Out and about

All of New York dance is out and about these days and evenings during the APAP (Association of Performing Arts Presenters) annual conference ("Presenting America: New Ground"), running around in a crazy attempt to see as much as possible of the artists who are attempting to be seen as much as possible. I've just started, and I'm already dazed.

Last evening, I caught two hour-long shows in the East Village. The first was a preview of Deganit Shemy & Company's Iodine at P.S. 122's COIL festival, which will premiere at P.S. 122, February 5-10. (Another showing of the work will run on Sunday at 6pm.) This caustic, discordant quintet for women proved Shemy to be a choreographer with a scalding, original theatricality. And her dancers--with their intense, stunned, staring faces and their bodies that move as if made of hard and soft rubber--are fantastic. The Israeli-born Shemy has said that her experience in growing up on a kibbutz served as inspiration for Iodine. The dance stings; it covers a wound but is meant to heal it. If you get a chance, also check out Maria Hassabi's Gloria, a highlight of 2007, returning tonight at 10pm and tomorrow at 3pm as part of COIL.

Since I live between P.S. 122 and Danspace Project--whee!!!--I dropped my Shemy press kit at home and then headed over to St. Mark's Church to see Daniel Léveillé Danse. Now through tomorrow evening, this Montreal troupe is presenting Twilight of the Oceans. Jean Jauvin's delicate, shifting lighting gives the piece an otherworldly quality. In its raw, physical demands and its allusions to and mashups of various body disciplines--martial arts, discus throwing, yoga, ballet pas de deux, swimming--Léveillé's choreography made an interesting accidental companion to the Shemy work. It is intense, every bit as scarily driven, in its own way. It might be working its basic ideas overtime, though. (Once again, I wonder whatever happened to short--and non-repetitious--dances.) A gentle warning: If you have a major issue with nudity in dance, you might want to skip this one.