Hot Rumsey

by Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Since the combination of hot flashes and hot dance spaces don't work particularly well for me, I had planned to avoid St. Mark's as much as possible this summer. But, thanks to a great tip from fellow critic and blogger Apollinaire Scherr, I found myself sweating it out at a Danspace Project presentation last night where I fell in love with little virtue, a new piece by Glen Rumsey Dance Project. You have two more chances left to see what I mean--tonight and tomorrow--and the weather has cooled down a little bit anyway.

Bring a big fan--the folding kind. Danspace provides the bottled water. And you'll get to see a lush production that will haunt your dreams--gloriously magickal, whimsically gender-blending choreography performed by Rumsey (whose Cunningham pedigree shows in his divine, streamlined dynamics) and eight superb dancers with Carol Mullins's top-notch lighting and charming costumes by David Quinn. Rumsey and Todd Williams, costumed by Tara McManus, interpolate a wild duet from Rumsey's Exquisite Corpse (2006), managing to look hectic and decadently sexy while moving apart and together like wads of pink bubblegum chewed on either side of a huge, invisible jaw.

Glen Rumsey Dance Project is only a couple of years old but already it has a forthright, authoritive--if nutty--stamp. It's a big deal. I look forward to seeing it again. Hell, I would not have minded if last night's show had stretched on. Hot as it was, it was hot!

(c)2007 Eva Yaa Asantewaa

"Now I want to see 'Happy Feet'!"

"I don't want to live in a world without penguins!" (Happy Feet)

My reviews in Dance Magazine's July issue

The July Dance Magazine has a few of my reviews of shows from recent months:

[bjm_danse] -- April 17-22, Joyce Theater (print only)
(This is the company formerly known as Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal.)

DanceAfrica -- May 25-27, BAM Opera House (online only)

Doug Varone and Dancers -- May 16-19, BAM Harvey Theater (online only)

If the above links do not work directly, click here, then click on the Reviews tab, click on 2007 and click on July.

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

An Essential Lesson: The Legacy of Katherine Dunham

On Wednesday night, I attended The Legacy of Katherine Dunham, a panel discussion hosted by Judith Jamison at the 92nd Street Y, co-sponsored by the Y's Harkness Dance Center and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Journalist Gil Noble (WABC-TV's Like It Is) moderated panelists including dance critic Zita Allen, dancer-choreographer Ronnie Aul, and dancer-activist Julie Robinson Belafonte as well as E. Gaynell Sherrod (dancer, educator, researcher and choreographer) and Dr. Glory Van Scott (whose long, varied involvement in the arts could keep me here typing hyphens and commas all day).

The evening was a gathering of the faithful with many former Dunham dancers, students, colleagues and associates in attendance. Both panelists and audience members shared warm reminiscences of a wise, formidable genius whose influence reached beyond Afro-Caribbean dance and beyond dance itself. The program was intended to raise awareness that Dunham's soul-deep, powerful movement technique is an endangered treasure, taught by uncertified instructors who, some speakers charged, are watering it down.

Yesterday, the celebration continued with a master class in Dunham technique taught by the Ailey School's Joan Peters, one of only three people certified by the Dunham Institute. Neighborhood residents, workers and other folks just passing by the Ailey building on Ninth Avenue and West 55th Street got an eyeful, stopping in their tracks to gawk through the glass enclosure of the first-floor studio. More than sixty dancers worked through the challenging warm-up and barre and charged across the floor in vigorous repetitions of movements while the supremely calm, authoritative Peters beat out a flawless rhythm with a carved wooden walking stick. The terrific drummers made it hard for me--one of a handful of mere observers seated inside the studio--to keep still.

I glanced around and took in the diversity of races, ages, body types, degrees of flexibility and levels of skill. As the students followed Peters's directions, I saw some movements that I was quick to label incorrect. I also saw a lot of movements that were different and yet wonderfully correct. There are a lot of ways to be wrong about a thing, but there are also a lot of different ways to be right.

Some students clearly got the movements wrong, and I might have stopped to fuss over each of them, although Peters did not. But, in so many other cases, the variety of interpretations of a movement or phrase proved to be inspired. Each of these students put his or her own flavor into it. Sometimes that looked like the natural effect of a body dancing in its own way, putting its own spin on things, and not necessarily the student's conscious choice. It looked beautiful--whole, healthy and, I realized, both true to the African spirit and, more broadly, very human. I relished this diversity that is so often shed from contemporary dance companies and choreography in an effort to create a supposed coherence and consistent tone.

