Elisa Monte Dance Has a New Blog
November 25, 2008
I recently started working with Elisa Monte Dance, a contemporary dance company founded in 1981 by Elisa Monte, who is a former dancer with Martha Graham, Lar Lubovitch, and Pilobolus. The company has a new blog and is getting ready for their January performances at The Joyce Theater, as well as a tour to Europe that begins next week! I’ll be contributing to their blog on a weekly basis and encourage you to check in often for photos, posts from the dancers, and more information about the repertoire being performed at The Joyce. My first post is about last week’s open rehearsal, which was hosted by the company’s Junior Board. You can read it below or on EMD’s blog. Enjoy!
EMD dancers Rachel Holmes, Maya Taylor, and India Bolds, photo by Roy Volkmann
Last Thursday, I attended my first company event. The Junior Board of Elisa Monte Dance hosted an open rehearsal for their friends in order to give everyone a sneak preview of the company’s upcoming performances at The Joyce Theater, January 21-25. About 40 people and I filled the spacious studio to watch excerpts from Zydeco, Zaré, which will have its New York premiere at The Joyce, and Volkmann Suite, which debuted in 1996. The event was a fabulous opportunity to see the dancers in action before they head to Europe next week for several performances. It also provided an opportunity for the junior board to further its mission: to broaden EMD’s audience by reaching out to a younger generation.
The dancers were energetic and looked thrilled to share their hard work in an informal setting. Volkmann Suite was filled with sensual images and inventive partnering, while Zydeco, Zaré depicted an upbeat gathering of people celebrating the sounds and movements of Zydeco. The showing was followed by cocktails and mingling with artistic director Elisa Monte and the dancers. Everyone was buzzing about the wonderful rehearsal and seemed eager to see the full performance at The Joyce in January. In fact, many of the attendees had never seen a contemporary company and knew little about dance. For them, getting an intimate, behind-the-scenes glimpse of EMD was a particularly unique opportunity. The open rehearsal was a festive, successful evening and a great preview for the company’s Joyce season – only 8 weeks to go!
Elisa Monte Dance will perform at The Joyce Theater January 21 to 25, with its opening night gala on the 21st, Humanities Night on the 22nd, and the Junior Gala on the 23rd. Tickets can be ordered online or by calling Joyce Charge at 212-242-0800.
The Art of the Turnaround
November 24, 2008
I’m currently enrolled in an arts management certificate program at NYU and just finished my first course, Managing the Arts (the prerequisite for everything else). One of the required readings was Michael Kaiser’s The Art of the Turnaround, which reveals the author’s ten guidelines for creating and maintaining healthy arts organizations. Kaiser, who is known as “the turnaround king” because he has successfully managed and saved so many organizations, presents five case studies to show how he applied his own guidelines to his experiences managing Kansas City Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, the Royal Opera House, and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The book is an easy, straightforward read that I recommend to anyone interested in arts management or curious about the ups and downs of these five organizations.
Kaiser’s thesis can be summed up in four words: “good art, well marketed”. Establishing a financially stable organization is more complex than that (think fundraising, leadership, press coverage, and board structure), but this phrase suggests that at the heart of every stable arts organization is high-quality programming, effective marketing, and visibility to the public. In the introduction, Kaiser states, “When one cuts artistic initiative and marketing, one cuts the very reason people supply revenue to the arts organization” (Kaiser xi). Without art – whether it’s dance, theater, visual art, film, etc. – the organization does not exist, and without effective marketing, the organization’s art has no audience.
Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet: Open Rehearsal
November 22, 2008
Cedar Lake dancers rehearsing Didy Veldman’s frame of view, photo by Paul B. Goode
Yesterday afternoon I headed to West 26th Street to watch an open studio rehearsal of Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. The company is preparing for their winter season, January 8 to 18, which will include world premieres by Dutch choreographer Didy Veldman and Italy’s Luca Veggetti along with the reprise of Crystal Pite’s Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue. After a warm welcome from artistic director Benoit-Swan Pouffer, we saw Veggetti’s memory/measure. Set to an electronic score by Paola Aralla, this abstract work features four dancers – two women, two men – who move as individuals or couples as they take direction from text inspired by the late Ingmar Bergman. The piece appears to be equally intense for the viewer and the dancer, and I’m sure that memory/measure‘s intensity will be further enhanced by the addition of lighting and costumes. I’m looking forward to seeing multiple casts.
In Didy Veldman’s new work frame of view, the first piece she is making for an American company, nine dancers navigate different spaces – and emotions – that are separated by doors. Didy explained that she “wanted to do something with doors” and examine how people behave differently in public and private spaces. Although not entirely finished, frame of work promises to be a creative investigation into the way humans hide and reveal different emotions. There was some interesting character development from one scene to the next as the dancers conveyed a variety of feelings in solos (often times “partnered” by a door) and duets. The placement and use of doors is a vital part of the piece, and although there were only three used in the rehearsal, the full set will be much more elaborate. The eclectic score includes music by Nina Simone, Pink Martini, Bartok, Offenbach, Dean Martin, and the Kronos Quartet, along with conversation that is woven into several scenes. As a collaborative work, this touching, witty, and humorous piece will undoubtedly evolve between now and the start of the winter season. Watch the video above by Caleb Custer.
Didy Veldman in rehearsal at Cedar Lake, photo by Paul B. Goode
Cedar Lake dancers rehearsing frame of view, photo by Paul B. Goode
Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet’s Winter Season 2009
January 8-18, 2009 at 8 PM
World premieres by Luca Veggetti and Didy Veldman
Reprise of a 2008 premiere by Crystal Pite
Order tickets online or call 212-868-4444
Clive Barnes, Dance Critic, Dies at 81
November 19, 2008
Although I knew Clive Barnes for his monthly “Attitudes” column in Dance Magazine, he spent many years as a dance and drama critic for The NY Times and wrote for several British newspapers as well. Here’s an excerpt describing his time at Oxford, from William Grimes’ NY Times article about Mr. Barnes:
He and a coterie of like-minded dance writers mounted a kind of cultural takeover bid, taking deliberate aim at the dance establishment and pushing themselves forward as the voices of the rising generation. “We all began freelancing, and we were all terribly mean to the established dance critics, who were all music critics, really, and didn’t know a thing about dance,” Mr. Barnes told McCall’s magazine in 1969. “We were kind of young Turks, obnoxious as hell, but it worked. We wanted every paper in London to have a specialist dance critic, and we won. Now they all do.”
Make Art, Not Waste
November 19, 2008
Image courtesy of DTW’s Blog
It’s cold outside. Really cold. So you might just find yourself rushing into your favorite coffee shop to warm up with a hot beverage. Yum. But instead of mindlessly throwing your cup into an overflowing trash can, make art! Choreographer Layard Thompson and collaborator Machine Dazzle are collecting all paper and plastic cups to create an installation set for an upcoming performance at Dance Theater Workshop. Below are the instructions from DTW’s blog. And be sure to check out Layard Thompson’s performance.
Please consider taking part in a community effort to co-create an installation set for an upcoming Dance Theater Workshop performance! This project invites you to take part in the creation of a dance by saving your waste. To Layard Thompson and Machine Dazzle, your trash is treasure.
Please:
1. SAVE your used disposable paper and plastic coffee and tea cups.
2. CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN your used paper and plastic cups.
3. DEPOSIT your artfully RECYCLED and CLEANED cups in the trash can made by cups in our lobby.
4. CONSIDER how recycling your CUPS can directly transform the objective nature of your reality by participating in a mundane art project.
5. HELP Machine and Layard build the set they aspire to create.
