Heaven--the lacerating ensemble piece by Minnesota's Morgan Thorson, presented at P.S. 122--was just the thing for a chilly night and a cold, frostily-lit performance space. Not that Heaven managed to heat things up, not even when pushing dancers' ecstatic rituals to manic extremes.
With its white and shiny decor, its hive-mind drone and eerily-beautiful slowcore score, played live by Low's Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, Heaven delivered a sense of driven longing for a place and state of being way, way north of here, something as close to austere, rigorous purity and perfection as humans can manage. The work is inhabited by several dancers who, initially, keep their eyes lowered and huddle together while slowly trodding a repetitive path with simple steps. They're a repressed--and self-repressed--community.
They're not only dressed in white, they are themselves all white--at least, I'm assuming by appearance alone. Whether or not this apparent racial purity was intentional--and it might well have been--it proved to be a fascinating theatrical element and one perhaps fully justified by the cultural specificity of the work's electrifying conclusion. Transformative religious practices of varying kinds can come from a similar place of searing extremes--and here, I'm thinking of the role of possession in African and Afro-Atlantic spiritual culture--but they ultimately produce different phenomena.
Thorson grips us in that place of extremes where beauty and madness overlap. I'm intrigued by one of Thorson's statements about the work's relationship to "our love for the theater and its parallels to worship." This puts me in mind of the ancient origins of theater, very much connected to that place of wild extremes meant to shock the viewer out of his or her habitual condition.
While watching Heaven, though, I never felt totally sure that the perfection sought is ultimately worth the repression and pain. Thorson, I think, lands on the fence and perches there. But the performers make a vivid, unforgettable experiment of it. They are the aforementioned Sparhawk and Parker, Karen Sherman, Justin Jones, Jessica Cressey, Elliott Lynch, Max Wirsing, Chris Schlichting, Hannah Kramer and Renee Copeland--all sometimes scary and always scarily good.
Heaven closed last evening but deserves an encore. Let us pray...
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Zollar and Chipaumire: A beautiful "City" is born (UPDATED)
A thrilling journey began yesterday at Harlem Stage with the public launch of "Naked City," part of larger conceptual work, visible/invisible, being developed by choreographers Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Nora Chipaumire. Commissioned by Harlem Stage for its WaterWorks Program, the piece honors Harlem's people and their stories and is strongly rooted in the aesthetics and practice of jazz.
Naked City was performed by an international cast of exciting dancers, including several members of Zollar's Urban Bush Women troupe. Hard to believe that these folks did not thoroughly rehearse this piece forwards and backwards for weeks and that they'd only come together earlier in the day to figure out what they were going to present to us! I mean, really!
Since it's truly a baby work-in-progress--one that will continue growing through many more exploratory events like last night's showing and feedback session--I certainly won't offer a review of what I saw. But I will urge you to get on Harlem Stage's mailing list so that you can follow "Baby" as she grows and perhaps, if you take part in one of these events, help her along her way.
Congratulations to Zollar and Chipaumire and their dancers and thanks to Harlem Stage's Patricia Cruz (Executive Director) and Brad Learmonth (Director of Programming) for welcoming us to partake in this auspicious beginning.
Special Update: "Naked City" will be performed by the members of Urban Bush Women at New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), November 21-22.
Naked City was performed by an international cast of exciting dancers, including several members of Zollar's Urban Bush Women troupe. Hard to believe that these folks did not thoroughly rehearse this piece forwards and backwards for weeks and that they'd only come together earlier in the day to figure out what they were going to present to us! I mean, really!
Since it's truly a baby work-in-progress--one that will continue growing through many more exploratory events like last night's showing and feedback session--I certainly won't offer a review of what I saw. But I will urge you to get on Harlem Stage's mailing list so that you can follow "Baby" as she grows and perhaps, if you take part in one of these events, help her along her way.