(c) 2007 Eva Yaa Asantewaa

New fall series for DTW's "Writing on Dance" course

Writing on Dance
with Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Tuesdays, 5:30pm - 7:30pm, September 4 – October 9
at Dance Theater Workshop

By application only
Fee: $110 Dance Theater Workshop members / $130 non-members

Description: As a participant in this writing salon guided by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, of the InfiniteBody dance blog, you will share supportive space for deepening your engagement with dance and performance. You will discover ways to enhance your perception, receptivity and empathy so that your dialogue with the art witnessed will become in itself a gift of art. While developing confidence in your ability to describe and evaluate what you have seen, you will also find the courage to redefine writing about dance and performance as a personal act of human response with room for questioning, passion, humor, anger, wisdom and transformation. All are welcome, experienced and prospective arts journalists as well as anyone interested in exploring the power of dance and writing.

To apply, submit a one-page letter (350 word maximum) via email to Richert Schnorr (richert@dtw.org) by July 16, 2007 detailing why you want to take this course. Please place the letter in the body of the email and include all of your contact information.

Serena on You Tube

Myriam Eli also sent the following links:

Serena obituary, photos and links in the ShakeMyDay.com newslettter

See Serena on YouTube, dancing at the Egyptian Gardens nightclub (1968) and demonstrating the Turkish finger snap and karsilama rhythm on her TV program (1975). Click here and here.

A Serena Tribute by Myriam Eli of Harmonic Motion

Serena and Myriam Eli at Serena Studios’ A Night at the Casbah,
one of Ms. Eli’s first performances, September 1979.

IN GRATITUDE OF SERENA

By Myriam Eli

Serena, my first Middle Eastern dance teacher, passed away on 17 June 2007. She was a major force in the first wave of this dance that took place in the United States in the 1950’s. She was also a major force in my life and my career. I am forever grateful to her. Serena, the “trailblazer,” as my brother described her, created a Middle Eastern dance technique, with positions as in ballet, that I use to this day to teach and create. I first saw her dance while I was in college on 24 February 1974. There was an “Oud Concert” that day at Serena Studios on West 53rd Street in New York City featuring her son Scott Wilson on oud and guitarist Maurice Sedacca. Serena’s dance in the “Surprise Finale” was a great source of inspiration for me.

I studied many years with Serena and her wonderful Serena technique teachers, LaDonn Amato and Michele Rousseau, beginning in 1978 at Serena Studios. I remember it as a small but highly stimulating artistic space. The list of what I learned from Serena is endless but includes improvisation and the thrill of creating and being in the moment that accompanies it. It also includes dancing to live music, as she generously gave us opportunities to perform with her husband Rip Wilson on dumbek and son Scott on oud.



Serena sent me on my first teaching job, which was in the basement of Alexander’s store in the East Side. She also sent me on my first Caribbean cruise job, in which I got to approach my island home, Puerto Rico, from the ocean for the first time. With her, I learned to play zills and to dance to my first odd-metered rhythm, the 9/8 or karsilama, now one of my favorites. She also coached me and sent me to my first Egyptian nightclub audition, which was at the Ibis when it was on East 50th Street. With her I had the first opportunity to perform in a dance company, the Serena Dance Theater, which at the time included my teachers LaDonn and Michele, as well as my colleagues Terri Bernen and Roberta Watts. The titles of the dance pieces included Sahara City, Palesteena, Egyptian Village Dance, and my favorite, Offerings. With the company I had the first opportunity to perform in many different venues, such as schools and theaters, as well as at the Central Park Bandshell and Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park.

Now, 29 years into my career, I pray that I am doing justice to these prized gifts that I received from Serena as I also try to pass down to my students and audiences the endless beauty of this dance form.

Thank you, Serena, for leading me into the path of this dance career and the spiritual fulfillment and exuberant joy that it offers. May you enjoy the Big Kef in the Sky.

Myriam Eli

Harmonic Motion

Winging It

[Editor's Note: I loved the following story which was posted on Friday by my fellow birder Carolyn Kay Carson on the eBirds email list. In a city like New York, every where you look there's potential for high drama and comedy! Have a beautiful--and proud--Sunday!]

