There is so much mad in me
April 3, 2010
Dancers in Faye Driscoll’s There is so much mad in me, photo by Yi-Chun Wu
Choreographer Faye Driscoll pushes the physical, emotional, and psychological limits of the nine courageous dancers in There is so much mad in me, a riveting world premiere that opened on Wednesday evening at Dance Theater Workshop. The work explores extreme states of consciousness – everything from religious ecstasy to sex to torture – and through seamless, often unnoticeable transitions reveals the similarities of polar extremes. Driscoll’s program notes explained, “Torture looks like spiritual ritual, spiritual ritual looks like birth, birth sounds like sex, sex looks like wrestling, wrestling looks like rapture, rapture looks like dancing, and dancing looks like everything.” There is so much mad in me was a fast-paced rollercoaster of a show, but with demanding choreography and a string of highly effective scenarios, it remained well-structured and focused.
In an opening duet, Nikki Zialcita shimmied forward as Michael Helland restrained her, but she seemed to grow more playful as he increasingly held her back. Several trios and duets revealed shifting dynamics in relationships and how suddenly torture can look like sex – and vice versa. Elsewhere, the dancers shifted from a rapturous prayer vigil to a raging party, from a gang fight to an orgy. Adaku Utah portrayed a convincing Tyra Banks as the piece mocked the insane level of drama and humiliation in reality television, and later, Jennie MaryTai Liu played a talk-show host who revealed far too much information about her guests. Sadly, the more she exposed the more animated and information-hungry the viewers became. The messages served up in these situations, which seemed rather dark underneath their humorous surface, were balanced with subtler, more poignant portrayals of group pressure, fear, trust issues, and loneliness.
Tony Orrico, Jesse Zaritt, and Lindsay Clark in There is so much mad in me, photo by Yi-Chun Wu
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?
It’s rare and refreshing to experience a work that forces its cast and audience to be so emotionally and psychologically vulnerable. That’s exactly what Driscoll demands in There is so much mad in me. The result is thrilling, agonizing, mind-blowing, and revealing.
There is so much mad in me continues tonight at Dance Theater Workshop. The entire exceptional cast is Lindsay Clark, Lily Gold, Michael Helland, Jennie MaryTai Liu, Tony Orrico, Jacob Slominski, Adaku Utah, Jesse Zaritt, and Nikki Zialcita.
Dancers in There is so much mad in me, photo by Yi-Chun Wu
koosil-ja’s Body, Image, and Algorithm
March 8, 2010
Ava Heller, Elise Knudson, and Melissa Guerrero in koosil-ja’s Blocks of Continuality/Body, Image, and Algorithm, photo by Yi-Chun Wu
Dance Theater Workshop was transformed into a laboratory last Thursday evening for koosil-ja/danceKUMIKO’s Blocks of Continuality/Body, Image, and Algorithm. Multiple flat screens hung from the ceiling, a musician sat upstage, a weird-looking contraption with tubes was placed in the downstage right corner, and a line of computer programmers worked on laptops along the front of the stage. These were some of the necessary components for koosil-ja’s exploration of movement, digital media, and visible and invisible aspects of the body. Based on her study of Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy, koosil-ja utilized interactive computer programming and Live Processing – a technique for generating movement in real time – in this complicated, frustratingly incoherent experiment.
The detailed program notes explained that the work was split into three parts. First, Melissa Guerrero, Ava Heller, and Elise Knudson explored the Live Processing technique. They mimicked and combined movements from multiple video sources that could be seen on the suspended screens. Although the sources included photos of paintings from Louvre collections, traditional dances from Africa, Tibet, and India, and fashion advertisements, the program noted that koosil-ja eliminates narrative and politics. Rather, her focus is on depicting movement as “pure data”. The result showed three stoic dancers that seemed dehumanized, removed from their bodies in order to become the “pure data” that koosil-ja investigates.
Sitting at table: Robert Ramirez, koosil-ja, and Madeline Best. Standing behind table: Melissa Guerrero, Ava Heller, and Elise Knudson. Photo by Yi-Chun Wu
The second section exposed the technology behind the third part, in which the dancers wore sensors that integrated their movements from part one with 3D avatars in a virtual environment called Slum. Additionally, Geoff Gersh’s brain waves were processed by a computer that triggered a sound installation (this so-called meditation was merely a repetitive tapping on the wall from the contraption mentioned earlier). Layering a virtual world on top of a live one seemed problematic. If koosil-ja is solely interested in pure data and the dancers’ pure potential to create new movement, then why bother providing virtual characters and environments? The Live Processing movement was unrelated to the themes and concepts in the video sources, yet the avatars were in specific environments. “Desire” was a dancer who never leaves her room; “Hack” was an orphan thief who lives in the basement of the slum; and “Strata” is a man who lives in the streets of the slum. Although the dancers were robotic during Live Processing, the avatars looked even more so as they were controlled by the dancers’ movements. What is the purpose of Live Processing – and live performance – if the result in part three consisted of virtual actions from what looked like a lame video game?
The concept for Blocks was ambitious, but the layout of the piece and the program notes were overwhelming, and the process that was shared with the audience was incoherent. koosil-ja’s fascination with integrating media and movement is admirable, but the result was not reflective of technology’s intricacies and advances. Furthermore, stripping content of its narrative and context ignores that which makes it human, real, and intriguing.