Congratulations to Zollar and Chipaumire and their dancers and thanks to Harlem Stage's Patricia Cruz (Executive Director) and Brad Learmonth (Director of Programming) for welcoming us to partake in this auspicious beginning.
Special Update: "Naked City" will be performed by the members of Urban Bush Women at New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), November 21-22.
Ground Zero arts plans in jeopardy
City Pushes for Action on Performing Arts Center at Ground Zero
by Robin Pogrebin, The New York Times, October 30, 2009
by Robin Pogrebin, The New York Times, October 30, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Circle of Voices explores "Issues Through Art"
Circle of Voices Inc. presents
"Issues Through Art"
An evening of Social Expressionism:
Community Artists Addressing Community Issues
Pre-Holiday Benefit. Market Place. Gallery (with Silent Auction)
Poetry. Singing. Book Readings. And more!
Saturday, November 21, 7pm-10pm
The LGBT Community Center
208 West 13th Street, Manhattan (3rd Floor)
Program features:
G. Winston James--Author of Shaming the Devil
Renair--Spoken Word Artist
Mildred--Artist formally know as "Dred"
Devin Christy--Vocalist
Stefon Royce--Impersonator and more
Charly Dominguez and John Hanning--Gallery Artists
Vendors and exhibitors wanted now. $40 special Early Bird Rate expires November 10 after 12am. For information, call 718-975-0141 or email info@covinc.org
Ticketing information
Advance: $10
Online: $12.05 (includes processing/service fees)
Door: $15
Group ticket special: Buy 10/Get 1 free! Available only through email order. Offer expires November 10, 12am.
For complete information, visit the Circle of Voices Web site here.
Circle of Voices, Inc. is a public charity (501c(3) that offers opportunities to foster a collaborative and supportive environment where Womyn artists and friends of the community can have the opportunity to increase their appreciation of the arts through performances, seminars and workshops given by Womyn of African Descent and Womyn of Color. We believe in utilizing art as a means of expression for a variety of community concerns such as the importance of recycling, the green environment initiative, HIV/AIDS, and more. Performers affiliated with Circle of Voices, Inc. use their art forms to convey issues of significance that speak to the souls of the community at large.
Japan's Salsa Sensation
Japan's Salsa Sensation
by Ashleigh Braggs, The Root, October 28, 2009
How a black American dance enthusiast created a name for herself as a salsa teacher in Japan
by Ashleigh Braggs, The Root, October 28, 2009
How a black American dance enthusiast created a name for herself as a salsa teacher in Japan
Abrams: True enough
For Most of This Is True, choreographer Jen Abrams has reconfigured and minimized audience seating at WOW Café Theater. The performance area opens up invitingly yet stays intimate--like a second-coming of the beloved old Dixon Place, perhaps a tad roomier. WOW rarely features dance, but maybe Abrams's example will give that stalwart theater collective a few ambitious ideas. I'm hoping.
Certainly, Most of This Is True makes a case for Abrams as an artist pushing herself into uncomfortable territory and, as a result, growing in vision and skill. In this jigsaw puzzle of a narrative dance, she's joined by fellow performers Ariel Polonsky, Jessica Ames and Ariel Cohen, depicting relationships that are specifically lesbian but filled with the just-plain-human stuff of vulnerability, tenderness, boredom, restlessness and eccentricity. Their characters bear specific names, placing their movements squarely in the realm of story and humanity--two things that have always mattered to Abrams.
Movement, then, serves story. It's not movement for movement's sake, although, in True, it remains an odd, tough-to-decipher code and an often harsh, tough-to-speak language within a fractured, jumbled history. We are meant, I think, to connect to and work with these fragments in whatever ways we can as individuals. For me, the takeaway was the performance of Ariel Cohen (Dana), a rangy woman with a simmering demeanor and explosive physical bravery that rendered her character's disturbing qualities absolutely convincing. To see her throw and bang herself against the floor or crouch miserably beneath a table might make you want to draw back or it might make you want to find out how she got that way.
