From the You Just Never Know Where You'll Find Dancing in New York file
A fellow birder posted the following message to the eBirds NYC list, and I'm reposting it here with her permission.
While enjoying a stellar day of birding at Prospect Park this afternoon, which was awash in hordes of warblers, vireos, et al pushed in by the previous evening's north/northwest wind, I observed a little brown wren doing an odd little dance.
The wren was perched on a log by some broken down cement steps, near a culvert by the main road, across from the zoo. As I slowly walked over with my pit bull, it began to raise its wings, drop them down, and frame its lowered head with the fanned, stubby wings. It performed the display several times, in a ritualized manner, facing me and my pit bull (though any number of other intruding birds in the immediate vicinity could have been the target of the display).
I'd never observed this behavior in any bird before, so a little research on the Internet was in order upon reaching home. I found a pdf study of Chickadee anti-predator display patterns. The wing wave was clearly illustrated and perfectly matched the wren's antic display. Basically, the bird faces the threat, lowers its head, and waves its wings downward around its head.
The wren was found in an area where I have frequently observed both winter wrens and house wrens for at least 10 years. This individual sported a distinctive white eyebrow marking, so may have been a Carolina wren.
I still don't know how that wren thought she was going to initimidate a pit bull with that cute little performance.
Kim E.
Thanks, Kim, for that stellar bit of dance writing! As for the wren's strategy: whatever it takes, cookie! But click here and on the Play button to see InfiniteBody's considerably fiercer official mascot.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
Podcast interview with Camille A. Brown
Body and Soul (formerly Great Dance Podcast) presents a conversation with dancer-choreographer Camille A. Brown. Click here.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Gil Scott-Heron notwithstanding, this Revolution will be televised.
Time Out New York considered the marriage of rock music and tap dance at the Joyce Theater and predicted disaster. But having actually seen Revolution--now in its two-week stand through October 7--I would not go that far. But I do have some serious questions for co-creators/choreographers/dancers Joel Hanna (the Filipino-Irish Dave Navarro lookalike with the Riverdance chops) and Michael Schulster (whose exuberant strumming while tapping ups the ante for air-guitarists everywhere).
A tap show with a live rock band so loud you can rarely hear the dancers' feet? An ensemble where male tap dancers--who show genuine spirit and kick ass--are the main event while the comparably nondescript female dancers, including a So You Think You Can Dance finalist, look and move like glossy, pliable dolls? (My invaluable companion, taking in the girlie action onstage, refreshed my memory with just a few words: "Solid Gold" and "Thank you, Darcel!") And a female rock singer (Sonia de los Santos) whose lyrics are impossible to decipher? And exactly how fresh is the idea of live videotaping and screening of the performers or having the men tap dance atop equipment trunks?
The richly-produced, rollicking show looks pitched at Broadway, and indeed the older, Broadway-type audience at the Joyce seemed to warm to it after the initial shock of bright rock-show lights in their eyes and the first blast of drums in their ears. (Speaking of drums--why the elaborate Plexiglas shield around the drum kit? Protection from dancer sweat?) The program notes actually refer to Revolution's intended market as "the much sought-after 18-35 bracket." Yes, you read that right: crass marketing strategy right there in your face. But that's not who was sitting there last night and, to all appearances, loving it.
I grew up in the 60's, loving rock--among a rich feast of other forms of music--and I don't take exception to this show on the basis of musical taste. But I do wonder if it didn't occur to Hanna and Schulster that tap dancers are musicians first and foremost, that tap fans want to hear them as well as see them, and that their best number is danced--by the male dancers, of course--when the band is silent.
You say you still want a Revolution? Rock on over to the Joyce.
A tap show with a live rock band so loud you can rarely hear the dancers' feet? An ensemble where male tap dancers--who show genuine spirit and kick ass--are the main event while the comparably nondescript female dancers, including a So You Think You Can Dance finalist, look and move like glossy, pliable dolls? (My invaluable companion, taking in the girlie action onstage, refreshed my memory with just a few words: "Solid Gold" and "Thank you, Darcel!") And a female rock singer (Sonia de los Santos) whose lyrics are impossible to decipher? And exactly how fresh is the idea of live videotaping and screening of the performers or having the men tap dance atop equipment trunks?
The richly-produced, rollicking show looks pitched at Broadway, and indeed the older, Broadway-type audience at the Joyce seemed to warm to it after the initial shock of bright rock-show lights in their eyes and the first blast of drums in their ears. (Speaking of drums--why the elaborate Plexiglas shield around the drum kit? Protection from dancer sweat?) The program notes actually refer to Revolution's intended market as "the much sought-after 18-35 bracket." Yes, you read that right: crass marketing strategy right there in your face. But that's not who was sitting there last night and, to all appearances, loving it.
I grew up in the 60's, loving rock--among a rich feast of other forms of music--and I don't take exception to this show on the basis of musical taste. But I do wonder if it didn't occur to Hanna and Schulster that tap dancers are musicians first and foremost, that tap fans want to hear them as well as see them, and that their best number is danced--by the male dancers, of course--when the band is silent.
You say you still want a Revolution? Rock on over to the Joyce.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Nonfiction Forum: Joan Acocella
The New School Writing Program presents Joan Acocella, author of Twenty-eight Artists and Two Saints and staff writer for The New Yorker. Moderated by Robert Polito, director.
Monday, October 15, 6:30pm
Admission: $5
The New School
66 West 12th Street, Room 510
Manhattan
212-229-5488 or click here.
