Davis Freeman’s Too shy to stare
January 10, 2012
Megan Harrold and Matthew Morris in "Too shy to stare", photo by Ryan Jensen
No need to check personal baggage at the door. Davis Freeman’s Too shy to stare, performed at the Old School as part of Performance Space 122’s COIL Festival, is all about the viewer. Nine other audience members and I took turns entering seven rooms and witnessing private performances. In each one, a photograph of the viewer was plastered to the performer’s face, forcing you to stare at yourself and encounter whatever it was that the dancers were doing. Themes of loneliness, vulnerability, desire, and aging were evident throughout this eerily voyeuristic experience. Some made me laugh, others made me sad, and one made me shiver. Staring at yourself for two hours forces you to contemplate your own personal journey, and different shades of the same person.
My experience started several weeks ago when I visited PS122 to have my photograph taken for the performance. One photo required a neutral face with eyes open, and the other with eyes closed. At the Old School, the “home base” of Too shy to stare was a small, dimly lit space with tables, wine, and popcorn. Seven curtained rooms were situated off of two long hallways. Entry into each of the rooms was a two-step process: a red light meant that you could pass a card through the curtain to an invisible hand; a green light allowed you to enter and sit in a comfortable armchair for the performance.
The first room that I entered featured a man (Edward RosenBerg III) playing the clarinet and operating a soundboard. A framed photo of me (eyes closed) was placed on a candlelit table. It was soothing but funereal, and I wondered whether the rest of the performance would unfold as my life in reverse chronological order.
Laura Hicks in Davis Freeman's "Too shy to stare", photo by Ryan Jensen
The other rooms included solos, a duet, and a trio. A woman – with my face – slowly re-ordered several photographs on a magnetic wall to make a circle. One showed an old woman, another showed a young couple. Another room featured three dancers in nude undergarments moving like apes and occasionally groping themselves. And in another, a man and woman – again, both with my face – sat on a long sofa, shifting between formal manners and primal urges.
It was all too easy to get lost in the performative qualities of the experience. Rather than seeing myself – that is, my own full being in charge of my actions – I often saw the performers as just that: performers who were wearing my photo as a mask. Looking beyond this was challenging, but the waiting period between each room (there were seven rooms for ten people, so at least three were always waiting) allowed for some much-needed reflection and whispering with others to find out which rooms they had already visited.
The most evocative experience occurred with a heavily tattooed man (Matthew Morris), who stood at one end of a long, narrow room, mirroring my movements. When he placed my hand on his chest, with his face – or rather, my face – just inches from mine, it was unsettling and surreal. The pairing of an unrecognizable body with a very recognizable face forced me to question who I was staring at, and who was staring back at me. He mirrored my movements, but the person staring at me was a stranger.
At the heart of Too shy to stare is a question: how well do we know ourselves? And how well are we willing to better understand ourselves? The performers know what we look like, but it’s up to the audience members to stare back at them – at ourselves – and find meaning. It can be terrifying, funny, strange, and eye opening.
Laura Peterson’s “Wooden” at HERE
November 8, 2011
Edward Rice, Laura Peterson, and Janna Diamond in "Wooden", photo by Steven Schreiber
There is something irresistibly appealing about the idea of dancing out of doors. For a dancer, sinking your feet into moist soil or feeling sand between your toes is a refreshing change from the smooth surface of a dance studio’s flooring. So with eagerness I headed to HERE last Friday to see Laura Peterson’s Wooden, a dance installation that cycles through three environments inspired by natural architecture. The visually stunning set, which included a bed of growing grass, elegant pieces of driftwood suspended from the low ceiling, and wooden benches that served as seating, transformed HERE into a verdant space. It was an environment deserving of daring movement that would respond and react to its surroundings.
Sadly, what filled the space wasn’t nearly as inspiring as the space itself. In Part 1: Ground, three women and one man in simple blue and gray costumes (by Candice Thompson) created circular patterns as they dashed back and forth across the grass. Set to Soichiro Migita’s score, which sounded like a mixture of wind and sand, the dancers’ movement across the grass went on for what felt like an eternity. With no real precision or focal point, it was exhausting to watch, and perhaps even more exhausting to perform: their bodies were covered in sweat and blades of grass.
