AMERICAN REALNESS
December 30, 2009
Start the new year off right – by taking in some contemporary performance. The AMERICAN REALNESS festival presents and highlights the work of eight contemporary choreographers to debunk stilted perceptions of American dance and give way to a new notion of American contemporary performance. According to the press release, AMERICAN REALNESS promises to be “loud, queer, disturbing, hilarious, critically engaged, beyond post-modern and undeniably present”.
The festival runs from January 7th through 11th and includes a superb lineup, shown below. Links to ticket and venue information can be found at the AMERICAN REALNESS website.
MIGUEL GUTIERREZ AND THE POWERFUL PEOPLE
Last Meadow
Last Meadow is a new evening length work using original choreography and writing mixed with stuff from James Dean’s three movies to look at the myth of America, the father, and confusion as a potentially transformative, sensory-enlivened state.
ABRONS ARTS CENTER
466 GRAND STREET
TICKETS $15
ANN LIV YOUNG
Ann Liv Young Does Sherry
Sherry, Ann Liv Young’s newest performance alter ego uses techniques from church, Alcoholics Anonymous, and traditional psychology in her own brand of performative therapy. She is about fixing your issues, whether it’s marital trouble or a lack of creativity in the kitchen.
While you can’t get much whiter than Sherry, she is sexually and racially progressive, working alongside two colored people. And her methods, though traditional in some sense, are more likely to involve pork chops, mayonnaise, and chocolate sauce than a weekly visit to your therapist. Whatever Sherry does, Ann Liv Young says it works and she has proof.
ABRONS ARTS CENTER
466 GRAND STREET
TICKETS $15
LUCIANA ACHUGAR, Franny and Zooey
ZOE|JUNIPER, A Crack in Everything
LAYARD THOMPSON, cUp—pUck…
LUCIANA ACHUGAR
Franny and Zooey
Franny and Zooey makes the audience hyper aware of their physical presence in the theatre and their role as voyeur by bringing to the foreground the space and time gap between the process and the moment of performance.
ZOE|JUNIPER
A Crack in Everything
For A Crack in Everything, Co-Artistic Director and Choreographer Zoe Scofield creates a feral ballet of aggression and catharsis inside a highly controlled, modular, and crafted environment designed and built by Co-Artistic Director Juniper Shuey.
LAYARD THOMPSON
cUp—pUck…
Thompson’s clownish work seriously employs psychological movement and recycled materials to question the nature of gender, sexuality, materiality, consumption, and the paradox of the self as a verb.
ABRONS ARTS CENTER
466 GRAND STREET
TICKETS $15
JEREMY WADE
I Offer My Self to Thee
A hallucinogenic play about the body’s relationship to the untenable, the great void, the grain of sand in the vastness of empty space, with a revelation that life is about moving towards love and not away from it.
ABRONS ARTS CENTER
466 GRAND STREET
TICKETS $15
JACK FERVER
A Movie Star Needs a Movie
Jack Ferver’s A Movie Star Needs a Movie is a darkly satirical new work about the relationship between shallow ambition and fame.
ABRONS ARTS CENTER
466 GRAND STREET
TICKETS $15
TRAJAL HARRELL
Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church (S)
Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church (S) takes a new critical position on postmodern dance aesthetics emanating from the Judson Church period. By developing his own work as an imaginary meeting between the aesthetics of Judson and those of a parallel historical tradition, that of Voguing, Trajal Harrell re-writes the minimalism and neutrality of postmodern dance with a new set of signs.
PRESENTED BY:
THE NEW MUSEUM
235 BOWERY AT PRINCE STREET
TICKETS $18
JEREMY WADE
there is no end to more
In a bold and violent juxtaposition of movement, text, animation, and video of manga (Japanese comics) drawing, Wade takes a playful and cynical look at Japanese kawaii (cute) culture— from the infantile fluff of Hello Kitty to teenage doe-eyed love portrayed in anime— exploring its ubiquitous influence on the world today.
PRESENTED BY:
THE JAPAN SOCIETY
333 EAST 47TH ST (btwn 1st and 2nd Aves)
TICKETS $20
Another Year, Another Wrap-Up
December 23, 2009
Batsheva Dance Company in Ohad Naharin’s MAX, photo by Gadi Dagon
It has been an eventful year for dance, and at times, a sad one. We lost Merce Cunningham, Pina Bausch, and Michael Jackson, many companies folded or laid off dancers due to financial troubles, and individuals everywhere involved in the arts – as writers, managers, choreographers, directors, you name it – are scratching their heads and having conversations about how to do more with less. But there were also some new, thriving initiatives, like the Performance Club (which just celebrated its one-year anniversary), Arts in Crisis, and FEAST, which will continue into 2010 and undoubtedly grow stronger. And of course, there were many great performances over the past year that have kept me optimistic and confident that even during the most challenging times, talented artists are creating exciting work. Here are some highlights from 2009, with links to my full reviews.
