Bright greetings: A blazing 2008

Thanks so much for your support of InfiniteBody blog and Body and Soul podcast. In 2008, may our passion for dance light up the world. Wishing you all the best in the new year!

Eva :-)



Firedancer Antonio Fini in a scene from Alessandra Belloni's Tarantella--Spider Dance, Theater for the New City, December 2007

Dance Film Wins Baghdad Festival

from Arts, Briefly, The New York Times, December 31, 2007

"The French short film 'La Danse, l’Art de la Rencontre' ('Dance and the Art of Encounters') won first prize at the first Baghdad international film festival held in the Iraqi capital since 2005, Agence France-Presse reported. Directed by Domenica Hervieu, the documentary is a poetic exploration of the world of dance. Tight security surrounded the festival, held at the Palestine Hotel, where 63 films from around the world were screened."

Mac Low observes Linyekula

Clarinda Mac Low begins the investigation with a work by Congolese choreographer, Faustin Linyekula. See her blog at Critical Correspondence.

Flamenco: Keepin' it real

New Book Flamencos de Gañanía Looks at Historical "Real" Flamenco Venues
reviewed on World Music Central

The Turning World (8)

Chile's Rising Waters and Frozen Avocados
by Antonio Skarmeta, The New York Times, December 23, 2007

The Turning World (7)

The Ink Fades on a Profession as India Modernizes
by Anand Giridharadas, The New York Times, December 26, 2007

Chris Elam of Misnomer Dance Theater

Chris Elam, the first recipient of the new Summer Stages Dance/Baryshnikov Arts Center residency, is truly a dance artist for the 21st Century--a brilliant, probing maker of dance that expresses the protean nature of the human body, mind, and spirit; an explorer of the myriad ways in which people communicate; and an innovator of Internet community-building and artistic marketing. In September 2007, I had a wide-ranging talk with Elam, founder and artistic director of Misnomer Dance Theater, about the origins and intent of his unusually powerful choreography and about his latest and upcoming projects.

Update: Chris invites you to vote for Misnomer Dance Theater, a finalist in the IdeaBlob contest with a proposal to build online tools for the dance world. For more information and to cast your vote, see http://www.ideablob.com/ideas/
906-Impact-the-arts-Enable-perform.

Subscribe to Body and Soul podcast at http://magickaleva.hipcast.com/rss/bodyandsoul.xml.

(c)2007, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

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Yoko Shioya, Artistic Director, Japan Society

Last summer, as Japan Society celebrated its centennial, I spoke with artistic director, Yoko Shioya, at the Society’s beautiful center on East 47th Street in Manhattan. She shared her thoughts on the far-ranging influence of contemporary Japanese performing arts and on the origins and significance of butoh.

Update: Japan Society will present its annual Contemporary Dance Showcase (January 11-12, 2008), featuring cutting-edge dance from Japan and, for the first time, East Asia. For more information, visit http://www.japansociety.org/dance_topic.

Subscribe to Body and Soul podcast at http://magickaleva.hipcast.com/rss/bodyandsoul.xml.

(c)2007, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

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Baryshnikov braves Beckett

A Master of Motion Learns Lessons of Inspired Immobility
by Patricia Cohen, The New York Times, December 25, 2007

Michael Kidd, Broadway and Hollywood Choreographer, Dead at 92

Michael Kidd, Choreographer, Dies

by Patricia Eliot Tobias, The New York Times, December 24, 2007

Saretta talk on Ancient Egyptian fashion

On Wednesday, December 26, noted Middle Eastern dancer Phyllis Saretta will present Fashion in Ancient Egypt: Clothing, Cosmetics, Coiffures, a gallery talk at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The talk will examine ancient Egyptian fashion and its transitions--from the severe to the frivolous--through shirts, sandals, mirrors, kohl tubes, razors, jewelry, wigs and hair ornaments.

Meet at:

Gallery Talk Stanchion
Great Hall, MMA
Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street

This event is free with museum admission. Click here for admission prices, directions and other visitor information.