Although seating is extremely limited, Most of This Is True has an unusually generous run: 12 days, through Sunday, November 8. For a detailed schedule and ticketing, click here.
Certainly, Most of This Is True makes a case for Abrams as an artist pushing herself into uncomfortable territory and, as a result, growing in vision and skill. In this jigsaw puzzle of a narrative dance, she's joined by fellow performers Ariel Polonsky, Jessica Ames and Ariel Cohen, depicting relationships that are specifically lesbian but filled with the just-plain-human stuff of vulnerability, tenderness, boredom, restlessness and eccentricity. Their characters bear specific names, placing their movements squarely in the realm of story and humanity--two things that have always mattered to Abrams.
Movement, then, serves story. It's not movement for movement's sake, although, in True, it remains an odd, tough-to-decipher code and an often harsh, tough-to-speak language within a fractured, jumbled history. We are meant, I think, to connect to and work with these fragments in whatever ways we can as individuals. For me, the takeaway was the performance of Ariel Cohen (Dana), a rangy woman with a simmering demeanor and explosive physical bravery that rendered her character's disturbing qualities absolutely convincing. To see her throw and bang herself against the floor or crouch miserably beneath a table might make you want to draw back or it might make you want to find out how she got that way.
Although seating is extremely limited, Most of This Is True has an unusually generous run: 12 days, through Sunday, November 8. For a detailed schedule and ticketing, click here.
Roy DeCarava, Photographer, 89
Roy DeCarava, Pioneering Photographer, Dies at 89
by Randy Kennedy, The New York Times, October 28, 2009
by Randy Kennedy, The New York Times, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Halt! at the terminal (appended update)
Ever spend time at Manhattan's Whitehall Ferry Terminal with its mass of humanity waiting to glide away to Staten Island? In its endless, shifting diversity, it's a fabulous place for people-watching and story-concocting. And with the renovated terminal's civilized amenities, you can have a nice little nosh, take a little pee in a clean loo, and come back to settle into your bench seat for another round of free entertainment. And that's even without periodic interventions by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council!
LMCC sure seems to love that space. I've now seen three LMCC-related productions there (two dances, one movement-oriented theater piece) and have come to this conclusion: The terminal's bright, airy, generous space must be pure catnip for choreographers and dancers. But it's also a singularly weird location because...well...all that space really allows your potential audience--who, after all, are there on a mission to catch a ferry to a bus to who knows what--really allows them to look through you and past you the way they could only hope to do if you were suddenly popping onto the #6 to annoy them with hip hop or doo wop or mariachi-merrymaking.
The latest artist to install his performers among the rather bored-looking folks waiting in the ferry terminal is the usually fascinating choreographer and sound designer Pavel Zuštiak, director of Palissimo, with his LMCC-commissioned Halt!
Halt!'s trio of dancers include Gina Bashour, Lindsey Dietz Marchant and Jeff Kent Jacobs, all wearing gold-toned sneakers--and that's an important detail to notice, since their otherwise rumply street clothes, generally affectless demeanor and initially schlumpy pedestrian behavior make them blend in with the milieu at least until it becomes clear that there's something going on here and you don't know what it is, Mr. Jones.
For any true pedestrian interested in directly engaging with Halt!, Zuštiak and set designer Nick Vaughan provide a "sound bar" with headsets with one's choice of five soundtracks to flavor your experience of the dancing. I was issued my own, free-ranging pair of headphones and a slim audio player, which freed me to roam about and check out things from different angles.
However, as I gazed at my fellow terminal hangers-out, I wondered just how much of a real audience does this sort of thing create? Even when Zuštiak's mild ferry-terminal-tai-chi stuff turned into more obvious wow-some-strange-shit-going-down-here-who-are-these-nuts?, few people seemed to give the dancers more than a momentary poker-faced glance, and most did not glance at them at all.