Monday, October 15, 6:30pm
Admission: $5
The New School
66 West 12th Street, Room 510
Manhattan
212-229-5488 or click here.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Jane Goldberg taps volunteers
Jane Goldberg--famed Tap Goddess of the Lower East Side--has put out a call for volunteers to help her with her Changing Times Tap Archive, "going through great pictures, tapes, transferring old videos to dvds...any spare time welcome. Call 646-334-5726....leave name, number." Jane adds, "get college credit! get knowledge credit! must be an ot (organized type)."
A few thoughts on Macaulay at Barnard
"I hope I say what I see. I hope I don't just give my opinion. You have to justify it. It's important to discipline your feeling as well as your vision." -- Alastair Macaulay
Alastair Macaulay, the New York Times's new Senior Dance Critic, joined the ranks of dance journalists in 1978--a few years after I did--and now sits in the most visible, most influential and powerful position in our (still rather marginal) field. I greeted the Times appointment of this talented, expressive British writer with a mixture of hope and skepticism, and now my hope has been bolstered somewhat by Macaulay's chat with Mindy Aloff, his American colleague and friend, at Barnard College last evening. As they say in the sports world, that hope comes with an asterisk, and we'll get to that asterisk later.
What I like about Macaulay
Now that I've had a chance to lay eyes on the man and hear him speak, I'm intrigued and can well imagine how the Powers-That-Be--who, according to Macaulay don't know much about dance and small-talked their way through his job interviews--would find him a captivating candidate. Before an audience of Barnard dance students and faculty, with a fair representation from New York's critic rank-and-file, Aloff posed gentle questions and Macaulay responded with all the courtly grace of the ballroom dance student he used to be and the "closet dancer" he says he is today.
His thoughtful replies often took the form of stories--some amusing in a low-key way, some honestly told at his own expense. (Here's one: He must rise very early to draft his reviews at the Times offices because he has yet to set up a computer--or much else--in his apartment.) I was surprised and charmed by his soft-edged, even self-effacing manner. And I recognized in all of this the person whose work first caught my attention--a writer with a very human, personal voice, a clear sense of engagement, a smart but also free, lively, colorful mind. Confident in his writing, but not overly invested in his own cleverness. Authoritative and firm in his opinions but not arrogant. Someone who sounded as if he gave a damn.
His critical expertise and experience extends to music and theater, but he declares a proper respect for dance--"a hard art to write about," which it is. In his work, he recognizes a desire to communicate why dance matters to him, the son of a farmer. As a farmer's son, he knows a thing or two about nature, like precisely how swans' massive wings beat and sound, and that perceptiveness informs his preference for one Swan Lake choreographer's approach to the movement of swans' wings, which he demonstrates impeccably. Even if I were not a birder, I'd have tip my hat to Macaulay for that alone.
What still concerns me
And now we get to that asterisk.
"A critic--if he's going to spend time looking at this art--had better become acquainted with plenty of it."
That was Macaulay talking, not me. But it gave me just the opening I needed for a question I later asked him after listening to him repeatedly (and solely) refer to his gods: Balanchine, Mozart, Cunningham, Shakespeare. Imagine if you took up residence in New York but your exploration extended only as far as Lincoln Center and its immediate precincts and you never ventured down to Chinatown or out to Little India, and you never discovered the amazing variety of little shorebirds (and the occasional swan) at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. In short, I felt that a Senior Dance Critic of the New York Times should be required to get around more.
I've been thinking a lot about this since he got here. My thoughts have not always been as diplomatic as my words were last evening. I posed my question nicely, and he agreed. He mentioned, with pleasure, some initial excursions--to Noche Flamenca, to Reggie Wilson and Andreya Ouamba's Accounting for Customs. Although he declared his intention to critique any dance according to his own sense of what was right, he acknowledged that his inexperience with some forms, histories and legacies could interfere somewhat with the effectiveness of his criticism. In short, he promised to work on it.
One of my colleagues, while trading emails with me about Macaulay's notorious smackdown of Doug Varone's Dense Terrain, described the Times guy as a work-in-progress. It's clear, from the non-defensive openness in his answer to my question, that he'd agree with that assessment. He has hit the ground running, and he says he is interested in seeing more, seeing more widely, and determined to write honestly, based on his perceptions and standards.
I know I will not always agree with Macaulay, but I respect his word, and I want to see him take on the most interesting and remarkable and even the most baffling dance New York has to offer. I'd like to see him show his colleagues at the Times and elsewhere what the Senior Dance Critic of the New York Times should be, and maybe make us all work a little harder to catch up. I remain interested in what a writer of his passion and sensibilities will do with the multifaceted challenge and opportunity that is New York.
(c) 2007, Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Alastair Macaulay, the New York Times's new Senior Dance Critic, joined the ranks of dance journalists in 1978--a few years after I did--and now sits in the most visible, most influential and powerful position in our (still rather marginal) field. I greeted the Times appointment of this talented, expressive British writer with a mixture of hope and skepticism, and now my hope has been bolstered somewhat by Macaulay's chat with Mindy Aloff, his American colleague and friend, at Barnard College last evening. As they say in the sports world, that hope comes with an asterisk, and we'll get to that asterisk later.
What I like about Macaulay
Now that I've had a chance to lay eyes on the man and hear him speak, I'm intrigued and can well imagine how the Powers-That-Be--who, according to Macaulay don't know much about dance and small-talked their way through his job interviews--would find him a captivating candidate. Before an audience of Barnard dance students and faculty, with a fair representation from New York's critic rank-and-file, Aloff posed gentle questions and Macaulay responded with all the courtly grace of the ballroom dance student he used to be and the "closet dancer" he says he is today.
