the main character -- Alvarez calls him an "Everyman" -- is Alaska Native.
"In the opening scene, he's in an office, struggling to find success in the corporate environment, agitated," Alvarez said. "He finds an eagle feather in a folder. A woman appears and sings a song to him. The ancestors appear to take him on a journey."
The local production team is something like a list of Anchorage all-stars. Vierthaler is working with Alaska Dance Theatre dancers on the contemporary choreography, which is the work of Nicki Maple and Barry Kerollis; Teresa Pond is in charge of stage direction; Paul Pike and Buz Daney are among the musicians; Stephen Blanchett, best-known as a member of the Native band Pamyua, is creating the Yup'ik choreography and playing the main character.
The performance combines the Lower 48 Native dance and modern dance of Buffett's two productions and adds Alaskan Yup'ik, Tsimshian, Sugpiaq and Inupiat dance and regalia, sometimes all at once.
Various plot points will also take a specifically Alaskan twist, Alvarez said. For instance, one section, "Walk of Sorrows," originally referred to as the "Trail of Tears," centers on the forced exodus of tribes from the southeast United States to "Indian Territory" west of the Mississippi River in the 1830s.
In the Anchorage version, that section will instead focus on the shelling of Angoon by the U.S. Navy in 1882 and the internment of Aleuts during World War II.
The over-arching message, however, is not one of sorrow or defeat, but of renewal, beauty and mystery, of reconciling past and present. Alvarez, whose roots include Mescalero Apache and Yaqui heritage, compares it to his own experience.
He first came to Alaska to visit the grave of St. Herman near Kodiak in 1996, he said. "Nine months later I moved up. I wanted to contribute to the Native community here."
"The journey in this story is meant to reawaken who you are, where you came from, so that you can be in balance," Alvarez said. "It's been a labor of love. But when things get stressful, I think, 'I'm giving back.'"
"Spirit -- 7th Fire of Alaska" will be presented at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday in the Discovery Theater. Tickets are available at centertix.net.
See a scene from the upcoming production at vimeo.com/111206275.