Zoe Scofield Wins Princess Grace Award
August 17, 2011
Zoe Scofield, photo by Juniper Shuey
I was very pleased to learn that Seattle-based choreographer Zoe Scofield is a 2011 recipient of the Princess Grace Award in choreography. Scofield, along with her husband, visual artist Juniper Shuey, truly impressed me in 2009 with their haunting evening-length work the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t at Dance Theater Workshop. She also made an impact when I saw excerpts of her work at the 2010 American Realness festival. Needless to say, the Princess Grace Award is incredibly well deserved, and I’m eager to see Scofield’s newest work, A Crack in Everthing, at New York Live Arts in spring 2012. Read the full press release about the Princess Grace Award recipients here. Below is an excerpt from my review of the devil you know, which you can read in its entirety here.
the devil you know is simultaneously refined and raging, guided not by a narrative, but rather by an accumulation of emotions. Hidden beneath the wildly explosive movement and ghostly stares is a vulnerability that runs its course throughout this stunning piece.
…The satisfying rawness of the devil you know is not only apparent in the movement, but also in the embodied emotions emanating from the dancers’ cells. Scofield, in particular, is possessed by a force that overwhelms her soul, causing her to wildly convulse and gasp without warning. Yet, she succeeds at breaking down the theater’s fourth wall by sucking the audience into her emotional state with the subtlest of glances.
This week, Dance Theater Workshop, FuturePerfect, and PS 122 present And All the Question Marks Started to Sing, the newest work from the Norwegian art collective Verdensteatret.
For nearly 25 years, Verdensteatret has created original works at the intersection of theater, visual art, music, and sound art. Though they are often considered theater, Verdensteatret’s creations have been featured in as many biennales as black boxes. For their newest piece, And All the Question Marks Started to Sing, the company has created – and performs live – a rich landscape of kinetic and electromechanical objects, or what the company calls “animation-machines,” where images, sculptures, sound, and video are integrated to form deeply poetic compositions. Verdensteatret riffs on the animation filmmakers the Quay Brothers and Ladislav Starevich, the automata and mechanical toys of the 19th century, modern kinetic and conceptual sculpture, and early electronic music (1920 – 1960), among other influences, to create their own unique hybrid of performance, installation, animation, and concert.
Performances will take place at Dance Theater Workshop, West 19th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues, February 24th through 26th at 7:30 PM, and on Sunday, February 27th at 5 PM. There will also be a Coffee and Conversation pre-show talk with Vallejo Gantner on the 24th at 6:30 PM, a Post-Show Talk with Vallejo Gantner and Wayne Ashley on the 25th, and a free wine reception following every performance. Tickets are $20, or $15 for students and seniors, and are available online.
Gallim Dance in rehearsal, photo by Christopher Duggan
This week, Dance Theater Workshop presents Gallim Dance and Sidra Bell Dance New York in an evening of debuts and world premieres. Described as “a most original artist” by Deborah Jowitt in The Village Voice, Gallim’s Artistic Director Andrea Miller brings her new work, For Glenn Gould, to the stage. For Glenn Gould is inspired by the two radically contrasting recordings that Glenn Gould made of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. The 1964 version has a virtuosic quality, full of embellishments, while the 1981 recording is more introspective and edited, devoid of poetic interpretation, and feels as though Bach himself is absent. Drawing on the distinctions between the two recordings, Miller’s newest work is a portrait of an artist in transition, of what occurred between the two recordings, and an exploration of the creative process. Read The Jewish Week’s profile of Miller and her new work. And check out photographer Christopher Duggan’s post on his time in the studio with Gallim.
Sidra Bell Dance New York, led by choreographer Sidra Bell, presents POOL, a surrealist and futuristic work inspired by the recollection of a near drowning. POOL examines memory, dreams, and illusions as well as the line between order and disorder. The work features an eclectic and evocative music score and a cast of six dancers. Pamela Diamond of the Orange County Register wrote, “Every movement was impelled from an inner strength, as starkly beautiful and compelling as a prayer.”