It's somewhat interesting to make that observation about New Yorkers--how they don't really want to look, to get involved in anyone else's business, and mainly just have somewhere to go, please god, without incident--but I wonder what that ends up meaning to the artists creating and giving a performance. I even wonder if most of these folks would identify what they were seeing as dance, or if--as is likely--they have an entirely different notion of what dance is. I also think Zuštiak would have done better to deploy at least three times as many infiltrators to make a dramatic impact in so large and distracting a space. That would have given him a fighting chance.
All that said, the reason I'm rather fond of the Whitehall Ferry Terminal for performances is because the pedestrian crowd makes a terrific set. It almost doesn't matter that most people are not (at least, consciously, willingly) involved.
Halt! is free, of course, and runs through this Friday, between ferry arrival and departure times each day, from 1pm through 5pm. Take the #1 to South Ferry or 4/5 to Bowling Green or N/R to Whitehall Street.
UPDATE
Pavel Zuštiak has sent the following clarification of the relationship of this work to two entities--the New York City Department of Transportation and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council:
LMCC sure seems to love that space. I've now seen three LMCC-related productions there (two dances, one movement-oriented theater piece) and have come to this conclusion: The terminal's bright, airy, generous space must be pure catnip for choreographers and dancers. But it's also a singularly weird location because...well...all that space really allows your potential audience--who, after all, are there on a mission to catch a ferry to a bus to who knows what--really allows them to look through you and past you the way they could only hope to do if you were suddenly popping onto the #6 to annoy them with hip hop or doo wop or mariachi-merrymaking.
The latest artist to install his performers among the rather bored-looking folks waiting in the ferry terminal is the usually fascinating choreographer and sound designer Pavel Zuštiak, director of Palissimo, with his LMCC-commissioned Halt!
Halt!'s trio of dancers include Gina Bashour, Lindsey Dietz Marchant and Jeff Kent Jacobs, all wearing gold-toned sneakers--and that's an important detail to notice, since their otherwise rumply street clothes, generally affectless demeanor and initially schlumpy pedestrian behavior make them blend in with the milieu at least until it becomes clear that there's something going on here and you don't know what it is, Mr. Jones.
For any true pedestrian interested in directly engaging with Halt!, Zuštiak and set designer Nick Vaughan provide a "sound bar" with headsets with one's choice of five soundtracks to flavor your experience of the dancing. I was issued my own, free-ranging pair of headphones and a slim audio player, which freed me to roam about and check out things from different angles.
However, as I gazed at my fellow terminal hangers-out, I wondered just how much of a real audience does this sort of thing create? Even when Zuštiak's mild ferry-terminal-tai-chi stuff turned into more obvious wow-some-strange-shit-going-down-here-who-are-these-nuts?, few people seemed to give the dancers more than a momentary poker-faced glance, and most did not glance at them at all.
It's somewhat interesting to make that observation about New Yorkers--how they don't really want to look, to get involved in anyone else's business, and mainly just have somewhere to go, please god, without incident--but I wonder what that ends up meaning to the artists creating and giving a performance. I even wonder if most of these folks would identify what they were seeing as dance, or if--as is likely--they have an entirely different notion of what dance is. I also think Zuštiak would have done better to deploy at least three times as many infiltrators to make a dramatic impact in so large and distracting a space. That would have given him a fighting chance.
All that said, the reason I'm rather fond of the Whitehall Ferry Terminal for performances is because the pedestrian crowd makes a terrific set. It almost doesn't matter that most people are not (at least, consciously, willingly) involved.
Halt! is free, of course, and runs through this Friday, between ferry arrival and departure times each day, from 1pm through 5pm. Take the #1 to South Ferry or 4/5 to Bowling Green or N/R to Whitehall Street.