His thoughtful replies often took the form of stories--some amusing in a low-key way, some honestly told at his own expense. (Here's one: He must rise very early to draft his reviews at the Times offices because he has yet to set up a computer--or much else--in his apartment.) I was surprised and charmed by his soft-edged, even self-effacing manner. And I recognized in all of this the person whose work first caught my attention--a writer with a very human, personal voice, a clear sense of engagement, a smart but also free, lively, colorful mind. Confident in his writing, but not overly invested in his own cleverness. Authoritative and firm in his opinions but not arrogant. Someone who sounded as if he gave a damn.
His critical expertise and experience extends to music and theater, but he declares a proper respect for dance--"a hard art to write about," which it is. In his work, he recognizes a desire to communicate why dance matters to him, the son of a farmer. As a farmer's son, he knows a thing or two about nature, like precisely how swans' massive wings beat and sound, and that perceptiveness informs his preference for one Swan Lake choreographer's approach to the movement of swans' wings, which he demonstrates impeccably. Even if I were not a birder, I'd have tip my hat to Macaulay for that alone.
What still concerns me
And now we get to that asterisk.
"A critic--if he's going to spend time looking at this art--had better become acquainted with plenty of it."
That was Macaulay talking, not me. But it gave me just the opening I needed for a question I later asked him after listening to him repeatedly (and solely) refer to his gods: Balanchine, Mozart, Cunningham, Shakespeare. Imagine if you took up residence in New York but your exploration extended only as far as Lincoln Center and its immediate precincts and you never ventured down to Chinatown or out to Little India, and you never discovered the amazing variety of little shorebirds (and the occasional swan) at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. In short, I felt that a Senior Dance Critic of the New York Times should be required to get around more.
I've been thinking a lot about this since he got here. My thoughts have not always been as diplomatic as my words were last evening. I posed my question nicely, and he agreed. He mentioned, with pleasure, some initial excursions--to Noche Flamenca, to Reggie Wilson and Andreya Ouamba's Accounting for Customs. Although he declared his intention to critique any dance according to his own sense of what was right, he acknowledged that his inexperience with some forms, histories and legacies could interfere somewhat with the effectiveness of his criticism. In short, he promised to work on it.
One of my colleagues, while trading emails with me about Macaulay's notorious smackdown of Doug Varone's Dense Terrain, described the Times guy as a work-in-progress. It's clear, from the non-defensive openness in his answer to my question, that he'd agree with that assessment. He has hit the ground running, and he says he is interested in seeing more, seeing more widely, and determined to write honestly, based on his perceptions and standards.
I know I will not always agree with Macaulay, but I respect his word, and I want to see him take on the most interesting and remarkable and even the most baffling dance New York has to offer. I'd like to see him show his colleagues at the Times and elsewhere what the Senior Dance Critic of the New York Times should be, and maybe make us all work a little harder to catch up. I remain interested in what a writer of his passion and sensibilities will do with the multifaceted challenge and opportunity that is New York.
(c) 2007, Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Breaking Ground with Bill T. Jones
Breaking Ground with Bill T. Jones, a new four-part series of community dialogues co-presented by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, will be launched at Harlem Stage at the Gatehouse on October 9 (7:30pm). Participants in this first dialogue--“Harlem, Cultural Capital?”--include actor, director, producer Kamilah Forbes, United Negro College Fund President and CEO Dr. Michael Lomax, and writer and activist Kevin Powell.
The series will explore issues of cultural identity, diversity, ethnicity, public policy and Harlem’s changing international significance.
Harlem Stage at the Gatehouse is located at 150 Convent Avenue (at West 135th Street). For ticketing, directions and additional information, click here or call 212-281-9240.
The series will explore issues of cultural identity, diversity, ethnicity, public policy and Harlem’s changing international significance.
Harlem Stage at the Gatehouse is located at 150 Convent Avenue (at West 135th Street). For ticketing, directions and additional information, click here or call 212-281-9240.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Picture this!
I was much too busy looking around and catching the eyes of people I knew to step back and get a sense of how many of us showed up for yesterday's Dance Community Picture New York photoshoot at Bryant Park, a collaboration between Chez Bushwick and Sarma. Our corner (northeast) of the park was bubbling and buzzing, and it was a delight to see everyone, greet old friends and make new ones. It was sort of like the Bessie Awards without the awards and with a slightly scruffier crowd and with the handsome and gracious Jonah Bokaer personally handing you a bottle of Poland Spring. Can't do better than that.
As one observant colleague mentioned, this gathering could in no way represent the extensive and varied "New York dance community" since, for one thing, it was scheduled for Sunday matinee time. Ooops! Still, when I later took a look at the photos from similar projects held in Berlin and Cairo, I felt pretty good about our numbers and our overall congenial, collegial spirit. New York, you've really got it going on!
So let's call ourselves a community of communities and be out, loud and proud about it.