Kate Martel, Janna Diamond, Laura Peterson in "Wooden", photo by Steven Schreiber
After the space was reconfigured during intermission, the audience sat on benches placed over the grass while the dancers performed on solid ground in Part 2: Trees. Prickly, sharp twitches of the body and static noise replaced the lushness of Ground, and evoked a dry, desert atmosphere. Yet edgy movement isn’t so believable when the dancers don’t throw themselves into it with full force. The section was frustratingly light – not nearly as powerful as it could be, even with driftwood dangerously rotating inches from the dancers as they hovered beneath it on the ground.
While the program notes indicated that Part 3: Corridor was a return to the first environment, it felt like an extension of the second section. Hazy and unfocused, it again left me itching for something stronger, something more immersive. That never happened, but if you have to be stuck indoors, at least real grass and trees can make it feel like you’re miles away.
Wooden continues through November 12th at HERE: 145 Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. Tickets are $20.
Good Advice from Ira Glass
August 30, 2011
I came across the above video of This American Life‘s Ira Glass talking about what makes a good story. As I listened to him explain the common scenario where a budding report has “killer taste” but might be making work that is “kind of crappy”, it became clear that his advice to continue making a lot of work applies to all creative individuals. The fall dance season is approaching, and with that comes an incredible amount of programming that features both emerging and established choreographers and dancers. As I read press releases with artists’ bios and the descriptions of their work, it’s refreshing to take a step back and consider the years and endless amounts of time that they devote to their craft. Even the ones who we – the public and the press – consider to have “made it” and be at the top of their game are still creating work to find “that special thing” (Ira’s words) that they want it to have. Hopefully they can look back at their old work and laugh at themselves the way Ira does at the end of this video.
The View from a Volcano
June 23, 2011
Beginning next week, The Kitchen presents The View from a Volcano: The Kitchen’s Soho Years, 1971-85, an exhibition featuring single-channel videos and other artworks presented alongside video, audio, and print documentation related to the institution’s programming during its first fifteen years, which were spent in Soho.
There will be an opening reception for The View from a Volcano at The Kitchen (512 West 19th Street) on Wednesday, June 29, 6 to 8 PM. The exhibition will be on view Thursday, June 30 through Saturday, August 27. The Kitchen’s gallery hours are Tuesday—Friday, 12 to 6 PM and Saturday, 11 to 6 PM.
Admission is free.
Curated by Debra Singer, Matthew Lyons, and Lumi Tan as part of The Kitchen’s 40th anniversary season, The View from a Volcano reveals the depth of the organization’s early history as a home for both experimental performance-based work and new developments in the visual arts, offering a unique perspective on the vibrant, interconnected downtown New York arts scene of the 1970s and early 1980s.
The exhibition will include work, and/or documentation of work, by ground-breaking artists who were redefining what art, music, dance, and performance could be. Those artists include Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, Karole Armitage, Robert Ashley, Charles Atlas, Beastie Boys, Dara Birnbaum, Eric Bogosian, Trisha Brown, Rhys Chatham, Lucinda Childs, Tony Conrad, Simone Forti, Philip Glass, Gary Hill, Joan Jonas, Bill T. Jones, Mike Kelley, George Lewis, Arto Lindsay, Robert Longo, Christian Marclay, John Miller, Meredith Monk, Matt Mullican, Tony Oursler, Charlemagne Palestine, Arthur Russell, Carolee Schneeman, Cindy Sherman, Stuart Sherman, Sonic Youth, Elizabeth Streb, Talking Heads, Woody and Steina Vasulka, Lawrence Weiner and many more.
MADE HERE to Air on NYC Life
May 15, 2011
Beginning May 23, 2011, NYC life (channel 25), the flagship station of the official network of the City of New York, will air MADE HERE, the documentary series devoted to examining the lives of performing artists in NYC and timely issues that affect them. The filmmakers involved are excited to expand the visibility of the project through the NYC life audience. Airing at 10:30 PM on Mondays on NYC life, episodes will cover a range of topics, including Artistic Homes, Day/Night Jobs, Artist as Activist, Technology, Inspiration, and Process.
Now in its second season, MADE HERE’s short-form videos have featured myriad artists, including Reggie Watts, Charlie Todd (Improv Everywhere), Joan Jonas, Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, Elizabeth LeCompte and Kate Valk (The Wooster Group), Oskar Eustis (The Public Theater), Thomas Bradshaw, Young Jean Lee, Basil Twist, Elizabeth Streb, James Tigger! Ferguson, Taylor Mac, and Julie Atlas Muz.
Watch the trailer from season 1, and tune into NYC life on May 23rd to see episodes of MADE HERE.