Farewell to the Baryshnikov of Argentina

Throngs cheer Julio Bocca's last dance
by Bill Cormier, Associated Press

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Argentine ballet great Julio Bocca danced into retirement Saturday before tens of thousands of cheering fans, ending a brilliant quarter-century run on the world's most famous stages.

Happy Winter Solstice!

Wishing you all a beautiful holiday season and every blessing of the coming year. Please enjoy this remarkable story!

Eva

clipped from www.youtube.com

"Looking for the perfect beat..." and finding it

Full Circle--those endearing hip-hop dancers, Kwikstep and Rokafella--are showing a new version of their popular Innaviews, directed by Gamal Chasten, at Dance Theater Workshop now through Saturday evening, and the update works. It's a two-person show now with lots more of the full-out dancing for which this married couple is rightly acclaimed. It's partly a wry look at how mainstream media and the entertainment industry get hip-hop all wrong and a tender account of the spark and flight of a love relationship (and working partnership) that's still going strong. It lovingly and deftly traces the history of a couple and a culture undergoing change.

The show engages the audience from its very first moments. Full Circle and their creative team have added new visual elements--clever sets and set-like backdrops, videos and photos--and they have more sharply focused their spoken word segments, stories and comedic vignettes. But they also let their versatile hip-hop dancing do much of the talking, and that dancing speaks with conviction.

For more information and ticketing, click on Dance Theater Workshop. And check out Full Circle's home site here.

Make the most of APAP with The Field

Making the Most of APAP workshop with Jodi Kaplan at The Field

Wednesday, January 9, 6:30-9pm -- $35 ($25 for Field Members)

Find out how to get the most out of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters' national booking conference held January 12-15, 2008.

Special tips will include how to make connections with presenters and best present your work during the conference. Participants can be registered for the upcoming conference, considering future participation, or simply looking for ways to take advantage of this weekend of mega-networking.

Also note: This is officially the last workshop of the 'Fall07' season. If you already purchased four workshops this fall, then this one is on The Field!

The Field
161 Sixth Ave, 14th Floor (at Spring Street)
212-691-6969

Scherr on that Buenos Aires sizzle

'Tango Fire' sizzles at the Joyce Theater
by Apollinaire Scherr, Newsday.com, December 18, 2007

Camille A. Brown

In September, I visited with Camille A. Brown, who had recently made a huge impression as the choreographer and performer of her solo, The Evolution of A Secured Feminine, on a program of choreography by Black women called This Woman's Work. We talked about the steady evolution of her remarkable career. She has won rave reviews for her appearances with Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, and now she has premiered a delightful and well-received ensemble piece with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, one of the world's most celebrated dance troupes, during its 2007 season at City Center. Camille is a young artistic star on the rise.

For information on the Ailey season at City Center, visit www.alvinailey.org.

Subscribe to Body and Soul podcast at http://magickaleva.hipcast.com/rss/bodyandsoul.xml.

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Miguel Gutierrez

Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People will reprise "Everyone" at Dance Theater Workshop, Jan 14 -15. Here's an interview I conducted with Bessie Award-winning choreographer Miguel Gutierrez last summer.

Somewhere in the middle of my interview with Miguel, I realized that I could listen to him talk forever. (I've had that feeling about watching his dances, too!) Even after we wrapped up our recording, we kept talking, and he never ran out of interesting and vital things to say about art, community and the often sorry state of discourse on dance. I definitely want to talk with Miguel again, and I'm delighted to share with you today some insight into his life and work.

For more information and tickets to the January performances at DTW, visit http://www.dancetheaterworkshop.org/Gutierrez.

Subscribe to Body and Soul podcast at http://magickaleva.hipcast.com/rss/bodyandsoul.xml.

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Big Tribble Trouble at Danspace Project

clipped from www.nytimes.com

(photo: Paramount Pictures)

Yvonne Meier's inspiration, perhaps?

Captain Kirk, you haven't begun to have tribble troubles!

Sara Nash reports on New Orleans

Back from New Orleans
by Sara Nash, Associate Producer, Dance Theater Workshop

Tap City's Tony Waag

I'm convinced that Tony Waag is one of those people put on earth to help me find my smile when I most need it, and I'm not alone in this feeling. Everyone who has ever seen Tap City loves Tony, its producer, director and often goofily-charming MC.