By the way, if you're curious about the conceptual nature of the Dance Community Picture New York, check out Sarma's What is A Community Picture?--although I have to tell you that this is the type of language that makes me nearly tear out what's left of my nearly nonexistent hair. Had I stopped to read this before I showed up on Sunday, I might have stayed home and listened to the Yankees instead. Here's a sample:
7. Community revisited: cultural critique and resuscitation
In recent socio-political literature notions such as the 'multitude' have gained currency to depict structures of self-organisation and possible political resistance. Authors in the line of Toni Negri, Michael Hardt and Paulo Virno are eager to divest these `groupings´ from a transcendental and common denominator since such a ‘unifier’ would take precedence over the fundamental and immanent differences of singular people, who resist categorization into `one´ entity. In such discourses ‘multitude’ is not on a par with ‘community’. While the former is seen as resisting hierarchy and transcendentalism, the latter is considered to do just that: to subordinate singularities to sameness, identity or the identical.
Notwithstanding these attacks, the notion of community keeps reoccuring and keeps a strong foothold. The question is not only why it relentlessly returns, often in celebratory ways, but also how we can, instead of burrying the notion of community altogether, have it haunts us as an open question. How can we recuperate the radical potential of community through a process of cultural analysis and critique? How can we avoid the trap of romanticization of community while staying alert to the forces that are helpful when looking for ways to intervene in the enactment of exploitations.
"Fetishizing community only makes us blind to the ways we might intervene in the enactment of domination and exploitation. I see the practice of critique, and in particular a critical relationship to community, as an ethical practice of community, as an important mode of participation" (ix).
(Miranda Joseph, Beyond the Romance of Multiculturalism: Radicalizing Difference and Community in Cultural Studies, 2002)
Please... Does this language represent me and most of the people I know (inside or outside of dance)? No. However, I do see the "radical potential" of this community. I feel it. Feels real good, too.
I felt our radical outsider-ness and the way that we inhabit New York and feed New York (and the world) with radical creativity. I felt the goodness of our energy as an enduring, positive, forward-moving force.
I do like the way Sarma's list of items ends:
10. More than a parade?
Could The Dance Community Picture in New York City on September 23rd be more than a ‘Hurray-we-are-a-community-parade’, and facilitate occasions for people to gather and talk, listen, speak up and reach out.
Yes, and what a great thing that could be. We need to gather and talk, listen, speak up and reach out, and I hope folks will cook up all sorts of excuses for that--group photos or whatever. Let's do it!
As one observant colleague mentioned, this gathering could in no way represent the extensive and varied "New York dance community" since, for one thing, it was scheduled for Sunday matinee time. Ooops! Still, when I later took a look at the photos from similar projects held in Berlin and Cairo, I felt pretty good about our numbers and our overall congenial, collegial spirit. New York, you've really got it going on!
So let's call ourselves a community of communities and be out, loud and proud about it.
By the way, if you're curious about the conceptual nature of the Dance Community Picture New York, check out Sarma's What is A Community Picture?--although I have to tell you that this is the type of language that makes me nearly tear out what's left of my nearly nonexistent hair. Had I stopped to read this before I showed up on Sunday, I might have stayed home and listened to the Yankees instead. Here's a sample:
7. Community revisited: cultural critique and resuscitation
In recent socio-political literature notions such as the 'multitude' have gained currency to depict structures of self-organisation and possible political resistance. Authors in the line of Toni Negri, Michael Hardt and Paulo Virno are eager to divest these `groupings´ from a transcendental and common denominator since such a ‘unifier’ would take precedence over the fundamental and immanent differences of singular people, who resist categorization into `one´ entity. In such discourses ‘multitude’ is not on a par with ‘community’. While the former is seen as resisting hierarchy and transcendentalism, the latter is considered to do just that: to subordinate singularities to sameness, identity or the identical.
Notwithstanding these attacks, the notion of community keeps reoccuring and keeps a strong foothold. The question is not only why it relentlessly returns, often in celebratory ways, but also how we can, instead of burrying the notion of community altogether, have it haunts us as an open question. How can we recuperate the radical potential of community through a process of cultural analysis and critique? How can we avoid the trap of romanticization of community while staying alert to the forces that are helpful when looking for ways to intervene in the enactment of exploitations.
"Fetishizing community only makes us blind to the ways we might intervene in the enactment of domination and exploitation. I see the practice of critique, and in particular a critical relationship to community, as an ethical practice of community, as an important mode of participation" (ix).
(Miranda Joseph, Beyond the Romance of Multiculturalism: Radicalizing Difference and Community in Cultural Studies, 2002)
Please... Does this language represent me and most of the people I know (inside or outside of dance)? No. However, I do see the "radical potential" of this community. I feel it. Feels real good, too.
I felt our radical outsider-ness and the way that we inhabit New York and feed New York (and the world) with radical creativity. I felt the goodness of our energy as an enduring, positive, forward-moving force.
I do like the way Sarma's list of items ends:
10. More than a parade?
Could The Dance Community Picture in New York City on September 23rd be more than a ‘Hurray-we-are-a-community-parade’, and facilitate occasions for people to gather and talk, listen, speak up and reach out.
Yes, and what a great thing that could be. We need to gather and talk, listen, speak up and reach out, and I hope folks will cook up all sorts of excuses for that--group photos or whatever. Let's do it!
Curious about Macaulay?
THE POETRY OF MOTION: BARNARD DANCE
WRITING DANCE
Admission: free
Tonight, 7:30pm at Barnard College, Julius Held Lecture Hall, 304 Barnard Hall. Broadway and 116th Street.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
A moment of silence, please...
...for Marcel Marceau, 84, who worked with the French Resistance and became the world's best-known master of mime. Read the New York Times obituary.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Whose dance is it, anyway?
Read TV Viewers Discover Dance, and the Debate is Joined, by Claudia La Rocco in today's New York Times.