UPDATE
Pavel Zuštiak has sent the following clarification of the relationship of this work to two entities--the New York City Department of Transportation and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council:
New York City Department of Transportation presented Halt! through their new Urban Art Program. Lower Manhattan Cultural Council supported the project with funds from The September 11th Fund; public funds from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; and public funds from the Fund for Creative Communities, supported by the New York State Council on the Arts.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Jason's angels rock The Kitchen
Let's keep this short and sweet, since you don't really have a lot of time to get tickets for Charlie's Angels, the tap dance production created by Jason Samuels Smith, given its New York premiere at The Kitchen. Curator Rashida Bumbray--who taps herself and has brought a wonderful tap jam to The Kitchen--seems intent on making this home for experimental arts a place to see a classic art swing out its juiciest experiments. Well, Samuel Smith's experiment--after three years in development--turns out to be a doozy.
The angels in question are celebrated tap dynamos Chloé Arnold, Michelle Dorrance and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, and the Charlie in question is Parker. The mission? To faithfully tap out the notes and rhythms in Parker's bebop, no matter how devilishly fast and complex.
Do they do it? And how! They get it done, note for note, and with Arnold's irrepressible radiance, Dorrance's punkish footwork, and Sumbry-Edwards's mastery and elegance. And they do it, mainly, in high heels--backwards, forwards, side-to-side.
Highlight's include the trio's powerhouse opening ("Donna Lee"), freer-swinging audience faves like "Half Nelson (original take 2)" and "Cheryl," Sumbry-Edwards's flowing "Embraceable You," and the amazing closer, "Salt Peanuts."
The show also boasts excellent lighting by Sue Samuels, intricate, imaginative costuming by Gingie McLeod/Dindi Designs, spoken word by Craig 'muMs' Grant, and the delicious saxophone playing of Stacy Dillard in evocative interludes. Just under an hour, it moves so swiftly that, when it's over, you'll be left blinking in amazement.
So, get over there! There are two shows today: 3pm and 8pm. Here's the info/ticket link.
The angels in question are celebrated tap dynamos Chloé Arnold, Michelle Dorrance and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, and the Charlie in question is Parker. The mission? To faithfully tap out the notes and rhythms in Parker's bebop, no matter how devilishly fast and complex.
Do they do it? And how! They get it done, note for note, and with Arnold's irrepressible radiance, Dorrance's punkish footwork, and Sumbry-Edwards's mastery and elegance. And they do it, mainly, in high heels--backwards, forwards, side-to-side.
Highlight's include the trio's powerhouse opening ("Donna Lee"), freer-swinging audience faves like "Half Nelson (original take 2)" and "Cheryl," Sumbry-Edwards's flowing "Embraceable You," and the amazing closer, "Salt Peanuts."
The show also boasts excellent lighting by Sue Samuels, intricate, imaginative costuming by Gingie McLeod/Dindi Designs, spoken word by Craig 'muMs' Grant, and the delicious saxophone playing of Stacy Dillard in evocative interludes. Just under an hour, it moves so swiftly that, when it's over, you'll be left blinking in amazement.
So, get over there! There are two shows today: 3pm and 8pm. Here's the info/ticket link.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Roussève: Reality and "Saudade"
David Roussève's Saudade--which opened last night at Danspace Project--has a massiveness, depth and intensity that feels like the whole world coming at you all at once. And his ensemble, David Roussève/REALITY--Esther M. Baker-Tarpaga, Nehara Kalev, Marianne M. Kim, Taisha Padgett, Sri Susilowati, Olivier Tarpaga and Anjali Tata-Hudson--adds to this experience in its unusual, pointed ethnic diversity. The choreographer mines rich veins of culture and world dance movement traditions for this work.
Taking it all in—all 100 uninterrupted minutes of it—can be overwhelming. It can also give you the blues, as befits its title—a reference to the bittersweet Portuguese music called fado—and leave you with a sense that there are no easy answers to this thing called life, that it is, at once, pain and pleasure inextricably locked together.