Urban Bush Women, Uncensored
January 26, 2010
Samantha Spies, Bennalldra Williams, and Keisha Turner in Zollar: Uncensored, photo by Yi-Chun Wu
Bold, erotic, empowering, and fierce – these are a few of the words that defined Urban Bush Women’s performance on Saturday night at Dance Theater Workshop. The company, led by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, kicked off their 25th anniversary season with Zollar: Uncensored, an evening-length piece that featured shorter works spanning from 1985 to 2004. The performance centered on erotic integrity, a theme that was considered too controversial by many arts presenters back in the 1980s, and was thus abandoned by Zollar. For the first time since then, Zollar’s company presented a seamless collage of uncensored work that left the audience laughing, crying, howling, hooting, clapping, and shaking to the company’s sensual rhythms.
A spoken excerpt from Bones and Ash (1995) guided the performance – “We came here for the dreams, and in the dreams we find ourselves” – and self-awareness and knowing took on different forms throughout the evening. Three dancers stared at their reflections in a mirror as they erupted into laughter, while in another excerpt the dancers and vocalists – four women who wove in and out of the performance – moaned individually and then collectively, expressing pleasure from cupcakes. They also celebrated their bodies as they shook and shimmied to “Shake What Your Mama Gave Ya”.
Paloma McGregor, photo by Yi-Chun Wu
While Zollar: Uncensored illustrated pride and pleasure, it also conveyed pain and torment. A woman broke free from inner torture and hurt by shedding her clothes and stilettos and cracking an egg over her heaving body while ominously revealing a knife. She was then joined by a group of women who dressed and comforted her. In a powerful excerpt from River Woman, Zollar walked hunched over across the stage with Samantha Speis, nude, mimicking her movement. With a strained voice and extending arms, Zollar told the story of a rape and physical abuse while Speis appeared as a victim and a crushed spirit, removed from her own tortured body.
A sense of community and sisterhood pulsed throughout the piece. When one woman fell, the others were there to help her rise up. Strength came from unity, and this was enhanced by costume choices (the dancers were usually dressed in uniform iridescent fabrics) and the interwoven performances of the dancers, vocalists, and on-stage percussionist Beverly Botsford. To further build community, the dancers invited audience members onstage at the conclusion of the performance for an improvisational dance session. It’s hard to believe that Zollar’s work was considered controversial only twenty-five years ago. Her messages and portrayals of eroticism and sensuality are direct, but in 2010, it’s clear that Zollar’s work should be celebrated, and free of censorship.
APAP Attack
January 8, 2010
Yanira Castro’s Dark Horse/Black Forest, photo by Julieta Cervantes
The annual Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) conference has kicked off, and with that comes an abundance of dance performances around town. Here are some of the offerings:
Danspace Project presents danspace unplugged, a special showcase of emerging artists commissioned by Danspace Project and members of the Artists Advisory Board. Nine choreographers present short pieces or excerpts of evening-length works. The evenings will be low-tech presentations performed in the beautiful sanctuary of St. Mark’s Church. $10 tickets are available online.
COIL at PS122: Fourteen companies perform over twelve days at PS122 and other participating venues. Temporary Distortion’s Americana Kamikaze sounds particularly chilling and dark, while Morgan Thorson’s work is literally Heaven. $20 tickets are available online.
Morgan Thorson’s Heaven, photo by Justin Bernhaut
Gotham Arts Exchange, in association with the Jack H. Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at NYU presents Dance Gotham – thirty companies over three nights in works that range from post-modern athleticism to seasoned theatricality. Among the three site-specific works is Yanira Castro’s Dark Horse/Black Forest, which will be performed in the women’s bathroom at the Skirball Center (Mary of Dance Response included it in her “best of 2009” list). $10 tickets are available online.
Dance New Amsterdam has a different program each evening between tonight and Monday, with more than twenty-five companies showing their work. The schedule has all the details, and performances are free.
AMERICAN REALNESS at Abrons Arts Center presents eight contemporary choreographers and promises to be “loud, queer, disturbing, hilarious, critically engaged, beyond post-modern and undeniably present”.
Pam Tanowitz’s Be in the Gray with Me, photo by Yi-Chun Wu
Dance Theater Workshop will present Tere O’Connor Dance’s Wrought Iron Fog, Pam Tanowitz’s Be in the Gray with Me (a nuanced, elegant work that premiered at DTW last June), and Faye Driscoll’s There is so much mad in me.
Performa 09: Creative Takeover
October 29, 2009
"Parades and Changes, replays", photo by Jérôme Delatour
This Friday marks the beginning of Performa 09, the third biennial of a city-wide, three-week festival of performance art. Unlike the last two festivals, Performa 09 will attempt to break down the boundaries that exist between artistic mediums. In a recent post on WNYC, festival director RoseLee Goldberg said, “This year we’re doing dance, theater, film, fashion, food, architecture, graphic design, and poetry. The idea that we can talk about all media, all the time, that’s what takes this biennial to the next level.”
Performa 09 will present new work by more than 150 contemporary artists in collaboration with more than eighty of the city’s arts institutions. Check the full calendar of events for dates and ticket information (though many of the performances are FREE). Friday’s opening night benefit, which includes a food installation by Jennifer Rubell (and indoor apple picking), sounds like an exciting way to kick off the festival.
One of the highly anticipated dance offerings comes from Deborah Hay and Yvonne Rainer, two of the founding members of the Judson Dance Theater and both influential voices in post-modern dance. They’ll present new work and share the stage at Baryshnikov Arts Center from November 17 to 19. Another exciting dance event is Anne Collod’s restaging of Anna Halprin’s 1965 work, Parades and Changes, at Dance Theater Workshop from November 18 to 21.
