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.
Cedar Lake Brings “Orbo Novo” to the Joyce
October 27, 2009
Cedar Lake dancers in Orbo Novo, photo by Julieta Cervantes
Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Orbo Novo (New World), created for Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, made its New York City premiere last week at the Joyce Theater. The piece was inspired by “My Stroke of Insight”, a memoir by the neuro-anatomist Jill Bolte Taylor, who suffered a stroke at the age of thirty-seven. Weaving together flowing movement and text that is both humorous and analytical, Cherkaoui attempted to illustrate distinctions between the past and the future, the left and right brain hemispheres, the old and new. In spite of seamless dancing, the result lacked texture and variety, never revealing a world more intriguing or complex than our own.
The stage created boundaries and constraints for the dancers with a set design of four red, metal grids on wheels, created by Alexander Dodge. When Acacia Schachte climbed the lattice structure, hung gracefully at the top, and then slithered to the floor – where she excelled at Cherkaoui’s undulating movement before collapsing – the audience saw the first of many literal portrayals of Taylor’s memoir. This clear illustration of a stroke was followed by spoken text – accompanied by slow walking and myriad arm gestures – that elaborated on Taylor’s thought process as the stroke occurred. Speaking matter-of-factly and at times humorously, the dancers conveyed the experience of mentally persevering while physically struggling to go through the motions.
Cedar Lake in Orbo Novo, photo by Julieta Cervantes
More compelling was the series of solos, trios, and ensemble dancing – filled with moments of calm stung by aggressive, tumbling spurts of adrenaline – that set the dancers into eternally-moving journeys that only came to an end because of confinement within the metal structure’s walls. When the dancers were trapped, their limbs dangled lifelessly through the grid, and suddenly they would glide through and come to life. Freed or contaminated, however, there was little variety in Cherkaoui’s choreography. It was just one undulating movement after another. And although watching their supple bodies ripple and curl was mesmerizing at times, the eyes tended to glaze over because of so little change in movement quality throughout the eighty-minute work. Szymon Brzóska’s meditative score, played by the Mosaic String Quartet and pianist Aaron Wunsch, was similarly unvarying with the exception of a few vibrant, fast-paced sections that infused the piece with energy.
Cedar Lake’s dancers are undoubtedly a talented, disciplined group, but in Orbo Novo they appeared unmoved by the content of the work, and sections of their speaking were forced and insincere. While they beautifully achieved the illusion that their physical beings were pushed and pulled by external forces, their performances lacked the emotional and psychological depth that the piece required. Perhaps this has more to do with Cherkaoui, who never shared his own voice in the piece, instead relying solely on Taylor’s memoir for direction and interpretation. The result was a one-dimensional, unchanging world that was more bland than peaceful.
Past Meets Present in Lucinda Childs’ “Dance”
October 12, 2009
Dancers in Lucinda Childs’ Dance, photo by Sally Cohn
Last Tuesday evening, Lucinda Childs Dance returned to The Joyce Theater for a rare performance of Dance, a signature 1979 work that includes a score by Philip Glass and a filmed version of the piece by Sol LeWitt. It was the main attraction on the program, and the sweeping performance proved why. Two other more recent works were also performed – the 1993 ensemble work Concerto and the 2001 solo Largo, danced by Childs (who is 69) – but neither made a particularly lasting impact. With the focus on the hour-long Dance, the performance was a beautiful, flowing, and haunting dialogue between past and present.
Two at a time, the dancers, all in white slacks and leotards, skimmed horizontally across the stage in a series of skips, turns, and low jumps. The movement itself, which remained on one level throughout the work, was not nearly as striking as the dancers’ rhythmic quality and the driving force of Glass’s score that propelled them forward. Layered on top of the dancers was LeWitt’s black and white film, making the work feel three-dimensional and historically richer. The ghostly figures were projected onto the scrim at various sizes, so that in one moment they seemed to be dancing alongside the live dancers, and in another they loomed large over the entire stage, stretching from the floor to the ceiling. They also framed the space in several ways: at one point the film was projected above the dancers, allowing the audience to simultaneously watch both live and filmed dancers.