At the opening gala for Shakespeare in the Park's Romeo and Juliet this past Tuesday evening, guests were seated at tables on the lawn in front of the theater for a pre-show dinner. A fledgling grackle decided that the abundance of gourmet food was too good to pass up. S/he started flying from table to table startling the well-dressed guests. The young bird would climb up the side of a tree trying to get a good look at the plates of food. Attempts to target a meal didn't work out so well--s/he wasn't on the guest list! Mom and Pop were hopping from tree to tree keeping a proud eye on the youngster. When I saw the flustered bus boys trying to nab the bird in a napkin (!), it was time to rescue it from being rescued. They were relieved to know that the bird was ok, but, they insisted on trying to help it back up into the tree hoping it would leave the guests to enjoy their dessert! A happy ending for the grackle and even for Romeo and Juliet because it started pouring rain just after Juliet's tonic-to-sleep scene!

Others birds on set: ROBINS & CHIMNEY SWIFTS' pre-show chorus, a BLACK CROWNED NIGHT HERON fishing in Turtle Pond behind the set during the performance, and a large raptor (too dark to i.d.) flew very low from the west down toward the pond after sunset then back toward the west about 20 minutes later. Black skimmers were a no-show.

Carolyn Kay Carson

New York Times obituary of Serena Wilson

Serena Wilson Dies at 73; Popularized Belly Dance
by Margalit Fox

A Remembrance of Serena from Jemela Omar

[Editor's Note: Yesterday, I received this lovely message from Jemela Omar who, with Serena Wilson, was part of a brilliant and influential generation of Middle Eastern dance professionals here in New York City, and I requested permission to post it here for you. BTW, I've also been asked for information about a memorial service for Serena.  When I have that information, I will post an announcement here.]


Hi! My name is Jemela Omar. Anahid [Sofian] very graciously sent me your article on Serena, which I would LOVE to have downloaded, to send to some of her friends, that are not living in the USA currently.

Serena was my peer. I started in the EG. or Egyptian Gardens, a little earlier then she did. As she came to my office a week ago, to bring me a copy of her latest publication, looking better then she had 10 years ago, I marveled at her appearance. I can't imagine that there was ANY indication of the time bomb that was waiting in the wings.

We had a lot of laughs at the EG, she and I, because we were both the only Americans working there at the time.

She will be dearly missed. In a performance that she gave recently, she got a standing ovation from the entire audience of other dancers! I was SO glad to be amongst them, applauding loudly for my friend.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts,

Respectfully,
Jemela Omar

As The World Turns

Talk about the still point of the turning world!

A Yoga Class's Path to Serenity Leads Through Times Square by Dalton Walker

Times dance critic Roslyn Sulcas weighs in on Invitations to A Dancer:

Tapping Out Fusion: Is That One Tutu Too Many? by Roslyn Sulcas

And, if you haven't, please see my June 20th review of Invitations to A Dancer.

Also by Sulcas, a very nice piece on Mikhail Baryshnikov whose Hell's Kitchen Dance performs this weekend at the Baryshnikov Arts Center:

Reflections on Baryshnikov's Latest (Not Last) Legs by Roslyn Sulcas

Cool Off with Merce

Happy Summer Solstice, everyone!

Here's a cool summer tip: Spend some time at the new Invention: Merce Cunningham & Collaborators exhibit at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, running now through October 13. Admission is free.

Enter and wander within this bright, airy space as you will. Featuring visual, print, video and oral history materials, as well as samples of costumes and sets and John Cage's musical scores, this show is a light summer repast for the senses.

I lingered over a lyrical photo of Cunningham and Carolyn Brown in a 1956 performance of Suite for Five and another of the choreographer, with puckish expression, partnering a crisp, alert Megan Walker in a 1982 performance of Roadrunners. I savored all the splashes of brilliant color that bring whimsical charm to the show--from works of art to design sketches, fabric swatches and full costumes in delightful textures and a rainbow of hues. Like the choreographer and his esteemed dancers, this show combines a certain childlike openness and friskiness with pristine form. It is delicate. And heady. And elevating. And cool. All at once.

To be responsible, I should also tell you that this exhibition is organized around "four key discoveries that Cunningham has pursued throughout his career:

• the separation of music and dance
• the use of chance operations and indeterminacy in composition and choreography
• the possibilities of film and video
• experimentation with computer technology"

But I have a feeling you'll figure that out for yourself while you're taking a nice respite from the hot city streets.

