‘The Forest of Metal Objects’ Premieres at the Met Cloisters

It was the hottest day of the year, and young musicians from the University of Michigan were staying cool in a 12th-century Benedictine cloister that, reconstructed indoors, let in the summer sun while a chill blew in from vents around their ankles.

But they wouldn’t be inside for long. Those players, from the University of Michigan Percussion Ensemble, were rehearsing “The Forest of Metal Objects,” which premieres on Friday and is designed to travel through the Met Cloisters, the hilltop museum of medieval art and architecture, with the performance ending outside in the lush garden of the Cuxa Cloister.

Before they went outdoors, though, the piece’s composer, Michael Gordon, had notes about how the percussionists were handling makeshift instruments constructed of small chains and jingle bells. “The first time you shake them, let’s make it playful,” he said. “But maybe the second time is about discovery, and then as we slow it down it becomes more serious.”

The players were also receiving direction from Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, founders of Big Dance Theater, who had choreographed each movement within the cloister, such as picking up the chains and processing to the next room, with some of them standing on steps to form a corridor for the audience.

Lazar didn’t know how many steps he could fill with performers without getting too close to the centuries-old sculptures at the top. “Does this work?” he asked a member of the museum’s curatorial staff who was observing. He was told to leave a couple of steps’ worth of space between the musicians and the art, and he happily obliged.