Out of Site on Bowling Green

Accounting for Customs--a new site-specific ensemble work by choreographers Andréya Ouamba (a Congolese performer from Senegal) and Reggie Wilson (U.S.)--utilizes the main entrance steps of the former Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House at 1 Bowling Green at the tip of Broadway. Some months ago, during an interview for Dance Magazine, Wilson told me of his fascination with the history of this building, designed by Cass Gilbert, that now houses a federal bankruptcy court and the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. He spoke of the slave trade--foundation of the rapid economic development of colonial states--and of his eagerness to dig into the story of the Custom House's connection to slavery.

The collaboration, including several dancers from Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group as well as six guest dancers, is a project of Sitelines, curated and produced by Nolini Barretto and presented by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council as part of the annual River to River Festival.

Publicity for Accounting for Customs alluded to "questions of memory and loss and how people innovate within and against traditions...questions of preservation, continuity, memory and loss...stolen pasts and troubled and hopeful presents..." All of this led New York Times senior dance critic Alastair Macaulay to remark, "Such words...belong on grant applications."

Indeed, some dance publicity, rather than offering an accurate preview of what will be shown, seems tailored to appeal to funders' sensibilities. I suspect that Ouamba and Wilson have sincere, genuine objectives in mind. But the resulting 15-minute work led Macaulay to dwell on allusions to Florenz Ziegfeld and Busby Berkeley and to write, "It would be a pity to watch this work more for socio-historic meaning than for sheer sensuous pleasure." (To read Macaulay's review, click here.)

What's a pity is that the original vision quest has not produced a work that more forthrightly asks more of us than appreciation of its "sensuous pleasure" and its craft. Or perhaps the pity is when powerful critics are reluctant to look beyond the surface reticence of certain dances to their more eloquent sociopolitical undercurrents. Or perhaps the pity is about how much depth of investigation can you realistically accomplish in fifteen minutes, or outdoors, downtown, at lunchtime. Whatever the pity is, I hope that these choreographers will have an opportunity to revisit their original themes, perhaps when the apparent aesthetic distraction of 1 Bowling Green and its staircase is no longer a factor.

In the meantime, I believe I saw in Accounting for Customs some signs of love and community (dancers embracing), resistance (rolling up the steps against gravity), crowding in the slave ships (bodies piled up), slave auctions (extension and display of limbs), as well as timeless images of hard labor, abduction and independent will and action.

Remaining performances of Accounting for Customs are scheduled for today and tomorrow at 12:30pm and 1:30pm. For further information, click here.

Here's a 1994 video clip of In-between Baobabs by and featuring Andréya Ouamba and Esther Baker.

clipped from www.youtube.com