New York Dance Community Photoshoot: Cool contest
How many people will attend the New York Dance Community Photoshoot this Sunday, 2 pm sharp, in Bryant Park?
The right answer wins a free massage!
Read more about the Community Pictures here or here.
CONTEST CONDITIONS:
1) Fill in your estimate in the subject-heading of an email (ie:"347 people", or "2013 people").
2) Send your reply to--by Sunday, September 23rd, 1pm--to dancecommunityphoto.newyorkcity@yahoo.com .
3) Send only one reply.
4) Estimates must be received by midnight.
5) The winning answer must be the exact or closest number.
6) The massage voucher will be sent to the winner.
Dance Community Picture New York 2007 is supported by Chez Bushwick (USA) and Sarma (Belgium)
Support for Chez Bushwick's 2007-2008 season is supported, in part, by the Cultural Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
With the support of The Flemish Ministry of culture, sports and media, department arts and heritage.
The right answer wins a free massage!
Read more about the Community Pictures here or here.
CONTEST CONDITIONS:
1) Fill in your estimate in the subject-heading of an email (ie:"347 people", or "2013 people").
2) Send your reply to--by Sunday, September 23rd, 1pm--to dancecommunityphoto.newyorkcity@yahoo.com .
3) Send only one reply.
4) Estimates must be received by midnight.
5) The winning answer must be the exact or closest number.
6) The massage voucher will be sent to the winner.
Dance Community Picture New York 2007 is supported by Chez Bushwick (USA) and Sarma (Belgium)
Support for Chez Bushwick's 2007-2008 season is supported, in part, by the Cultural Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
With the support of The Flemish Ministry of culture, sports and media, department arts and heritage.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
iLAB 2007 Artist in Residence Program
iLAND- interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance announces the public engagement of the iLAB 2007 Artist in Residence Program: The City From a Plants Perspective: Mapping NYC as Native Flora.
Collaborators:
Lise Brenner, Choreographer, NYC
Ulrich Lorimer, Curator, Native Plants, Brooklyn Botanical Garden, NYC
Katrina Simon, Landscape architect and visual artist, Sydney, Australia
Jonathan Zalben, Composer and sound artist, NYC.
iLAB 2007 is based on the concepts that most people organize their activities via mental maps (wait for the train here; get off in front of the stairs at 14th Street) and that maps are creative projects, capable of uncovering unseen aspects of even the most well-traveled landscape. Tracking native plants in New York City makes for an exponential rise in perceiving (and valuing) vacant lots, wind and migratory bird patterns, and some of the city’s many obscured histories. iLAB 2007 uses the presence of poplars, pokeweed, and Indian hemp as the horticultural trigger for movement-based, sound-based, and design-based data collection about the urban habitats of these and other native plants. Join iLAB 2007 on one or both excursions to the outermost edges of the outer boroughs for creative field study and collective map-making.
Dates, Times, Location:
12 – 5pm Sunday, September 30, 2007 at Floyd Bennett Field / Ryan Visitor’s Center and 4 – 7pm Friday, October 5, 2007 at Coney Island / Nathan’s
Events are FREE and open to the general public and will happen rain or shine.
Directions and Transportation:
Floyd Bennett Field: 2 to Flatbush Avenue/Brooklyn College, then Q35 bus to the Ryan Visitor’s Center/Aviator Sports Complex. We will meet inside the Ryan Visitor’s Center. For more information on Floyd Bennett Field, see www.nyharborparks.org/visit/flbe.html
BIKE: Greenway (Class I bike route) along Flatbush Ave.
CAR: Take Belt Parkway to Exit 11S, then Flatbush Ave south.
Coney Island: D, F, N, Q to Stillwell Avenue. Follow the exit signs to Surf Avenue. You will see Nathan’s across the street. We will gather at the seating to the right of the food services.
For more information, click here or call 212-375-8283.
iLAND is a not for profit organization conceived and formed by choreographer Jennifer Monson in 2004. The organization’s mission is to investigate 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.
iLAB 2007 is supported in part by the Robison Foundation.
Jennifer Monson
Artistic Director
iLAND-interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance
Collaborators:
Lise Brenner, Choreographer, NYC
Ulrich Lorimer, Curator, Native Plants, Brooklyn Botanical Garden, NYC
Katrina Simon, Landscape architect and visual artist, Sydney, Australia
Jonathan Zalben, Composer and sound artist, NYC.
iLAB 2007 is based on the concepts that most people organize their activities via mental maps (wait for the train here; get off in front of the stairs at 14th Street) and that maps are creative projects, capable of uncovering unseen aspects of even the most well-traveled landscape. Tracking native plants in New York City makes for an exponential rise in perceiving (and valuing) vacant lots, wind and migratory bird patterns, and some of the city’s many obscured histories. iLAB 2007 uses the presence of poplars, pokeweed, and Indian hemp as the horticultural trigger for movement-based, sound-based, and design-based data collection about the urban habitats of these and other native plants. Join iLAB 2007 on one or both excursions to the outermost edges of the outer boroughs for creative field study and collective map-making.
Dates, Times, Location:
12 – 5pm Sunday, September 30, 2007 at Floyd Bennett Field / Ryan Visitor’s Center and 4 – 7pm Friday, October 5, 2007 at Coney Island / Nathan’s
Events are FREE and open to the general public and will happen rain or shine.