That philosophical message, spoken or depicted in a variety of ways, seems a little obvious, but then Saudade reflects the sincere, heart-on-sleeve nature of the music, experiences and feelings that inspired it. Roussève's bold visual/kinetic methods and his fellow dancers' electrifying openness, versatility and endurance, make Saudade worth your time.
Roussève has the sturdiness of a redwood, the authority of an elder. His own performance, in movement and storytelling, anchors this production and reliably guides the audience through its terrain of heartbreaking extremes. Among the creative team, lighting designer David Ferri and video designer Ashley Hunt, in particular, have contributed outstanding work.
At Danspace Project through Sunday, 8pm. For information and ticketing, click here.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Benefit for Valerie Green's burglarized studio
Legendary jazz club the Zinc Bar and Dance Entropy/Green Space invite you to a burglary benefit. The evening will offer drinks, light food, live music, DJ, raffle and dancing. Green Space Studio was severely burglarized on August 26th. Proceeds will go to helping the studio recover from their losses.
Wednesday November 11, 6pm to 9pm
Admission: $20 pre-sale online or $25 at the door
Zinc Bar
82 West 3rd Street, Manhattan
between Thompson & Sullivan Streets
Directions: By Subway: A, B, C, D, E, F, V to West 4th Street stop, Manhattan
Green’s ambitious and open – hearted dream of creating a working dance/music enclave in Queens is off the ground. – Attitude Magazine
Wednesday November 11, 6pm to 9pm
Admission: $20 pre-sale online or $25 at the door
Zinc Bar
82 West 3rd Street, Manhattan
between Thompson & Sullivan Streets
Directions: By Subway: A, B, C, D, E, F, V to West 4th Street stop, Manhattan
Green’s ambitious and open – hearted dream of creating a working dance/music enclave in Queens is off the ground. – Attitude Magazine
Tacita Dean remembers Merce
Visual artist and filmmaker Tacita Dean has a beautiful essay on her work with Merce Cunningham in the current issue (October 2009) of Art in America. The issue's not online; so, I can't give you a link, but it's worth picking up a copy.
Look for Remembering: A Tribute to Merce, pages 51-52.
Dean's film Merce Cunningham performs STILLNESS... is being screened at Musee d'Art Contemporain (Montreal), now through January 3, 2010. Her film of Craneway Event will debut at Danspace Project, November 5-7, as part of Performa 09.
Look for Remembering: A Tribute to Merce, pages 51-52.
Dean's film Merce Cunningham performs STILLNESS... is being screened at Musee d'Art Contemporain (Montreal), now through January 3, 2010. Her film of Craneway Event will debut at Danspace Project, November 5-7, as part of Performa 09.
Creative modern dance with Kelley Donovan
Kelley Donovan & Dancers present
Creative Modern Dance Classes
Thursdays and Saturdays, Starting November 7th
Moving Body Resources
Creative Modern Dance Classes
Thursdays and Saturdays, Starting November 7th
Moving Body Resources
117 West 27th Street, Manhattan
Session Runs from November 7th –December 19th
Contact: kddcompany@yahoo.com
Session Runs from November 7th –December 19th
Contact: kddcompany@yahoo.com
or call (781) 420-3893 for registration.
6 Dance Classes Saturdays, starting November 7th 2-3pm
$95 total (6 week session)
6 Dance Classes Saturdays, starting November 7th 2-3pm
$95 total (6 week session)
Nov. 7th – Dec. 19th (no class Nov. 21st)
5 Thursday Dance Classes Starting November 12th 7-8pm
&
5 Thursdays Choreography/Performance Workshop 8-9pm
(students are encouraged to attend the early Thursday class for warm up)
$80 /per Thursday class, both classes meet:
5 Thursday Dance Classes Starting November 12th 7-8pm
&
5 Thursdays Choreography/Performance Workshop 8-9pm
(students are encouraged to attend the early Thursday class for warm up)
$80 /per Thursday class, both classes meet:
Nov. 12th, 19th, Dec 3rd, 10th, 17th
Kelley Donovan & Dancers will be holding Creative Modern Dance classes for adults starting November 7th on Thursdays and Saturdays. Creative Modern Dance is an introductory level dance class blending dance technique and the fundamentals of choreography in a spirit of creativity, collaboration and play. Classes will be held on Saturdays at 2pm and Thursdays at 7pm and 8 pm at Moving Body Resources on West 27th Street in Manhattan. Pre-registration required.