Exhibition hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday (noon to 6pm); Thursday (noon to 8pm); closed Sundays, Mondays and holidays. A series of related events are planned, including screenings of Walkaround Time and CRWDSPCR (Saturday, June 23 at 3pm), performances of excerpts from John Cage's Sonatas and Interludes by pianist Nurit Tilles, a conversation between Cunningham and Laura Kuhn, Director of the John Cage Trust, and performances of a new Cunningham piece by the Cunningham Repertory Group.

For more information and the full schedule of related events, click here or call 212-870-1630.

(c) 2007, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Savion Glover’s Invitations to A Dancer

by Eva Yaa Asantewaa

The respectable part of tap genius Savion Glover’s new Joyce Theater production–awkwardly-titled Invitations to A Dancer–involves Glover and two male sidekicks mercilessly slamming diverse rhythms into three miked platforms on a stage that is otherwise bare. Rrrat-a-tat, rrrat-a-tat. Bock, bocka, bocka. Rrrrunka, rrrrunka, rrrrunka, rrrrunka. I said I would, I said I would, I said I would. Slam. Slam. Slam. No jazz combo to back them up. No recorded music. Just myriad sounds--or, to be precise, Bare Soundz, as Glover now calls himself, Marshall L. Davis, Jr., and a third fellow who’s uncredited in the program--of men making propulsive jazz with the deft, rapid movements of their heels and toes and the sides of their feet.

Sometimes the world-famous guy with the two-toned dreadlocks and tap boots that resemble kelly green M&Ms takes the middle platform and–either fiercely concentrating on his feet or looking at his mates and grinning with pleasure--dances like a demon. Sometimes Glover lets one brother or the other take pride of place or have a cool solo. Woodpeckers on speed, their amplified soundz zoom out from the stage and shake our brains loose.

Intermission. Downstairs in the Women’s Room.

Woman #1: “I’ve never seen feet move so fast! How does he do that?”

Woman #2: “You have to really lift up...”

Woman #1: “Now I want to see ‘Happy Feet’!”

Woman #2: “But that’s not the same! They’re penguins!”

All three men are fine dancers. But Glover alone is stratospheric and not this season–thank the Almighty!--hoofing to classical music, a previous Glover experiment that failed to amuse me.

Unfortunately, Glover has built a new and even less amusing concept into the second half of Invitations to A Dancer. He has invited a ballerina (Suzana Stankovic) and three modern dancers (Sheila Barker, Lauren Last and Jerica Niehoff) to perform ballet and contemporary choreography while the six feet of Bare Soundz provide the sole accompaniment. That might sound like a worthwhile challenge, but someone forgot to throw good choreography into the mix. The contemporary jazz dance passages for the barefoot modern dancers are as flimsy, tacky and cheesy as the women’s little halter-topped dresses. I became increasingly annoyed as I puzzled over why the women had to be dressed in this manner in glaring contrast to the men’s deliberately un-glamorous, comfortable and functional clothing and sturdy tap shoes.

Stankovic, dolled up in a sparkling white tutu, dances real ballet to Glover’s foot music, but then she attempts to get funky and cutesy. She pulls this embarrassing stunt twice. Well, it worked for Wednesday’s matinee audience.

SBSG–a modern piece in which Glover accompanies the willowy Barker–does have interest (as well as a lovely, flattering costume for Barker). She answers Glover’s footwork with dancing that is quick and clear, as spiky, eccentric and unexpected as Mr. Trademark’s world-class hoofing.

Glover drops a killer solo in the second half–one that made me realize it’s time to stop thinking of him as “Heir to Gregory Hines” and start wondering who the hell could ever, ever, ever take up his mantle. All the more reason to wonder why he has started messing around with concepts that don’t make the grade. It can’t possibly be boredom, can it? Tell me it ain’t so!

Without the...what should we call them? variety show numbers?...Invitations to A Dancer might possibly look and sound monotoned. The first half–or “The 1st Accent,” as Glover calls it–is basically just one thing: three guys hoofing hard all the time. But even without variety, it’s a mind-blower.

The trouble with excellence is that it tends to show up everything around it. All the more reason to make damned sure that everything around it is up to its uncompromising standards.

Savion Glover’s Invitations to A Dancer continues at the Joyce Theater through July 14. For schedule and ticketing details, click here.

(c)2007 Eva Yaa Asantewaa

A Middle Eastern dance legend passes

I was saddened to learn of the death of Serena Wilson--legendary performer, teacher and popularizer of Middle Eastern (belly) dance--following her collapse on Sunday while shopping with her son, Scott Wilson. The cause was said to be a pulmonary embolism.