The blending of archival footage with live dance brought up questions about authenticity. For the audience, were the “originals” – the filmed dancers – more real than the live performers? Or did the audience more closely relate to the live dancers because they were there, in the present, performing something more tangibly felt than the filmed footage? Depending on how the performance was viewed, one was echoing the other and comparisons between the two were inevitable. The live dancers were more technically trained, showing more stretch in their limbs, while the filmed dancers seemed to have a better understanding of the music’s propulsive energy.
The filmed image of Childs, and Caitlin Scranton on stage, photo by Sally Cohn
A giant-sized image of Childs appeared in the work’s second section, showing her severe beauty and ethereal movement quality as she danced on a grid while Caitlin Scranton performed on the Joyce’s stage. In her performance of Largo, Childs showed the same poise and presence that she had thirty years ago, but she looked sadly brittle and stiff.
The third part of Dance was similar to the first, but it included more complex interactions between the live and filmed dancers that accumulated as the section progressed. In the midst of the joyous, sweeping movement, one of the live dancers gazed upward at the filmed dancers performing overhead. Perhaps she was acknowledging her predecessors, offering her performance to them as much as she was offering it to the audience. Or maybe it was just coincidental that the filmed footage was hovering above her when she lifted her eyes. In spite of the archival component of the piece, preserved and here to stay, performances of Dance will always be ephemeral. The filmed dancers will remain ghosts, but as the cast of live dancers changes, so too with the live and filmed dancers’ interactions. The documented past will continue to encounter an evolving present.
The Fall Performance A-List
September 22, 2009
The New York Times dance critic and WNYC Performance Club founder Claudia La Rocco recently invited me and several other performers, critics, and arts enthusiasts to write about what we’re looking forward to seeing this fall in New York City. Check out the post to see what made the list. Then add as many as possible to your ever-growing list of shows to see this season. The fall offerings are diverse, and I was honored to share some thoughts along with several wonderful individuals involved in performance, including Wendy Whelan, Ada Calhoun, Damian Woetzel, and Ishmael Houston-Jones. But there are still plenty of other exciting shows to see this season. Stay tuned to Dancing Perfectly Free for many more previews and reviews in the coming weeks.
Lucinda Childs’ DANCE (1979), coming to The Joyce Theater in October, photo by Nathaniel Tileston
Merce Cunningham (1919 – 2009)
July 28, 2009
Merce Cunningham in 1973, photo by Steven Mark Needham
The revolutionary choreographer Merce Cunningham died on Sunday night, July 26, at the age of ninety. He performed with his company until he was seventy, and continued choreographing until three months ago, when the company performed Nearly Ninety at Brooklyn Academy of Music in honor of Merce’s ninetieth birthday. He was truly a pioneer and endless experimenter, revolutionizing how dance is created and how we view it while broadening possibilities for other artists.
There has been an outpouring of tributes and memories from fans, collaborators, and the dance community, and they will certainly continue over the next few weeks, months, and years (WNYC has posted some rare video footage of Merce throughout his career). The Cunningham Dance Foundation asks that, in lieu of flowers, contributions be made to The Legacy Plan to preserve Merce’s work.
This weekend, Merce Cunningham Dance Company will perform the site-specific piece Event at Rockefeller Park in Lower Manhattan, featuring a unique combination of new material and movement from past and current repertory. The 60-minute performances will feature live music performed by Stephan Moore and David Behrman, members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company Music Committee, and costumes created by wardrobe supervisor Anna Finke. This free event is co-produced by the River to River Festival’s Evening Stars series and The Joyce Theater, with performances on Saturday, August 1st at 6 PM and Sunday, August 2nd at 2 PM and 6 PM.
Merce Cunningham’s innovative spirit and choreographic ingenuity will be missed.
