LEVYdance Returns to Joyce SoHo
January 22, 2012
In 2010, the San Francisco-based company LEVYdance brought its interactive installation Everyone Intimate Alone Visibly to Joyce SoHo, which proved to be a riveting experience. The company returns to Joyce SoHo next month for the New York premiere of ROMP, another interactive experience in which the audience and performers inhabit the stage together. The piece has already received positive reviews in San Francisco, and was named one of the “Top 10 Dance Moments of 2011” by the San Francisco Chronicle. For a glimpse of ROMP, watch the rehearsal footage above. Performances are February 17th through 19th at Joyce SoHo and tickets are now on sale.
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
LEVYdance National Vimeo Audition
June 17, 2010
LEVYdance made a striking impression when it presented Everyone Intimate Alone Visibly at Joyce SoHo this past winter. Now the company is looking for four dancers (male and female) to create and perform a new work, which will be presented in San Francisco at ODC Theater as part of its grand reopening during the last two weeks of October 2010. Auditions will take place virtually through Vimeo, where dancers can post a video on the LEVYdance group page. Visit LEVYdance’s audition form for more information. Audition videos must be posted by Monday, June 28th at midnight, Pacific Standard Time. The below video is a rehearsal of the piece that will premiere at ODC in October.
The first section of the rehearsal process begins in July 2010 and will happen virtually through choreographic and writing exercises posted to the LEVYdance Vimeo group. Dancers will record and upload their creative assignments to the group for discussion and expansion. The national cast will meet in San Francisco from September 2010 through October 2010 for final rehearsals and performances. Dancers will be compensated for rehearsals and performance. For more information and to submit your audition application, visit LEVYdance’s audition form and post your audition video on the LEVYdance Vimeo group page by Monday June 28th at midnight (PST).
LEVYdance: Everyone Intimate Alone Visibly
February 1, 2010
Benjamin Levy and Aline Wachsmuth in Everyone Intimate Alone Visibly, photo courtesy of LEVYdance
Technology has made constant communication possible, but how has it affected genuine human connections? Have status updates and profile information strengthened relationships or weakened them? The San Francisco-based company LEVYdance addressed these questions in artistic director Benjamin Levy’s Everyone Intimate Alone Visibly, an evening-length interactive installation presented over the weekend at Joyce SoHo. Using web cameras that captured movement in real time, sound, video projections, lighting, and audience participation, the richly textured piece shifted from group effort to solo act, intimacy to loneliness, private moment to an exposed one. Gripping performances by Levy and Aline Wachsmuth were accompanied by an audience that willingly engaged with them. Together, the dancers and audience created an environment pulsing with energy and emotional depth, and the superficiality that can interfere with it.
Before the piece began, the audience wandered hesitantly around the square space. Hanging from each of the four walls were screens that showed audience members’ shadows or projections of black and white static. Levy and Wachsmuth, dressed in neutral-colored street clothes, blended in with the audience when they first emerged from behind one of the screens. Bathed in squares of light or shadow and projections of ink spots, the dancers moved in a cause-and-effect manner: the slightest coiling of his wrist caused the undulation of her torso. Just as the audience became hyper-aware of their proximity to the dancers – eye contact, the sound of breathing, and the ability to witness their every move up-close was wonderfully possible – the wide-eyed dancers seemed to size up the strangers that had flooded the intimate space, which lent itself well to the piece’s immediacy. An icebreaker came in the form of a recorded voice that monotonously narrated factual information about the dancers – “Ben was born sometime between 1975 and 1985”, and “Aline has a lover, but it’s not Ben” – but the vague statements didn’t provide the level of detail that comes with an authentic connection to someone.
Benjamin Levy and Aline Wachsmuth, courtesy of LEVYdance
Another robotic voice provided instructions for the audience to assemble rows of chairs along the space’s perimeter. Once the audience satisfactorily completed the task and was instructed to sit down, a duet for Levy and Wachsmuth conveyed longing and intimacy. In a painfully sad section that left a lasting impression, Wachsmuth exited the stage, but a projection of her lying on the floor remained. Levy continued dancing with her projection, as if she were still fully present, suggesting a relationship rooted in false connection. Later, the audience witnessed his lonely, angst-filled solo in which his vigorous, flowing movement deftly echoed the multi-layered swooshing, whirring, and grinding electronics.
The community built from cooperatively assembling the chairs and sitting in a circle was abruptly reconfigured as the dancers lifted people out of their seats and moved the chairs so they faced one another. Soon after, they hastily stacked the chairs into several messy piles, leaving the audience on its feet and once again uncertain of its surroundings. This time, there was no guiding voice to provide comfort; just the audience and dancers, face to face in an unfamiliar space. The piece was near its conclusion, but how well did we truly know one another? Within a brief span of time, the dancers invited a group of strangers into their space, allowing them to witness and experience intimate moments along with group collaboration. Yet, as the dancers exited and the screens projected black and white static, loneliness replaced the intimacy and sense of community.
Many performance installations encourage audience participation but often end up with an awkward, not-so-interactive result in which the dancers and audience intentionally avoid one another. This was not the case with Everyone Intimate Alone Visibly. There was real, honest interaction among the dancers and audience in the form of eye contact, physical contact, and emotional contact. LEVYdance proved that an installation doesn’t require a massive space, a large ensemble, myriad costume changes, and special effects to be compelling. In fact, it was the intimacy of this work – combined with Levy and Wachsmuth’s fluid, rippling movement – that made it so powerful.