As artistic and executive director of the American Tap Dance Foundation, Tony has a broad perspective on all facets of this art--from its rich history to its modern revival, dynamic present and future possibilities. In August 2007, I ran into Tony at a Lincoln Center Out of Doors show where we watched Roxane Butterfly and her tap company, Worldbeats. We agreed to meet again and talk tap.

For more information about ATDF and its programs, visit http://www.atdf.org.

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Ayodele Casel and Jason Samuels-Smith

An interview with tap superstars, producers and educators Ayodele Casel and Jason Samuels Smith (July 2007)

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Tappy Holidays 2007--Symphony Space

Last night, a buddy and I went to the “Tappy Holidays” show at Symphony Space. We were both a little leery about it because neither one of us is particularly into Christmas music, and this was going to be a tap dance show featuring nothing but Christmas music. Here's how things turned out!

For more on "Tappy Holidays" and its co-producers--Ayodele Casel and Sarah Savelli--visit http://tandemact.homestead.com, http://www.ayodelecasel.com and
http://www.sarahsavelli.com.

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Alessandra Belloni--Magic of Southern Italy

I conducted this interview in July with Alessandra Belloni about her work with the tarantella and other ritual folk dance and music of Southern Italy. See her "Spider Dance" show at Theater for the New City, December 21-23, 2007. Visit http://www.alessandrabelloni.com.

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Body and Soul dance podcast returns

I'm delighted to announce that Body and Soul will return as the official podcast of InfiniteBody dance blog, with archived interviews of dancers, choreographers and other advocates for dance as well as brand new material, including occasional reviews and commentary. Now independently produced, Body and Soul episodes will be available through this blog and downloadable through iTunes.

You'll find an interview I conducted this summer with musician and dancer Alessandra Belloni about her work with the tarantella and other ritual folk dance and music of Southern Italy. Alessandra will be bringing her "Spider Dance" show to Theater for the New City, December 21-23.

To subscribe to the new Body and Soul podcast, click here:

The Self-Righting Object

The Self-Righting Object
by Clive Thompson, The New York Times
December 9, 2007

"It leans off to one side, rocks to and fro as if gathering strength and then, presto, tips itself back into a 'standing' position as if by magic."

Henrietta Yurchenco, Pioneer Folklorist, Dies at 91

Henrietta Yurchenco, Pioneer Folklorist, Dies at 91
by Douglas Martin, The New York Times, December 14, 2007

"Ms. Yurchenco’s quest to save living music from the past took her from the mountains of Guatemala and southern Mexico to a New York City radio station to the Jewish community of Morocco."

Learn more about Henrietta Yurchenco's work at this web site devoted to her life and work.

A documentary on NYCB's Jock Soto

Water Flowing Together, a portrait of ballet dancer Jock Soto by producer-director Gwendolen Cates, is sure to be one of the brightest jewels in the upcoming Dance on Camera Festival (January 2-6, 11, 18, 19), co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Dance Films Association. Speaking at a festival preview for educators from the New York City public school system last evening, Cates presented a trailer for her film, which explores Soto's illustrious 24-year career with the New York City Ballet, his Navajo-Puerto Rican family background and his open identity as a gay man. The 77-minute documentary--which bears the name of Soto's Navajo clan--is Cates's debut as a filmmaker and it promises to be a graceful entrance.

Along with DFA's artistic director Deirdre Towers, Cates announced screenings of Water Flowing Together at the New York State Theater (January 7) and the Walter Reade Theater (January 11 and 18). It will also be shown, in a shorter version, on PBS in April 2008. For further information about the Dance on Camera screenings and complete details about the festival--which includes everything from Russian ballet and Pina Bausch to hip hop and pop video, click here.

Read more about Gwendolen Cates here and about Soto and the film here.

Performing Arts Library Awarded Major Grant

The $1 million grant, awarded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, will provide for the recording of performances and oral histories as well as the preservation of fragile tapes related to the life and work of Martha Graham.