In the 1970s, during the big American revival of belly dancing--a revival that owes much to Serena's visibility and influence--I studied in a small, private group of students with one of her former teachers, Cia Beverly Cirel. I loved--and still treasure--this dance form and found it to be not only a beautiful, aesthetic expression, intertwining sensuality and spirituality, but also marvelous therapy for mood, figure and fitness. At the time, it rivaled only jazz dance as my favorite dance technique to learn.

Although, over time, I fell away from studying dance of any kind, when I briefly returned to it in the '90s, it was at Serena's small, impossibly-crowded studio on Eighth Avenue near 55th Street. I made sure to get there early to secure a good spot on the floor so that I could keep an eye on the Empress of Beledi, perched atop her little platform, as she broke down all the million-and-one isolations that go into making the extraordinarily fluid effect of the dance. At the time, she was no spring chicken but she ruled, and woe to any student who came in chomping on a wad of gum.

I still have my well-worn copy of The Serena Technique of Belly Dancing (1973), which Serena co-authored with her husband, Alan Wilson. I'd purchased it in 1974, the year that I also began studying how to write dance criticism. It shares shelf space with the original Our Bodies, Our Selves and Sally Banes's Terpsichore in Sneakers (1980). Quite a trot down memory lane, that shelf.

My condolences to Serena's family and to her generations of teachers, students, professional associates and many fans around the world.

(c) 2007 Eva Yaa Asantewaa

"We come on, ready to dance!"

Heather Lyn MacDonald's Been Rich All My Life (2006)--an 80-minute documentary film about The Silver Belles, former Harlem show dancers who, in their 80's and 90's, are still entertaining audiences with glamorous, jazzy style--is touching and ultimately uplifting. You can find it now on DVD at Toots Crackin Productions or through Netflix.

"We come on, ready to dance!" -- Elaine Ellis

"And people say, 'Was doing it fun?' And I say, yes, it was, and I was free! Free! Like a bird coming out of its cage!" -- Bertye Lou Wood

Theresa Ruth Howard reflects on Dance/NYC Race and Dance Forum

Dancer, dance teacher and writer Theresa Ruth Howard (most recently noted for her work with Armitage Gone! Dance) has written a report on Dance/NYC's community forum on Race and Dance, and you can read it now on Apollinaire Scherr's dance blog, Foot in Mouth.

Celebrate the Legacy of Katherine Dunham

CELEBRATE THE LEGACY OF KATHERINE DUNHAM

Presented in partnership with the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Join AAADT Artistic Director Judith Jamison and Gil Noble, noted journalist and host of WABC's Like It Is, as they lead an exciting panel discussion about the life and legacy of Miss Katherine Dunham - dancer, humanist, anthropologist, activist and visionary.

Panelists:
Zita Allen * Ronnie Aul * Julie Belafonte * Gaynell Sherrod *
Dr. Glory Van Scott

Tuesday, June 26, 2007
8 pm
92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Avenue (at 92nd Street)
Tickets: $25 or $15 with Student ID

To order tickets, call (212) 415-5500 or click here.

Tuesday's event will be followed by:

DUNHAM DANCE CLASS WITH JOAN PETERS

This workshop will delve into this eclectic fusion of Caribbean movement, ballet and modern dance. See why the dancers of today still use this technique to build strength, flexibility and improve the body's range of movement. Live drumming accompanies this workshop.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007
4:30-6 pm
The Ailey Studios
The Joan Weill Center for Dance
405 West 55th Street (at 9th Avenue)
Cost: $18

To register, please call (212) 405-9500 or click here.

Katherine Dunham. Photo courtesy of the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation Archives.

Dances for DeeAnn: A Benefit for A Broken Back

Announcement from Terry Dean Bartlett, Curator/Producer: DANCEOFF Productions


On May 20th, 2007, Tisch MFA Graduate in Dance deeAnn Nelson suffered a tragic fall in a performance and fractured her spine. She has since come through surgery with flying colors, and a full recovery is expected, though the rehabilitation is going to be long and arduous.

While all of her medical expenses are covered, she will need resources for rent, bills, living etc. until she is “back on her feet.” She will be in pins, rods, screws and a brace for the next 6 months then will face an intense program of rehab. As a fierce and talented dancer deeAnn gave her all for her art, now, she will need all of the support from her community that she can get.