This class is for adult dancers with a little or no experience and is a great place to start if you are coming back to dance or trying it for the first time. Attention will be paid to developing strength, flexibility, balance, coordination, posture, expression in movement. The class focuses on a deep understanding of the body and incorporates ideas from Limon, Cunningham and Release techniques.
The class will move through a warm up that builds strength and clarifies alignment principals followed by fluid phrases with an emphasis on performance quality, focus and presence. Participants will get a chance to create collaboratively and learn how to develop movement structures and invent dance that explores the basic elements of space, time and force. Price: $80 total (5 week session) $95 for six weeks Pre-registration required. To register, call 781-420-3893 or e-mail kddcompany@yahoo.com.
Kelley Donovan has performed work by Liz Lerman and Ann Carlson and has taught dance at CasaNia, MIT, Springstep, Third Life Studio, Boston Ctr. For Adult Ed and currently teaches modern dance at Umass. Her choreography has been produced by World Music/Crasharts, MIT, Harvard and The Federal Reserve Bank in Boston and The Merce Cunningham Studio, Joyce SoHo, Movement Research and the 92nd St. Y in New York City. Kelley studied choreography with Mark Morris and Bessie Schönberg and other artists in Boston.
Nancy Spero, artist and feminist, 83
Nancy Spero, Artist of Feminism, is dead at 83
by Holland Cotter, The New York Times, October 19, 2009
by Holland Cotter, The New York Times, October 19, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Sideshow: The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art
Sideshow: The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida
review by Deborah Feller, MFA, LCSW, NCAC II
Ducking into the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art during the opening night outdoor festivities, I was refreshed by the blast of cold air and taken aback by a very large, very green, abstract painting vaguely reminiscent of Willem de Kooning's slashed women. It hung between two portraits: on the left, a woman in an iridescently painted gown; on the right, Joshua Reynold's John Manners, Marquis of Granby (1766), depicted standing with his arm draped over his horse's ass.
My companion, there to review the Ringling International Arts Festival and remembering some advance publicity, attempted an explanation. The contemporary works were supposed to relate to the historical works adjacent to them. We figured the key here was the color, relating it to that shimmering gown. Surprise! Surprise! It was Lord Manners and his horse.
Louise Fishman Among the Old Masters, curated by Virginia Brilliant (snippets of whose rationale I overheard on a subsequent visit as she guided three women around the museum), “interjects” the artist's “lean abstract paintings with muscular blocks of color” into six of the museum's galleries, engaging in a dialog with their selected twins. It seemed to me not so much a conversation as a major disagreement.
This juxtaposition of the old and the new underscores the amount of craft entailed in producing old masters' works. Although much of the Ringling's collection doesn't reach greatness, even the B work required more refined technique than Ms. Fishman's abstract musings. Full disclosure: I'm an artist working in the realist tradition who loves the Italian Baroque and my idea of truly accomplished abstract art looks like that of Gerhardt Richter, a man who knows what to do with paint.