Zoe Scofield and Juniper Shuey’s the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t at Dance Theater Workshop: A gorgeously harrowing piece that featured distorted balletic movement and a rich emotional history filled with convulsions, gasps, and haunting stares.
Dancers in Zoe Scofield and Juniper Shuey’s the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t, photo by Justine Avera
Emanuel Gat’s Winter Variations at Lincoln Center Festival: This duet for two men played with pauses and fluid motion within a deserted atmosphere that used light and dark to create personal and emotional boundaries. Their rhythmic movement to The Beatles’ “Day in the Life” is unforgettable.
Neal Medlyn in Why Won’t You Let Me Be Great!!!, photo by Zack Brown
Why Won’t You Let Me Be Great!!! at PS 122, conceived by Brendan Kennedy and presented by Neal Medlyn and CATCH: This evening-length show was inspired by Kanye West’s album 808s and Heartbreak, and featured a handful of downtown performing artists who engaged with his songs to convey loneliness, sex, and masculine power, among other themes. Some of the performers even got attention from – or confronted – Kanye West when he attended.
Steve Reich Interpreted Through Dance at the Guggenheim’s Works & Process: Larry Keigwin and Peter Quanz both choreographed works to Reich’s Double Sextet. The results were excellent, albeit remarkably different, and both made use of the Guggenheim’s unique performance space.
Dancers in Larry Keigwin’s Sidewalk, photo by Richard Termine
Batsheva Dance Company’s MAX at Brooklyn Academy of Music: Ohad Naharin’s piece for ten dancers layered movement, sound, and lighting to create a heavily structured, non-theatrical work. Naharin’s chanting, in what sounded like gibberish, was a powerful guide throughout the work.
Rachel Maddow’s PillowTalk at Jacob’s Pillow: Sadly, I did not attend this, but a detailed press release left me wishing I had made the trip to Becket, Massachusetts. Maddow’s speech on arts advocacy and the importance of arts education is itself a work of art. An excerpt is below. Thank you, Rachel!
“Not just in wartime but especially in wartime, and not just in hard economic times but especially in hard economic times, the arts get dismissed as ‘sissy’. Dance gets dismissed as craft, creativity gets dismissed as inessential, to the detriment of our country. And so when we fight for dance, when we buy art that’s made by living American artists, when we say that even when you cut education to the bone, you do not cut arts and music education, because arts and music education IS bone, it is structural, it is essential; you are, in [Jacob’s Pillow founder] Ted Shawn’s words, you are preserving the way of life that we are supposedly fighting for and it’s worth being proud of.”
Gallim Dance in Andrea Miller’s Blush, photo by Christopher Duggan
Gallim Dance’s Blush at the Joyce Soho: The three women and three men in this work, choreographed by Andrea Miller, showed raw, intensely physical movement set within an emotional climate that shifted from dangerously cold to achingly tender and warm.
Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s Event at Rockefeller Park: Performed one week after Cunningham’s death at the age of ninety, this site-specific work was a beautiful farewell overflowing with intriguing contrasts and nuances.
Merce Cunningham Dance Company in Event at Rockefeller Park, photo by Julieta Cervantes
Ernesto Neto’s anthropodino at the Park Avenue Armory: There was no performance here, but the interactive installation provided a sensual playground that made it easy to watch people of all ages take in the sights, sounds, smells (1650 pounds of spices were used), and textures of Neto’s massive creation.
ad hoc Ballet’s HER at the Joyce Soho: Deborah Lohse’s work explored female intimacy, aggression, and desire, and the two main women beautifully captured the complexities of their conflicting characters. Their cruelty and vulnerability felt honest and powerful in the Joyce Soho’s intimate space.
Cedar Lake dancers at the Chelsea Art Museum, photo by Kokyat
Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet’s installation at the Chelsea Art Museum: Photographs, sculptures, and paintings by the fifty-six Iranian artists featured in “Iran Inside Out” set the tone for this compelling piece, which echoed the exhibit’s themes of war, sexuality, politics, and the quest for freedom of expression.
The Dia: Beacon: I didn’t see a performance when I visited the museum in October (although there have been many performances there in the past, including a series by Cunningham), but I still highly recommend a trip to the Dia. Richard Serra’s earthy sculptures are extraordinary.