And the dance community has turned out in droves asking: “How can I help?”

What better way than through a dance concert to bring us together? An evening of Established and Emerging Artists coming out to help raise funds for an amazing performer.

Dances for deeAnn: A Benefit for a Broken Back

Monday July 2nd, 7:30pm

DTW:DANCE THEATER WORKSHOP
219 West 19th Street

Tickets: $40 All Proceeds go to deeAnn Nelson towards her recovery.

Box Office: 212.924.0077
ww.dtw.org

FEATURING BRILLIANT WORK BY:

Gus Solomons
Heidi Latsky
Niles Ford: Urban Dance Collective
Jody Oberfelder
Laura Peterson Choreography
Ellis Wood
Hartel Dance Group (Oklahoma)
The Wonder Twins
A Dance Video from Jonah Bokaer/Michael Cole/Christian Marclay
Nathan Phillips
Jo-anne Lee
Gabriel Forestieri: projectLIMB
Lobby Video by Nadine Helstroffer

More!

Raffle Prizes!

www.deeAnnNelson.com for further info and updates.

DTW graciously donated the Theater for the performance.

Terry Dean Bartlett
Curator/Producer: DANCEOFF Productions
www.danceoff.net

Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects

by Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Jody Oberfelder is one of dance’s irrepressible forces–elfin in physique yet strong and secure, bursting with energy and humor. Her background in athletics informs her choreography, which pours forth as if from a gurgling font of endless supply. Charming and robustly vital dancers Luke Gutgsell, Elise Knudson, Rebekah Morin, Brandin Steffensen and Carlton Ward have the ability to do amazing things with their bodies while infusing every interaction with radiant humanity. Two new dances, premiered at the intimate Flea Theater in Tribeca and running through Sunday afternoon, show them at their best, although the first works far better.

In Heavy Light, made in collaboration with the dancers, Oberfelder sees what can be done with the daily news. As it opens, she’s engulfed in a mound of crumpled newspaper pages but somehow manages to whip up into some pretty nifty, twisty headstands in the middle of this mess. As we listen to the spare, dreary Bach Cello Suite #5, she continues on, scrambling and slithering through the newsprint. Later, her ensemble enters, scattering the paper to the sidelines to open room for dancing.

And what dancing it is: big, bouncy, gymnastic, playing with weight and momentum with an androgynous equality of the genders and an attitude towards the body that is both demanding and witty. Body parts are independently dynamic puzzle pieces or moving toys, and so are whole bodies when meeting other bodies coming through the wry. I suppose the duet between Steffensen and Gutgsell really goes on far too long but I found it such a pleasure to watch their physically and emotionally rich interaction of these two good-looking men that, in the moment, the excessive length seemed quite right. Oberfelder tends to linger over duets and, since her dancers light them up like fireworks, why shouldn’t she?

The title might have come last in The Title Comes Last but one item still seems to be missing from this trio: a definitive ending. Unlike Heavy Light, this piece feels long, ungrounded and rushed into existence. It’s also silly and not in a good way. Oberfelder’s theme–the joy of senses–gets muddled as dancers stick out their tongues to lick themselves and others’ bodies and munch on pieces of fruit that (yuck!!!) have been all over the floor. It does have a nice opening in which Knudson, Morin and Ward turn their bodies into pretzels and then engage in a slipstream of contact where body boundaries blur, and there’s another wonderful duet (set to music by The Tango Group). It’s also great to hear the spooky-beautiful version of “Because” performed by strings-and-turntable ensemble MystiQuintet.

See Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects at The Flea Theater tonight and Saturday at 7pm and Sunday at 3pm.

(c)2007 Eva Yaa Asantewaa

A Postmodern Passage

(Editor's note: Recently, I was talking with dancer-choreographer Jill Sigman about some of her past and upcoming travels, and I invited her to send me some of her journaling. The following piece, written in 2005, is one of what I hope will be a series of reflections from this searching and provocative dance artist.)

(Author’s note: I wrote this short piece a day after I returned from India, early in 2005. I had wanted to record my initial impressions while still in that transition zone between there and here.)