Sidra Bell's "POOL", photo by Jubal Battisti
Performances will take place at Dance Theater Workshop, January 18th through 22nd at 7:30 PM. There will be a Pre-Show Talk on January 18th (Tuesday) at 6:30 PM, a Post-Show Talk on January 21st (Friday) with Dance Magazine’s Editor in Chief Wendy Perron, and a free wine reception following every performance.
Fee-free tickets are $20 and are available online, over the phone at 212.924.0077, and in person at the box office. DTW Members, Students, and Seniors are eligible for $15 tickets. Dance Theater Workshop is located at 219 West 19th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.
2010 in Dance: A Look Back
December 25, 2010
Faye Driscoll's "There is so much mad in me", photo by Yi-Chun Wu
We’re days away from the end of 2010, so like in past years on this blog, I’m sharing what struck me as most memorable and impressive throughout the year. Both new and old works performed in a variety of venues and settings made the list. I hope that the older works mentioned here continue to make an impact and that the newer ones withstand the test of time.
I was blown away by Faye Driscoll’s There is so much mad in me at Dance Theater Workshop last April, and which I ended up revisiting this past September. The cast opened themselves up emotionally and physically to showcase extreme states of consciousness in a seamless series of vignettes.
Last February, Trisha Brown Dance Company performed at one of my favorite museums, the Dia: Beacon. It was a fitting setting for Brown’s spiraling, sprawling works, in which her dancers tested the limits of gravity and used the museum as their playground.
George Balanchine's "Serenade", photo by Paul Kolnik
A New York City Ballet spring performance of George Balanchine’s Serenade, featuring Jenifer Ringer, Teresa Reichlen, and Sara Mearns, gave me chills. Unforgettable.
At Dancespace Project, Kyle Abraham’s company performed The Radio Show. The work explored communication and the role of radio during difficult times, while also featuring Abraham’s lush movement style.
Pina Bausch's "Vollmond", photo by Laurent Philippe
A little over one year after Pina Bausch’s death, her company Tanztheater Wuppertal returned to BAM to perform Vollmond (Full Moon). The tons of water used for the performance stayed on stage, but even the audience felt drenched in shifting emotions, and often tears of mourning.
LEVYdance showed an interactive, thought-provoking work at Joyce SoHo called Everyone Intimate Alone Visibly. It was my introduction to the choreographer Benjamin Levy, and I look forward to seeing more from him.
Benjamin Levy and Aline Wachsmuth in "Everyone Intimate Alone Visibly", photo by Andrea Basile
In France, Paris Opera Ballet performed a new version of Jiri Kylian’s Kaguyahime. Original lighting, sets, choreography, and wonderful percussion music brought this ancient story to life.
I jumped at the chance to see Mikhail Baryshnikov perform at Baryshnikov Arts Center last May. His poise and presence were mesmerizing.
Mikhail Baryshnikov in Benjamin Millepied's "Years Later", photo by Andrea Mohin
There is so much mad at DTW
September 6, 2010
Faye Driscoll’s There is so much mad in me, photo by Yi-Chun Wu
From September 22nd through 25th, Dance Theater Workshop will present a return engagement of Faye Driscoll’s There is so much mad in me, which premiered this past spring to a sold out house. You do not want to miss your chance to see this mind-blowing work! An examination of shifting states of consciousness as choreography, There is so much mad in me asks how we feel and connect in this time of over stimulation and look at me distraction. Investigating ritual from torture to religious rapture, There is so much mad in me lives within the similarities between polar extremes.
If you’re eager to read more, below is an excerpt from my full review of There is so much mad in me’s premiere last spring. Otherwise, save the reviews for later and get yourself a ticket before the shows sell out!
…Whether they were entangled on the floor, climbing a wall, charging through the aisles, or pouring out one emotion after another, the cast showed full, fearless commitment to this emotionally and physically challenging piece. In fact, the dancers were so effective that their experiences were equally challenging for the audience. Lindsay Clark’s confusion about which man to trust was the audience’s confusion, and Jacob Slominski’s terrorizing rage pulsed through every person in the theater. At the same time, There is so much mad in me allows – even encourages – the audience to be voyeuristic. We witness and experience more emotions and socio-cultural issues than anyone can handle in a week, let alone a 75-minute performance, and yet media bombards us with this stuff on an ongoing basis. How much information is too much? Where do we draw the line between voyeurism and compassion?