Directions and Transportation:
Floyd Bennett Field: 2 to Flatbush Avenue/Brooklyn College, then Q35 bus to the Ryan Visitor’s Center/Aviator Sports Complex. We will meet inside the Ryan Visitor’s Center. For more information on Floyd Bennett Field, see www.nyharborparks.org/visit/flbe.html
BIKE: Greenway (Class I bike route) along Flatbush Ave.
CAR: Take Belt Parkway to Exit 11S, then Flatbush Ave south.
Coney Island: D, F, N, Q to Stillwell Avenue. Follow the exit signs to Surf Avenue. You will see Nathan’s across the street. We will gather at the seating to the right of the food services.
For more information, click here or call 212-375-8283.
iLAND is a not for profit organization conceived and formed by choreographer Jennifer Monson in 2004. The organization’s mission is to investigate 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.
iLAB 2007 is supported in part by the Robison Foundation.
Jennifer Monson
Artistic Director
iLAND-interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance
We oughta be in pictures!
An announcement from Chez Bushwick
Do you consider yourself a part of the New York City dance community?
Attend a photoshoot on Sunday, September 23, 2007, 2pm SHARP, at Bryant Park, Northeast Quadrant.
Dancers, Choreographers, Teachers, Administrators, Producers, Critics, Audience Members, Patrons, Technicians, Composers, Collaborators, AND ANYONE INVOLVED WITH DANCE
For further information, click on Chez Bushwick (USA) or Sarma (Belgium), the event's co-producers.
Support for Chez Bushwick's 2007-2008 season is supported, in part, by the Cultural Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
With the support of The Flemish Ministry of culture, sports and media, department arts and heritage.
Do you consider yourself a part of the New York City dance community?
Attend a photoshoot on Sunday, September 23, 2007, 2pm SHARP, at Bryant Park, Northeast Quadrant.
Dancers, Choreographers, Teachers, Administrators, Producers, Critics, Audience Members, Patrons, Technicians, Composers, Collaborators, AND ANYONE INVOLVED WITH DANCE
For further information, click on Chez Bushwick (USA) or Sarma (Belgium), the event's co-producers.
Support for Chez Bushwick's 2007-2008 season is supported, in part, by the Cultural Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
With the support of The Flemish Ministry of culture, sports and media, department arts and heritage.
Congratulations are in order!
clipped from www.dtw.org
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Congratulations to all of our 2007 New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards winners. You do us proud! (Click here for list of recipients as well as links to full citation and bio details and a list of prior winners.)
And big hugs to my fellow Bessie Awards nomination committee members* for being such a smart and remarkably congenial team this year. Serving on this dynamic committee for my second year has been a stimulating experience, and I look forward to my coming year of service, which will conclude my term.
The sight of everyone last night at the Joyce Theater gave me good cheer. And now to everyone who makes dance or loves dance, I wish a very happy, rewarding new season.
Love,
Eva :-)
(*Co-chairs: Carla Peterson, Laurie Uprichard and Martin Wechsler; Wayne Ashley, Elise Bernhardt, Lili Chopra, Rachel Cooper, Joan Finklestein, Vallejo Gantner, Stephen Greco, Iréne Hultman, Nicky Paraiso, David Parker, Georgianna Pickett, Yoko Shioya, Sally Sommer, Ivan Sygoda, Charmaine Warren, Marýa Wethers, Eva Yaa Asantewaa and Susan Yung.)
Friday, September 14, 2007
Wade and Twist go for the gut
Jeremy Wade's new show in the close quarters of Joyce SoHo this week (...and pulled out their hair) got me in the gut. That's nothing new. Most people find Wade's unrelentingly spastic, grotesque choreography viscerally wrenching. But what really set me off this time was one dancer's horrendous, nearly endless sobbing wail. Humans must be hardwired to respond at gut level to an enormous expression of distress like this--or perhaps it was just me. It was inescapably horrifying and exhausting to listen to her. It's important for certain artists to show us anti-beauty and rip us out of our security, and Wade has brilliantly devised ways to do so. As others have noted, his own uprooting from the U.S.--he now lives and works in Berlin--seems to fit what he's about. The season concludes this Sunday with an 8pm performance.
Master puppet theater artist Basil Twist's Bessie Award-winning Dogugaeshi has returned to Japan Society, running now through September 22. I was entranced by layer after layer after layer of painted screens, each one parting and sliding and revealing the next layer behind it, seemingly without end. I was charmed by the tilting, dancing candles and the all-too-elusive white fox with the huge, almond-shaped eyes. But what really got me in the gut was the twist at the end--which I won't give away, on the chance that it might just grip you the way that it gripped me and move you to tears. I am in awe of this artist.
Master puppet theater artist Basil Twist's Bessie Award-winning Dogugaeshi has returned to Japan Society, running now through September 22. I was entranced by layer after layer after layer of painted screens, each one parting and sliding and revealing the next layer behind it, seemingly without end. I was charmed by the tilting, dancing candles and the all-too-elusive white fox with the huge, almond-shaped eyes. But what really got me in the gut was the twist at the end--which I won't give away, on the chance that it might just grip you the way that it gripped me and move you to tears. I am in awe of this artist.
Let's be indulgent
Dance critic Tobi Tobias reminisces about her early encounter with two of her first loves--ballet and sewing thread--in Thread: Personal Indulgences No. 2, part of a series running monthly for a year on her SEEING THINGS blog site.
Funny thing: As a child, I had the same fascination with and fondness for the gleaming colors of sewing thread collections--not individual spools--and the same lack of interest in sewing itself!
Check back periodically for more of Tobi's writing on indulgences and--what is it? dance?--at ArtsJournal.com.