Performing Arts Library Awarded Major Grant
Arts, Briefly, The New York Times, December 13, 2007

Clarinda Mac Low takes the imperfect leap

"When I watch performance, usually the first thing that strikes me is the way the performers are present—not where they are, or what they’re doing, but how they are. This most intangible of the many intangibles of this here-for-now-then-gone-again form is the first 'idea' I take away. How do you exist? The performer does it while being watched, but in that moment of being a conduit for presence, what is passed on?"

Read Clarinda Mac Low's new blog--Taking the Imperfect Leap--on Critical Correspondence.

Another strong candidate for mascot

Speaking of dance critics, check this out today at Disapproving Rabbits!

Critics tell it like it is

My December 5th blog essay about taking friends to dance concerts has generated a lot of fun in the dance blogosphere. Apollinaire Scherr and Tonya Plank chime in at Foot in Mouth, and your participation is invited. And my buddy and former editor Tobi Tobias courageously takes the wraps off a five-year-old essay the editor of The Dance Insider warned her against making public! It's brilliant, comprehensive and hilarious. A must-read!

Another candidate for InfiniteBody blog mascot!

Tiger Cub May Hold Future in His Paws
by Mike Aivaz, The Raw Story, December 6, 2007

And don't miss the BBC video at the bottom of this story!

The Turning World (6)

Fungus Once Again Threatens French Caves
by Marlise Simons, The New York Times, December 9, 2007

"No consensus has emerged among experts over whether the invading patches of gray and black mold are the result of climate change or other factors."

Dancing prayers

Dunya (Dunya Dianne McPherson), of the Sufi-practicing Dervish Society of America, calls DSA's performance branch Dunyati Alembic, referring to the distillation vessel used in alchemical processes. Last evening, the group demonstrated the quiet, soul-stirring beauty of their practice in an intimate presentation at the spacious and welcoming Metropolitan Building, formerly an electrical parts factory, in Long Island City, Queens. Highlights of Dance As Prayer, Body As Sensual Voice: An Evening of Dancemeditation and Spiritual Bellydance included dreamy solos by Dunya (Thread, with violinist Annemarie Wiesner) and Zahava Griss (the modern dance-infused Untitled, with its Puccini aria sung gracefully by Rebecca Lee Lerman). All in all, Dunyati Alembic--which also includes Kate Temple-West, Anita Teresa, Stephanie Rudloe and Nisaa Christie--offered an evening of inspired and inspiring loveliness, capped off with an invitation to the audience to get up and shake a tail feather or two.

For information on future programs of DSA and Dunyati Alembic, click here.

Late-night C.L.U.E. show added tonight

This just in from Performance Space 122: Due to popular demand, you'll get an additional shot at robbinschild's C.L.U.E. tonight (Friday) at 10:30pm. Click here for my review and here for the complete schedule and ticketing details.

The Turning World (5)

A Bundle of Joy Isn't Enough?
by Thomas Vinciguerra, The New York Times, December 6, 2007

36th Annual Dance on Camera Festival announced

The Dance Films Association announces its 36th annual Dance on Camera Festival, co-sponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. From January 2nd through 19th, the festival will screen fourteen programs at the Walter Reade Theatre, Lincoln Center. Tickets sales begin December 16. For complete schedule and ticketing information, including member discounts, visit DFA’s site.

On Wednesday, December 12, attend a free festival preview at the offices of United Federation of Teachers/NYC, 52 Broadway, 6th Floor Conference Room, 5:30-7:30pm. RSVP to info@dancefilms.org.

Got a C.L.U.E. for you

Like most relatively sane people, I dread crowded subways and cramped airline seats and, for a brief moment last night, I had my attitude on when I was crammed into the middle of a row of tightly-packed seats in Performance Space 122's downtown theater for C.L.U.E. This roughly hour-long work is a new incarnation of a traveling performance and installation piece by robbinschilds (Sonya Robbins and Layla Childs) and frequent collaborators AJ Blandford (set) and A.L. Steiner (who made the film with the duo). The lighting is by Joe Lavasseur.