Richard Serra’s Torqued Ellipse II, photo by Evan Namerow
Dance for the Climate
December 21, 2009
In spite of the disappointing outcome at the climate talks in Copenhagen, the below video is inspiring. Over 10,000 people gathered on a beach in Belgium this past August to literally create movement in support of an international climate change agreement. Visit Dance for the Climate to learn more.
Bodies Converse in The Good Dance
December 18, 2009
Dancers in "The Good Dance - dakar/brooklyn", photo by Antoine Tempé
The Torah, the Bible, and the Koran are Good Books in the West. But since earth-based, African traditions turn to the body as a moral and spiritual guide, choreographer Reggie Wilson wonders if there can be a Good Dance. Dancers from his Fist & Heel Performance Group and Andréya Ouamba’s Senegal-based Compagnie 1er Temps use their bodies to try and write one. The Good Dance – dakar/brooklyn, which opened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Wednesday evening, is a cross-cultural exploration of the choreographers’ relationship to one another, their distinct backgrounds (Wilson grew up in Milwaukee after his family migrated from the Mississippi Delta, while Ouamba is Congolese), the rich histories and cultures of the Mississippi Delta and the Congo River, and the use of the body as a moral compass instead of text. Literal and more subtle expressions of these themes combine to create a work that is vivid and strong, yet still evolving and uncertain of its journey.
Moving through a sea of plastic bottles partly filled with water – symbolizing a natural resource trapped within a manufactured vessel and disconnected from its roots – the eight dancers blended Wilson’s structural style with Ouamba’s improvisational approach to convey rhythms that range from a propulsive, driving energy to a sleepier, meditative stretch. Musical choices including Aretha Franklin, Robert Belfour, and Franco & Le Tpok Jazz enhanced the ebb and flow of the piece’s pace. Whether performing in solos, duets, or as an ensemble, the dancers erupted with fluid, sensual movement that attempted to push beyond the boundaries of the water bottles. Sometimes they threw their bodies into a pile and successfully pushed the bottles into a corner, while in other instances, they laid still amidst the sparkling mess, or watched from the sidelines as others navigated these uncertain waters. Literal interpretations and metaphors abound.
The gorgeous lighting design by Jonathan Belcher and Carrie Wood shifted between shadows and yellow or red light, creating a sense of time passing, or migration to a new place. Indeed, the dancers brought the audience along on their journey, but it isn’t over. These bodies are still writing. It seems that Wilson and Ouamba’s exploration of their backgrounds, the Mississippi and the Congo, and the body is ongoing, and perhaps The Good Dance evolves as well. Like any good book, you can return to a good dance, find something new and marvelous, and see where it takes you.
The Good Dance – dakar/brooklyn will be performed again tonight and Saturday at 7:30 PM at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
For the Love of Feet
December 15, 2009
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about feet. A few weeks ago I officially started training for the NYC Half Marathon, and whether I’m pounding the pavement, warming up, or stretching, I am continually grateful for my feet’s ability to meet the demands of my training schedule. The only other time when I think about my feet this obsessively is in a dance class, regardless of the footwear or genre. Running and dancing might seem entirely different, but the training has been more similar than I had anticipated. I’m learning about which parts of the foot strike the floor, the tilt in my body depending on the terrain, breathing techniques, and how my arm swings determine what my legs are doing. Shifting from dancing to running – and trading point shoes for sneakers – has made me aware not only of the distinct technique and rigors that athletes of every type endure, but also of the body’s versatility, and especially the adaptability of the feet.
Much to my delight, Alastair Macaulay has been thinking about feet, too. He recently wrote about the beauty of feet and the importance of footwork in dance. He even singled out certain dancers and choreographers who have excelled at highlighting footwork. I was particularly interested in his thoughts on performing artists who incorporate natural footwork – walking, running, skipping, and hopping – into their movement. There is little choreography in running and not nearly as much variety in the foot’s movement as there is in dance, but I definitely enjoy the rhythmic qualities of running (and the cathartic high I get from both running and dancing). The strike of my feet on the pavement combined with the pace of my breathing creates a soundtrack that changes throughout the course of my run, reminding me of the rhythmic qualities of dancing – either to music or to an internal rhythm. So, after years of dancing, it turns out that running doesn’t feel so foreign to my body. The technique and training are different from what I experience in dance, but it’s still the same feet. Whether I’m dancing or running, I’ll keep in mind what Isadora Duncan said: “I believe in the religion of the beauty of the human foot.”