Funny thing: As a child, I had the same fascination with and fondness for the gleaming colors of sewing thread collections--not individual spools--and the same lack of interest in sewing itself!
Check back periodically for more of Tobi's writing on indulgences and--what is it? dance?--at ArtsJournal.com.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Only the great know Brooklyn
In this video interview, Jonah Bokaer of Chez Bushwick talks with blogger Doug Fox of GreatDance.com.
Dancing Tableaux Vivants
Literature and art scholar Arden Reed and Bill T. Jones will present "Dancing Tableaux Vivants" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Wednesday, January 16, 2008. Time: 6pm
Admission: $23
In a speed-driven and visually saturated culture, how do we slow down long enough to have meaningful encounters with aesthetic objects? This presentation examines strategies visual artists use to prolong our gaze. An accompanying performance will explore the spaces between motion and stillness.
Admission: $23
In a speed-driven and visually saturated culture, how do we slow down long enough to have meaningful encounters with aesthetic objects? This presentation examines strategies visual artists use to prolong our gaze. An accompanying performance will explore the spaces between motion and stillness.
An enthusiastic launch!
Founding Creators (Proud Parents): Will Arnold and Christine Jowers
Dear Friends of Christine Jowers
and Moving Arts Projects...
We are very excited to announce the birth
of a new MOVING ARTS PROJECT!
The Dance Enthusiast is a place on the web where dancers and all people who love the moving arts can get together to learn and share stories about this great field.
It is a place where conversations can start.
This week we are featuring articles on two very talented artists: Briana Blasko (dance photographer) and Larry Keigwin (choreographer working with The Martha Graham Dance Company on a new piece).
We created this site because we love dancers and want to be a positive voice in the dance community.
Since we are in the beginning stages of this project, we will continually add new articles and play with our offerings until we "officially" launch.
Come visit us.
Give us your feedback.
It takes a village to launch a new project.
Happy Fall Dance Season!
Christine and Will
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Saturday, September 8, 2007
These Women Werrrk!
This Woman's Work: Part 3 is a two-hour-plus program that's bursting at the seams with talent. If you love Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, you'll want to see TWW3 because so many bright lights who have graced that troupe and more are in evidence here at Harlem Stage at Aaron Davis Hall (135th Street and Convent Avenue), both as dancemakers and as performers. Tonight's your last chance to go. And do go. Last evening, there were plenty of seats available for you, and that's too bad because the point of This Woman's Work--the brainchild of co-directors Bridget L. Moore and Princess Mhoon Cooper--is to give much-needed attention to emerging women choreographers of the African diaspora. These women ought to be seen anywhere and everywhere that dance is welcomed and supported; all of our artistic minds need to be working together and learning from one another.
The program--which opens with a showy danced introduction to all of the choreographers--includes ensemble pieces by Cooper, Francine Elizabeth Ott, Shani Nwando Ikerioha Collins (who bills herself here as SNIC) and Makeda Thomas. The incomparable Camille A. Brown dances her solo to music by Ella Fitzgerald, Betty Carter and Nancy Wilson. Ursula Payne's duet had to be cut because Payne had worsened a back injury sustained earlier in the week.
The ensemble works by Moore and Ott, although handsomely performed, suffered from a similar reliance and emphasis on big, bustling abstract movement in tiresome unison. "Please, let's see a solo," I thought (and voiced to the colleague sitting beside me). "Something focused, quiet, small, a lot of small, specific, intricate, absorbing things--just as a challenge. Show us what else you can do." No sooner did I wish that than Brown breezed onto the stage, a hat dipped low over her eyes, and launched into The Evolution of A Secured Feminine. (What a title! But, by the end of this tour de force, you understand it.) It certainly could not be called quiet or small, but it had lots of tiny, vivid treasures, specific, focused movements danced with frightening control and pieced together like letters tapped out on a keyboard by a speed-demon-typist-with-attitude, and the message was "Don't fuck with me, sucker!" I adored this dance, and so did the audience who could not get enough of Brown.
Collins, my other Ron Brown favorite, brought something I don't recall witnessing on a dance stage: the deep sobbing of a woman releasing years of pain followed swiftly by the lilting, healing reverberation of women's laughter. Her quartet, Don't Live Here Go, is a sacred ritual of cleansing, supported by one's sisters on the path. It has singing, bold dancing and attractive theatrical design--in particular, the mound of straw, dispensed from white satin pillows, that makes a lovely shushing sound as dancers pass through it--but some parts lose focus where it's hard to tell exactly what's going on and why.
Inspired by the words of Mozambican women with HIV/AIDS, Thomas's A Sense of Place achieves the rare successful blending of humanistic feeling and meaning with sophisticated visual style. The movement seamlessly combines African and modern influences. Thomas is, herself, a dancer of serious interest and brings out integrity in her partners Khaleah London and Collins. Clearly Thomas learned many discomforting truths from the women she interviewed for her original video. However, with the sure touch of a poet, she has distilled this into just enough telling words, just enough flashes of video imagery--all of these appearing only to fade away--to create a balanced atmosphere for the dancing trio. The piece--which I saw in an earlier version--has been evolving for a while and might have a bit further to go. In any case, Thomas is a choreographer well worth keeping in sight.