The theater brimmed with patrons, and the last person to arrive in my row kept standing up and twisting around to see if the people she expected had finally arrived--they hadn't, and the entrance had already been closed--thus further invading my personal space with her winter coat, her large bag and her warm exhalations. As I waited for the performance to begin, I trained a leery eye on the smallish, identical video projections on two of the walls--a static scene of scruffy, uneven terrain--and on the mound of fake grey boulders wedged into one corner of the space. I didn't notice the lava debris and blond sand on the floor until later, but I did notice that Blandford had placed a representation of the natural world--albeit a tacky, ungainly one--in a theater, a temple of the artificial. The boulders took up much of the performance space and looked ominous and right-up-in-our-faces.

In addition, I had the sneaking suspicion that the score created and performed by Kinski (Chris Martin, Matthew Reid Schwartz, Barrett Wilke and Lucy Atkinson) would mean having to brave an aural onslaught from the left side of the space. (They like that sort of thing at PS 122.) I wasn't wrong about that escalation of hostilities, quite appropriate to the show's escalating exhilaration, but by the end of the evening, the band had made an unlikely new fan. I hadn't realized how enchanting, even sensuous at times, Kinski could be.

And I wasn't quite prepared for what Robbins and Childs had in mind, but their first entrance--and I think it's fair to call it that--warmed me to them and made me chuckle to myself. In the video, a couple of tiny, red-clad figures peeked out from the behind the rocks and sparse foliage and began to pick their way across the terrain, moving in and out of view. Such a small way to make a big entrance and, amid all that stillness, what a big impact that tinyness had! Although they were not physically present in the theater and were remotely situated in the video's environment, they seemed to be with us. And, no, I can't explain it any better than that. Trust me or see for yourself.

Inspired by travels along the backroads of Southern California, C.L.U.E. (color location ultimate experience) introduces us to two wild, mysterious women who, through their movements, live and on video, come to channel the formidably strong and violent forces of the natural (rocks, lake, sea) and artificial (highway) environment around them. Starting off as distant, miniscule figures in a video, who nevertheless seem palpably real, Robbins and Childs become forces of nature who rock the theater--and us--with their raw energy. And I'm upset now to learn that the Times's great art critic Holland Cotter got to call Robbins and Childs Thelma and Louise long before I did.

In the most practical sense, the "color" in "color location ultimate experience" refers to the pair's frequent costume changes--each featuring clothing of a single, deeply-saturated color--which, along with the shock of real sage smoke wafting through the air and the cranked up music put me in mind of the '60s. The piece unfolds before us like a tempting drug and like the effects of one.



See robbinschilds's C.L.U.E. at PS 122 tonight at 8:30pm through Saturday (with additional Friday and Saturday performances at 10:30pm). Click here for information and tickets.

Is it work? Or is it fun? Or is it both?

As I sat in City Center last night, writing some notes about the Ailey show, the fellow sitting to the left of me leaned over and laughingly asked, "Is it work? Or is it fun? Or is it both?"

"Oh, both!" I quickly chirped.

"If not," he replied, "poor you!"

Poor me, indeed. Sometimes, it is indeed work with no fun. Sometimes, it is so much fun that I wonder if it should be considered work. For the most part, though, I find this work fun and--far more than that--an incredible privilege. But his question amused me because, as it happens, I've been thinking about what I'm doing when I plop my butt down in front of dance, night after night. Am I working? Am I being entertained? Is it a breath mint? Is it a candy mint?

I've noticed how different it is for me to attend a dance concert alone or with a friend; I realize that, most often, I prefer to go alone. Why? Well, I am working, actually, and when I go with a buddy, part of me is taken up with the social nature of the occasion--all that catching up to do, all that laughter and chatter. I can think of numerous times when it was all I could do to take a quick, unsatisfactory glance at the program notes--let alone peruse the press kit--before the lights went down and the performance began. Not wanting to be rude, I could rarely find a tactful way to interject, "Look, sweetie, I've got to check out these details before the show gets underway. Let's revisit your job crisis at intermission."