A Postmodern Passage

by Jill Sigman, guest contributor

Still jetlagged and dreamlike, I am unpacking many things: a suitcase of brightly colored scarves, a mental album of arresting images, the convoluted body language of a stranger who is aware of being a stranger, and a gnawing sense of my own cultural specificity. I open my closet and rediscover the blue suede jacket and red cowboy boots of the “real” me, the post-Godard underpinnings of androgynous femininity, and a strong conviction that the avant-garde isn’t just half-baked classicism after all. I am home.

I am a choreographer and performer, a person whose life and expression revolve around movement, and I visited India as a physical tourist. I wanted to encounter the physical experiences and dance forms of a radically different culture, to alight in a new physicality and allow that experience to trickle into my movement language and improvisational process. As an invited guest of the Kri Foundation in New Delhi, I had the good fortune to sample Kathak and Bharat Natyam, engage in artistic dialogue and studio exploration with Bharat Natyam dancer Rama Vaidyanathan, perform at the American Center as a guest of the American Embassy, lecture on my work at the India Habitat Centre, and meet many wonderful artists, arts administrators, and cultural consumers.

It will take time to unpack such a packed five weeks, to discover how all the sights and sounds and unfamiliar movements will find their way into my choreographic work. But what struck me most about this postmodern passage is not what anyone expected to strike me, or presented to me as cultural offering. I was amazed by the theatricality of ordinary life— the Christmas lights blinking on three different tempos in a dimly lit Hindu temple, the Khajal-rimmed eyes of babies in starched lace bonnets and boys’ trousers, the street theater of tourist-trade holy men, the heightened reality of poojas and wedding processions…

I am fascinated by the superposition of performance and reality, the ways we are simultaneously performing and also “really there”, and how sometimes in moments of performance epiphany we choose to reveal that duality to our viewers. I was most recently reminded of this when I was injured a week before Pulling the Wool and proceeded to perform for two weekends on crutches. The crutches became a prop, an icon, a sinister device for underlining themes that were already present in my work. But they were also real; I couldn’t walk without them. And I was glad to share that duality with my viewers—to exist together in a charged space sharing that multi-layered awareness.

In India I saw performance everywhere: in the men singing “Chai—Chai Chai” up and down the aisles of the train; in the women in black crossing the open plaza of Agra’s Jami Masjid mosque; in the rowboats on the Ganga that reminded me of my own site-specific performance on Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal; and in the postmodern improvisations of entering and exiting, movement and stillness, of Hindu temple-goers.

I was looking through a different lens, and I was aware of how specific my lens was to what I am. I am an American, a New Yorker, a woman, an inheritor of 60’s ideals and experiments, a choreographer, a philosopher, an activist. I see structured movement improvisation in people visiting temples. I see a theater set in Jaipur’s Jantar Mantar astronomical observatory. I see sculptural installations in piles of vermillion. I see gender-bending cross-dressing in the outfits of kohl-eyed children. And I see the World Trade Center in the cremation fires of Varanasi’s burning ghats. During my visit, I knew that what I was seeing was embedded in a completely different cultural context. And yet I was inextricably embedded in mine.

This became clear with regard to my artistic work. My ways of making and seeing dance were strange to people and the fingerprints of postmodern dance, pedestrianism, and experiment were invisible to them. My dances use a movement vocabulary which I invent. Their meaning is not connected to a text or story. They involve significant amounts of improvisation and chance. And they are more than just movement; they include their environments. Western culture may be ubiquitous, but it is not universal. My work was not transparent in India.

This, I realized, is what cross-cultural dialogue is all about. It is not simply looking with admiration at the offerings of another culture, admiring the diversity of things in the world. Rather, it is looking with curiosity and wonder at the lenses through which we see each other’s offerings-- holding those lenses up to the light and watching how the world is refracted.


(c)2005, Jill Sigman

Jill Sigman is a choreographer, performer, and Artistic Director of jill sigman/thinkdance, an experimental dance company that raises questions through the medium of the body. Sigman also writes about dance and art theory. In 2003, she left 200 texts about why she makes art around NYC--in taxis, phone booths, public bathrooms and supermarket freezers.

Dance Critics Can Relate...Part II

(Editor's note: It's tough all over. And check out the irony of classical music competing with dance for newspaper coverage back in 1974--the year I took courses in dance criticism at Dance Theater Workshop and The New School and started my so-called career in this field.)

The New York Times
Saturday, June 9, 2007
ARTS / MUSIC
Newspapers Trimming Classical Critics
By DANIEL J. WAKIN

Classical music criticism, a high-minded endeavor that has been around at least as long as newspapers and reached an English-language peak with George Bernard Shaw, has taken a series of hits in recent months.