It's hard to say which W of TWW has the boldest vision, but Cooper is certainly a contender with her Dangerous Liaisons--social satire of the sassiest, most acidic variety. Theatrical with a big T--thank you!--this piece rips the polite covers off a trio of well-to-do couples at a dinner party served by three maids. Clever choreography, dancing and acting make this a sure bet for audiences, although I wondered how best to respond to what I was being shown--with derision? judgment? horror? sadness? Is it really funny to watch a wife mime stuffing herself with food, really scarfing it down in defiance of her husband and then dancing in such a wrenching way you fear she'll mime barfing? Or to watch another husband and wife bicker and fight (only to slip off to a bedroom to make up--for the moment)? The only scenario I enjoyed involved the wife who kept slipping out of her husband's watch to go dance with the maids. Yeah! Way more fun! You go, girl!
For tickets for tonight's TWW3 show at 7:30, visit Harlem Stage's Web page.
The program--which opens with a showy danced introduction to all of the choreographers--includes ensemble pieces by Cooper, Francine Elizabeth Ott, Shani Nwando Ikerioha Collins (who bills herself here as SNIC) and Makeda Thomas. The incomparable Camille A. Brown dances her solo to music by Ella Fitzgerald, Betty Carter and Nancy Wilson. Ursula Payne's duet had to be cut because Payne had worsened a back injury sustained earlier in the week.
The ensemble works by Moore and Ott, although handsomely performed, suffered from a similar reliance and emphasis on big, bustling abstract movement in tiresome unison. "Please, let's see a solo," I thought (and voiced to the colleague sitting beside me). "Something focused, quiet, small, a lot of small, specific, intricate, absorbing things--just as a challenge. Show us what else you can do." No sooner did I wish that than Brown breezed onto the stage, a hat dipped low over her eyes, and launched into The Evolution of A Secured Feminine. (What a title! But, by the end of this tour de force, you understand it.) It certainly could not be called quiet or small, but it had lots of tiny, vivid treasures, specific, focused movements danced with frightening control and pieced together like letters tapped out on a keyboard by a speed-demon-typist-with-attitude, and the message was "Don't fuck with me, sucker!" I adored this dance, and so did the audience who could not get enough of Brown.
Collins, my other Ron Brown favorite, brought something I don't recall witnessing on a dance stage: the deep sobbing of a woman releasing years of pain followed swiftly by the lilting, healing reverberation of women's laughter. Her quartet, Don't Live Here Go, is a sacred ritual of cleansing, supported by one's sisters on the path. It has singing, bold dancing and attractive theatrical design--in particular, the mound of straw, dispensed from white satin pillows, that makes a lovely shushing sound as dancers pass through it--but some parts lose focus where it's hard to tell exactly what's going on and why.
Inspired by the words of Mozambican women with HIV/AIDS, Thomas's A Sense of Place achieves the rare successful blending of humanistic feeling and meaning with sophisticated visual style. The movement seamlessly combines African and modern influences. Thomas is, herself, a dancer of serious interest and brings out integrity in her partners Khaleah London and Collins. Clearly Thomas learned many discomforting truths from the women she interviewed for her original video. However, with the sure touch of a poet, she has distilled this into just enough telling words, just enough flashes of video imagery--all of these appearing only to fade away--to create a balanced atmosphere for the dancing trio. The piece--which I saw in an earlier version--has been evolving for a while and might have a bit further to go. In any case, Thomas is a choreographer well worth keeping in sight.
It's hard to say which W of TWW has the boldest vision, but Cooper is certainly a contender with her Dangerous Liaisons--social satire of the sassiest, most acidic variety. Theatrical with a big T--thank you!--this piece rips the polite covers off a trio of well-to-do couples at a dinner party served by three maids. Clever choreography, dancing and acting make this a sure bet for audiences, although I wondered how best to respond to what I was being shown--with derision? judgment? horror? sadness? Is it really funny to watch a wife mime stuffing herself with food, really scarfing it down in defiance of her husband and then dancing in such a wrenching way you fear she'll mime barfing? Or to watch another husband and wife bicker and fight (only to slip off to a bedroom to make up--for the moment)? The only scenario I enjoyed involved the wife who kept slipping out of her husband's watch to go dance with the maids. Yeah! Way more fun! You go, girl!
For tickets for tonight's TWW3 show at 7:30, visit Harlem Stage's Web page.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Arts and the nation
My thanks to dancer-choreographer Jill Sigman for sharing the following link:
To listen to the excerpt, click here.
President John F. Kennedy: Remarks at Amherst College, October 26, 1963
The following is an excerpt from a speech given by President John F. Kennedy on October 26, 1963 at Amherst College in Massachusetts, in honor of the poet Robert Frost. Frost had died in January of that year. In this speech, President Kennedy made clear the need for a nation to represent itself not only through its strength but also through its art and as he said, "full recognition of the place of the artist."To listen to the excerpt, click here.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Screening: Merce Cunningham
There will be a free screening of Beach Bird for Camera and Cage/Cunningham at the Bruno Walter Auditorium, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, introduced with commentary by filmmaker Elliot Caplan on Monday, September 24, at 2PM.
Bruno Walter Auditorium, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza (directions)
Related Exhibition: Invention: Merce Cunningham & Collaborators
Admission to all programs is free and generally first come, first served, although tickets are occasionally required. When tickets are required, it will be noted in the individual listings. For information, call (212) 642-0142 or e-mail lpaprog@nypl.org. Programs are subject to change or cancellation without notice. For Monday programs, use Library entrance at 111 Amsterdam Avenue, just south of 65th Street.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Resource for fans of world dance
Tons of resources for fans of world music and world dance--including dance schools and a glossary of dance forms--are available at World Music Central.