But, when I go to a dance concert with a friend, there's a more serious concern, and it's all about satisfaction. What if my friend ends up hating the show? Or, maybe hate is too strong a word. What if they're baffled by it? Or maybe hate is the right word. After all, I once recommended a DTW show to a dear friend, and she took the initiative and went on her own--with a few of her close friends--and they all came away dissatisfied to the point of fury. She still speaks to me, but I never, ever mention the name of the choreographer in question--one I respect and usually enjoy. Over the past several months, I've taken another dear friend to a string of shows that he has almost always disliked, most often with good reason. As a friend, I feel like I've failed these people somehow. Oh, the guilt...the guilt!

Here's the crux of the matter: For me, it's work, and part of that work is keeping an open mind and taking each dance as it comes, and all manner of dance comes my way. But my friends--ah, my friends!--they're out on the town and hoping for a good time.

Wait! There's more! Some casual dance-goers twitch and fidget at the sight of the Ailey troupe; others twitch and fidget at the sight of anything under the Movement Research banner. Figuring out who to take to what for the best outcome can be a lot of work in itself, and this is a form of work (social direction) that I'm not getting paid to do.

And what about the folks who feel anxious about figuring out what they've just seen and how they feel about it, companions who look to me for definitive answers when I might not yet have any answers of my own? After all, I'm supposed to be the professional dance expert, right? (Please insert laugh track here.)

I've long since given up on inviting friends out to see dance who are--bottom line--not interested in dance at all. But my more progressive, artsy friends--and that covers pretty much everyone--who wouldn't necessarily seek out a dance show on their own or who are very picky about the kinds of dance they see? These are the ones whose ultimate happiness and well-being take up entirely too much space in my head.

Sitting next to some professional colleagues is a problem in a league of its own, one to be avoided if you want to concentrate and not feel the pressure to be witty and on top of things and absolutely sure of yourself. One thing that the Movement Research people, and their kind, have taught me is the worth of process, and coming into alignment with a dance I've just seen is as much a sensitive process as is the making of a dance. I have to give time time, as they say, and not rush to judgment. And I don't know it all.

So, is it work? Is it fun? Or is it both?

Poor me: I suspect, and I hope, it will always be both.

(c)2007, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Update: Read more from critics and bloggers Apollinaire Scherr, Tonya Plank and Tobi Tobias on this topic.

Vote for dance online

Chris Elam of Misnomer Dance Theater writes:

"I wanted to let you know about a new series of free tools that we are developing to serve the performing arts and to ask for your help in getting the word out about an opportunity that we have to win $10,000 to help us create them. If you can read the blurb below, and if you have a context to do so, share it, this would be greatly appreciated. The contest runs for all of December, but the votes between now and Dec 7th are the most important so if you can help spread the word in the next few days that would be especially appreciated. Thank you for your consideration. I send my best wishes!"

Misnomer Dance Theater has put together a proposal to build online tools for the dance world. Please take two minutes to vote for us on IdeaBlob to win $10,000 toward building these tools to share with dance and theater artists to help them increase bookings and revenue and give online audiences more engaging experiences. The web has created new opportunities for artists and we are asking you to help enable us to build these resources for the arts. This first round of voting ends December 7th, so we need you to support our idea on IdeaBlob today! With your vote and this $10k, we'll be creating exciting ways for people to discover arts online! Vote here.

What will Misnomer do if we win $10,000 for this idea?

Your vote will help us:

1) BUILD web-streaming capabilities for rehearsals enabling audiences to "attend" live rehearsals online and interact directly with artists.

2) CREATE an online theater in which visitors can watch and direct performances from multiple perspectives including back stage views, and performers' point of view via body mounted cameras.

3) DEVELOP tools to request and display the geography of artists online audiences. Venues in new cities can then have ready-made audience bases.

We hope these online tools will help transform artist's websites into sites of participation. We anticipate this will create great impact in the arts world!

VOTE FOR US on IdeaBlob (reg req'd)! Or, heck, register your own idea!