Ridgewood Reservoir/iMAP Dance Performance

iLAND, Inc. presents

Ridgewood Reservoir/iMAP Dance Performance

Saturday, June 23, 2007 from Dawn to Dusk

at Ridgewood Reservoir, Highland Park, Queens

The performance ushers in summer 2007 with a day of dancing informed and inspired by the unique ecosystems and landscape of the Highland Park Ridgewood Reservoir area.

For reservations, more directions and information www.ilandart.org or e-mail at info@ilandart.org or call 212 375 8283.

Conceived of and directed by Jennifer Monson in collaboration with

Composer- Kenta Nagai

Architects- Gita Nandan and Elliott Maltby of thread collective and

Dancers- Maggie Bennett, Charlotte Gibbons, Mariangela Lopez, Jennifer Monson and Christina Muellenmeister

Field Guides – Uli Lorimer, Native plant curator of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden; Johanna Meyer, Choreographer; Heidi Steiner, member of the Brooklyn Bird Club; and Nami Yamamoto, Choreographer and a NYC Parks Department Urban Park Ranger.

Video Documentation – Ryutaro Ishikane, Robin Vachal

Costume Designer - Jocelyn Melechinsky

Production Manager – Ariel Federow

Performing Dawn to Dusk – Maggie Bennett, Charlotte Gibbons, Mariangela Lopez, Jennifer Monson and Christina Muellenmeister.

Performing noon to 1pm: Young dancers from the New Song Studio in Elmhurst, Queens – Kristy Lau, Kelly Lau, Amanda Lee, Annie Lee, Shelley Li, Jessica Santosa, Kelly Shum, Sonja Smeland, Janice Wang.

Performing noon to 4pm:

Musicians – Sean Meehan, Tamio Shirashi, David Watson

Dancers – Yari Alcaraz, Brooke Belott, Azahara Ubera Biedma, Megan Byrne, Eve Chalom, Marie-Charlotte Chevalier, Diana Crum, DD Dorvillier, Milka Djordevich, Christine Elmo, Alexis Halkovic, Chih Chun Huang, Jen Kelly, Molly, Lieber, Andrea Liu, Giorgia Minisini, Margaret Paek, Richert Schnorr, Eryn Rosenthal, Isabelle Thiele, Rebecca Wender, Sarah White, Sara Worden.

Ridgewood Reservoir/iMAP is a year long performance project that investigates the unique landscape of the reservoir. This 50-acre site comprises wetlands, native swamp forest and urban wilderness unusual to the inner city. The artists are involved in a year long process of investigating the ecology of the reservoir with scientists as well as developing a creative process on site that responds to the changing seasons and the dynamic interplay of the human actions and natural phenomenon at play in the area.

The dancing will move around the mile long perimeter of the reservoir in five distinct groups. The audience is asked to take their time walking the edge while watching the dancing, observing the environment and engaging in two architectural exhibits that will display information from a breeding bird census, vegetative mapping, the history and seasonal shifts at the site. Four guides will be on hand to direct and offer information.

The public is invited to come at any time during the day. The majority of the dancers will be performing from noon to 4pm. Bring a picnic, relax, come and go as you please as you enjoy this rare and special urban gem and the dancing that responds to it.

Transportation:

BY BIKE: Three group bike rides will leave from Park Slope, Williamsburg and Downtown Manhattan. Information including exact departure locations and times are available at www.ilandart.org.

BY SUBWAY: J train to Cleveland Street walk 3 blocks to the park, up the hill and to the reservoir. A shuttle will be provided between 11am and 3pm from Cleveland Street.

Ridgewood Reservoir/iMAP is hosted by City of New York / Parks & Recreation and is supported in part by the Multi-Arts Production Fund, a program of Creative Capital, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.

iLand, Inc. interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance investigates the power of dance, in collaboration with other fields, to illuminate our kinetic understanding of the world. ILAND, a dance research organization with a fundamental commitment to environmental sustainability as it relates to art and the urban context, cultivates cross-disciplinary research among artists, environmentalists, scientists, urban designers and other fields.

iLAND is a 501 (c) (3) organization; incorporated in 2004.

If I Can't Dance...

OPINION | June 3, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor: Dance, Dance, Revolution
By BARBARA EHRENREICH
New Yorkers — as well as all Americans faced with anti-dance restrictions — should stand up and take action.