Another whirlwind week+ finds me needing to quickly catch up here. As Governor David Paterson would say, "It's Monday. Let's get to work!" Errrr..., okay, so it's Wednesday!
Credit where it's due: Times critic Gia Kourlas got it right in her review of Aviva Geismar's Line of Descent, which premiered last week at Dance New Amsterdam. So right in every way, in fact, that I was amazed to read the following sentence: "For a dance so intent on creating raw emotional characterizations, the lack of conviction among the dancers in delivering the text is most problematic." I remembered watching the dance and thinking one word over and over--unconvincing--and how jarring it was that Geismar's dancers were all notably fresh-faced, vibrant young women attempting to convey the emotional struggles of descendants of Holocaust survivors. For me, the lack of conviction Kourlas noted extended beyond the text to the embodiment of Geismar's idea itself.
Congrats to another Aviva: Last night, I attended An Evening with Dancing in the Streets--a reception, celebration and introduction to the coming season of Aviva Davidson's well-regarded site specific dance series. After welcomes from Davidson and board president Anthony Russell, we were treated to explosive performances by Larry Keigwin (AD of KEIGWIN + COMPANY), who later spoke of how his involvement with the program had refreshed his creativity, and Brandon Albright (AD of Hip Hop Generation Next, a Dancing in the Streets community project in Red Hook, Brooklyn) with his colleague Engine. (I hope to get Brandon--aka Peace--and Engine on Body and Soul podcast in the near future.) Most surprising was a loving and humorous statement from Michael Shaver, Chief Park Ranger of Governors Island National Monument which hosted a spectacular site presentation by Davidson's organization in 2006 at historic Fort Jay. Shaver's enthusiastic support for dance and for Davidson (shared by Robert Pirani, ED of Governors Island Alliance) gives me great hope that this extraordinary mound of land at the confluence of waters and winds will remain a powerful location for the arts.
St. Patrick?: Walking home from a show at Dixon Place on St. Patrick's night--which means dodging pubcrawling students and tourists but, since I'm talking about the East Village, the only thing unusual about that is the color green--it suddenly struck me that I'd forgotten something very important about St. Patrick. He's the Catholic saint identified with the voodoo loa Damballa, the snake god! St. Patrick, as the old myth would have it, rid Ireland of snakes (a euphemism for Catholicism conquering paganism). Afro-Atlantic people, who sought to retain something of the integrity of their traditional beliefs, always twisted what they learned of the Catholic saints to fit their own purposes. The Haitian slaves, for instance, decided that their "St. Patrick" was a big snake himself. With that saucy thought in mind, I continued my Paddy's Day walk with a jauntier step.
By the way, I was coming from a showing of Nile Ford's work-in-progress, In Search of the Invisible People, and you can read Claudia La Rocco's review here. You can read my Dance Magazine review...well, whenever they get around to posting it on the Web. I'll try to remember to tell you. And, yes, Ford and his manager gave both of us permission to review a work-in-progress.
Cranes falling from the sky: On my way to a Brainwave event on the Upper East Side, I passed through midtown east--luckily by subway--close to the time of last Saturday's crane accident. Let's get serious about putting an end to these terrible incidents in our city. I keep walking past that big one down here on the Bowery and giving it a wide berth.
Jonah Bokaer at Abrons Arts Center: You'll agree with me, surely, he's perfection. He could dance the phone book and be rivetting. After a while, though, you want more than the phone book. The notable thing about False Start (2007) is Bokaer's fine-tuned facility, previously noted. He moves like a kind of cyberposable doll. The Invention of Minus One, his premiered ensemble, is cleverly, brazenly overstuffed for the ADD Age. Keep watching this guy, though. How can you not?
Jeremy Nelson at Danspace Project: I liked watching fleet but surefooted Jeremy Nelson dance with his ensemble. He's beautiful.