"For people who want to be better informed, the Internet itself is the key. For those who want to join the process, the Web is where we merely start." -- Dan Gillmor, We the Media

The Turning World (4)

clipped from www.youtube.com

ABT dancer dies in New Jersey car crash

ABT Dancer, Jennifer Alexander, Dies in Crash
Associated Press, December 4, 2007

Update:
A Ballet Love Story Comes to an End on an Icy Road
by Daniel J. Wakin, The New York Times, December 5, 2007

And here's the photo!

Please check out the wonderful photo I've added to Tara O'Con's essay on dancer-choreographer Ellis Wood. Click here. Thanks, Ellis!

The Turning World (3)

Dark One-Liners Shine a Light on the Mood of Serbs

by Dan Bilefsky, The New York Times, December 2, 2007

Serbs have used satire and dark humor to come to terms with decades of authoritarian rule. Now, the old art form is having a renaissance.

Gina Gibney Dance: The Distance Between Us

The Distance Between Us--the new piece by Gina Gibney, closing tonight at the Ailey Citigroup Theater--looks very much like a short story filled with characters engaged in shifting relationships. I can't tell you exactly what those relationships are, but this is the sort of work that asks a watcher to tilt forward and read into it whatever is in the watcher's experience and soul. It's a sophisticated, if abstract and tantalizingly enigmatic, tale. It unfolds within an extraordinary environment--one that seems to breathe, pulsate, flush with emotion, harbor haunting memories and even speak like a living being--created by Kathy Kaufmann (lighting), Lex Liang (set) and Ryan Lott (music).

Among Gibney's six women dancers--always a strong, vivid bunch--Courtney Drasner, Janessa Clark and Kristy Kuhn give especially focused, super-energized performances that make them seem larger than life. Naoko Nagata's dizzily constructed black-and-white costumes are the only feature that seems a little off, a little too kicky for the low-key tone of this piece; otherwise, they have and contribute their offbeat appeal to this rich production.

Gibney's initial solo segment for the tall, gorgeous Drasner introduces the tidal flow of so much of the movement: the lush, lashing, twirling and spongey moves, performed with ease and confidence, that appear throughout much of Distance, running through solos, duets and ensemble gatherings in which stuff, whatever it is, happens in privacy or with others. Gibney has given herself a lot of time and space in which to have stuff happen, and sometimes this generosity seems to have worked against the kind of scrupulous decision-making that chooses what's most crucial for us to see and that guarantees variety of texture. There are any number of places at which the dance seems to have reached an end but continues. Still I would much rather sit out a lengthy Gibney dance than many another choreographer's because she has an eye for sensuous beauty and an appetite for feeling.

(c) Eva Yaa Asantewaa, 2007

This Woman's Work: Ellis Wood by Tara O'Con

Editor's Note: Besides being an accomplished performer, Tara O'Con is a talented young writer who participated in my first Writing on Dance group this spring at Dance Theater Workshop. She contributes this piece, an appreciation of dancer-choreographer Ellis Wood.


(Ellis Wood, leading her company in Flat Affect,
Dance New Amsterdam, April 2007. Photo: Steven Schreiber)

This Woman’s Work: Reflections on a conversation with Ellis Wood, Artistic Director of Ellis Wood Dance

By Tara O’Con

To inhabit the world that Ellis Wood creates through dance is to experience the complexities of life--its struggles, confrontations and celebrations, governed only by the senses. The porous line between pleasure and pain, sexy and grotesque, tenderness and violence, is blurred; pushed just beyond the reaches of cognition. This world is navigable only by one’s gut and piloted by the body. According to Wood, this is her work at its most pure and desired state. Like a drug, to move in such an honest, primal and unabashed way is a high. For herself, and for her dancers, communicating from within this hyper-real, hyper-physical ecosystem allows them to get euphorically close to their true selves. For audience members, should they choose to accept the invitation, a profound visceral experience awaits.

