Glass the Collaborator Finds Harmony in ‘Powaqqatsi’

Collaboration is not a method that ranks near the top of most artists’ favorite working techniques. But Philip Glass, whose music is a significant element in Godfrey Reggio’s “Powaqqatsi” (at the Century Plaza Theater), virtually swears by it.

In the last decade or so, the composer has produced operas with Robert Wilson (“Einstein on the Beach”) and Achim Freyer (“Satyagraha” and “Akhnaten”), dance pieces with Twyla Tharp (“In the Upper Room”), a chamber opera based on the Grimm Brothers’ “The Juniper Tree” and a score for Paul Schrader’s film, “Mishima.”

“It’s true. I’m a tireless collaborator,” Glass said from his New York home recently, “and I like the fact that all the people I work with are so different. What that allows me to do is to bring a different kind of esthetic resolution to each piece I do.”

Glass does not minimize the potential problems, however. “I often say that the great thing about collaboration,” he said with a chuckle, “is that you get to work with another artist, and the great difficulty about collaboration is also that you get to work with another artist.

“But Godfrey and I didn’t have a lot of difficulties. One or two places we disagreed, but more often we were up to our eyeballs in influencing each other. And that was what we were looking for. There were times when I wrote to the picture and times when he filmed to the music.”

“Powaqqatsi” is the follow-up to Glass’ highly successful collaboration with Reggio on “Koyaanisqatsi.” Like the first film, “Powaqqatsi” is a picture without dialogue, characters or actors--a highly impressionistic view of the world as seen through Reggio’s roving cameras and heard through the hypnotic repetitions of Glass’ idiosyncratic music.

Unlike the continental U.S. perspective of “Koyaanisqatsi,” however, “Powaqqatsi” reaches out to embrace the entire Southern Hemisphere. Glass’ virtually non-stop score takes a similar point of view, its rhythmic pulse throbbing with the sounds and textures of Third-World energies.

“What makes it sound the way it does is the instrumentation itself,” he said. “You put together a bunch of Brazilian percussion instruments, give them a fast 6/8 tempo to play, and the music sounds like it comes off the streets of Bahia.

“Interestingly, I recently visited a Brazilian friend of mine, Bernardo Palombo, who supplied the words for ‘Serra Pelada,’ the film’s opening piece. While I was at his studio, I heard someone playing it. I asked Bernardo what was going on and he said, ‘Oh, there’s a Dominican group here making a recording of it.’ And he told me that by the end of the year, five different groups in South America will have recorded that piece.

“I was thrilled. I said, ‘Do you mean I’ve written a piece of street music?’ After all, it’s one thing to write folkloric music, it’s another thing to write a piece of music that then becomes folk music.”

Glass’ enthusiastic response to the prospect of having produced an instant folk song reflects a surprising willingness--for a concert music composer of his generation--to reach out to his audience. It’s also a quality that has earned him considerable criticism. But Glass believes the times are changing.

“Ten years ago,” he said, “it was considered very declasse to even talk about the public. We pretended that the public didn’t exist. You did art for yourself.

“But now the idea that a work can be addressed to the public and still have artistic ideals that are not compromised has become very much a topic of the ‘80s.

“The truth is that, historically, it’s what’s always been done. You only have to look at Verdi and Mozart to see it. It’s certainly not a new idea, it just happens to have been out of fashion for a while.”

Glass, 50, believes that collaborating on projects like “Powaqqatsi” (with a third film in the trilogy yet to come) has helped bring his creative life into balance. “For most people, middle age is when your life is kind of winding down. But for most artists, middle age is when you finally get it together.

“I’m looking at 30 more years or so, whereas if I were a psychiatrist or a banker, I’d be looking more toward retirement. But the truth is, it wasn’t until I was in my 40s that I was really able to do what I wanted to do. And only now, in my early 50s, do I feel I finally have a command of my language.

“The great thing now is that when I have an idea, I can do it. I have technical and esthetic strength to compose what I want and I have the administrative and economic strength to do what I want. So I see the next 30 or so years as a time for flat-out work.”