Visually, that which informs Wood’s creations is articulated by riding the fine line between control and freedom in movement. Wood however, is quick to explain that her goal is not to blindly explode and express. This may have been the case years ago, when at 3AM, she would find herself dancing around her apartment alone to crazy music in order to satiate the bubbling urge for uninhibited raw self-expression. Now, twelve years into directing her accomplished dance company--she is a 2007 recipient of the coveted BUILD grant, awarded to dance companies by the New York Foundation for the Arts for infrastructure development--that same potent creative expression is honed by a constant self-awareness session comprised of three artistic goals: take personal risks, stay true to herself and examine the way each work is crafted in order to best serve the clear articulation of her ideas. Each goal comes with its own set of struggles, confrontations and celebrations--the criteria of which have been, and will continue to, change over time. For instance, what was once a personal risk at age 30 is no longer a risk at age 42. Such is life. Consequently, such is the mirror through which this woman’s work is reflected.

The need for assessment and re-assessment of these goals comes head to head with the id of creative expression--a scenario Wood likens to a never-ending drama that occupies every part of life and synonymously, ever part of dance. Why put does she put herself through this daily grind? (Feel free to stop here and re-read the first paragraph to this article.) The pure exhilaration and endless possibilities sparked by sheer physical intensity serves as both bedrock for ultimate personal truth, and the enticement to keep going. As Wood puts it, “the body drives the work.” From a director’s standpoint, when Wood is on the outside looking at her work and feels what is happening is not genuine, she will step in, next to her dancers, and live in it for herself until it gets it to that raw place.

Everyone has their element--something that they can live in and, for that moment, feel completely at home with themselves; their infectious energy in some way touching everyone around them. For some people it could be finance, cooking, teaching, etc. For Ellis Wood, it's dance.

(c) Tara O'Con, 2007

Maria Hassabi's Gloria

Maria Hassabi
P.S. 122 (November 7–10, 2007)
Reviewed by Eva Yaa Asantewaa for DanceMagazine.com (December 2007)

Maria Hassabi and Hristoula Harakas—two of the most exciting contemporary dance artists in New York—exist alone together in Gloria, Hassabi’s latest work. Originally conceived as a trio of solos (with David Adamo), the piece unfolds as two physically separate but temporally overlapping solos in a theater stripped raw. Houselights remain up until the piece’s finale. Both dancers and viewers endure harsh exposure.

Sic transit gloria? Hassabi’s opening section is a long string of limber, absurd, sometimes tawdry poses held for anywhere from eight to sixteen seconds, set against a plain backdrop and performed with the kind of stunned, trauma-victim deadness common to high fashion photos. Her spread-legged sprawls seem less pornographic than forensic. This woman is a mobile crime scene.

The brilliant score—designed by Jody Elf from a real-time recording by Hassabi—is the oppressive roar of highway traffic occasionally haunted by wisps of music. This easily conjures a context: warehouse on the seedy side of town. You can almost smell the pollution.

Hassabi’s solo continues as Harakas quietly slips into the space. In contrast to Hassabi’s pink stirrup tights and undershirt, she’s dressed in peek-a-boo black tights and top. Holding to one side of the space and keeping her back to the audience, Harakas slowly shifts her hips and rolls her shoulders as she approaches a separate backdrop. A long time passes before she idly turns to the audience, unseeing eyes skimming over everyone’s face as she twirls a lock of hair before drifting away. Hassabi now races through her poses while Harakas takes things at a syrupy pace, but both manage to look like big felines in cages. A snippet of someone’s version of Eurythmics’s “Sweet Dreams,” a melancholy swelling of movie music, a cellphone’s ringtone—these sounds hazily float through the score and evaporate like spurts of consciousness, doomed.

Harakas’ performance is particularly stunning. Her face, at rest, evokes a goddess out of classical myth, the kind you don’t mess with. And when, plastered against her distant backdrop, she lets a few facial muscles tug a small, heartless smile into place for no reason at all, it’s devastating.

Lighting designer Joe Levasseur—like Harakas and other members of the creative team, a longtime Hassabi collaborator—has outdone himself. Can you imagine a dance in which both performers suddenly quit the space and, in their unnerving absence, lighting takes center stage, dramatically dimming as the soundscape intensifies? Thus ends Gloria. Sic transit.