The Ringling had two other special exhibitions through which I wandered. One was Dangerous Women, billed as an examination of the 16th and 17th centuries' fascination with “the exotically (and oftentimes meagerly) clad Biblical [sic] temptresses, Judith and Salome” who sometimes merged into one sword-wielding or -commanding beheader (read castrator) of men. Two paintings come immediately to mind: Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes (1598) and Artemisia Gentileschi's work of the same subject, Judith Slaying Holofernes (1612-13). While I didn’t expect to find either of them in this modest show, I was disappointed there were no reproductions. On the other hand, I appreciated the inclusion of Fede Galizia's Judith with the Head of Holofernes (1596), a painting I knew about but had never seen. Of the two versions that exist of this work, I’d want to see this one first, for here the artist has signed her name on the sword; on the other, her signature appears on the tray holding the severed head, a very different message.
I had more to choose from in Venice in the Age of Canaletto where I made other new acquaintances and renewed contact with old ones. I've never been a big fan of Caneletto, nee Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697-1768), whose work seems too studio bound, lacking the quality of Venice's unique light. Francesco Guardi (1712-1793), on the other hand, and even the lesser known Bernardo Bellotto (1721-1780)–-both following on the heels of Canaletto–-display the animation, color and chiaroscuro missing in the older painter's works. Two pieces by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770), a fresco, Allegory: Glory and Magnanimity of Princes (1757-61), transferred onto canvas and an oil on canvas modello for a larger work, The Miracle of the Holy House of Loreto, showcased his draftsmanship and colorito. Several fine paintings by Sabastiano Ricci (1659-1734), active much earlier than Canaletto, introduced me to his work.
Completing my peregrinations around the museum, I noted with excitement work such as Peter Paul Rubens's The Triumph of Divine Love (c.1625), a huge masterpiece just inside one of the museum entrances off the courtyard. Showing the figure of Charity in all her Rubenesque voluptuousness surrounded by and holding babies, this one looks autograph. The rest of the large paintings from the commission for which this was painted suggest a busy workshop, upon which Rubens surely depended.
Most of the permanent collection in the Ringling Art Museum reflects a collector lacking a Bernard Berenson to guide his selections but who nonetheless occasionally got lucky. Currently in the process of developing a fund for acquisitions and limited by a small conservation department with a long to-do list, the museum (owned by the state of Florida and managed by Florida State University) has great potential. Ms. Brilliant and company are working on bringing the museum into the 21st century for which I wish them the best in these difficult economic times. One can never have too many museums of art.
[Venice in the Age of Caneletto is on view until January 10, 2010.]
Deborah Feller is an artist and clinical social worker specializing in the treatment of incest and addictive/compulsive disorders. Her paintings and drawings depict the stories of her psychotherapy clients in narratives and still lifes. She also does portraits.
review by Deborah Feller, MFA, LCSW, NCAC II
Ducking into the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art during the opening night outdoor festivities, I was refreshed by the blast of cold air and taken aback by a very large, very green, abstract painting vaguely reminiscent of Willem de Kooning's slashed women. It hung between two portraits: on the left, a woman in an iridescently painted gown; on the right, Joshua Reynold's John Manners, Marquis of Granby (1766), depicted standing with his arm draped over his horse's ass.
My companion, there to review the Ringling International Arts Festival and remembering some advance publicity, attempted an explanation. The contemporary works were supposed to relate to the historical works adjacent to them. We figured the key here was the color, relating it to that shimmering gown. Surprise! Surprise! It was Lord Manners and his horse.
Louise Fishman Among the Old Masters, curated by Virginia Brilliant (snippets of whose rationale I overheard on a subsequent visit as she guided three women around the museum), “interjects” the artist's “lean abstract paintings with muscular blocks of color” into six of the museum's galleries, engaging in a dialog with their selected twins. It seemed to me not so much a conversation as a major disagreement.
This juxtaposition of the old and the new underscores the amount of craft entailed in producing old masters' works. Although much of the Ringling's collection doesn't reach greatness, even the B work required more refined technique than Ms. Fishman's abstract musings. Full disclosure: I'm an artist working in the realist tradition who loves the Italian Baroque and my idea of truly accomplished abstract art looks like that of Gerhardt Richter, a man who knows what to do with paint.
The Ringling had two other special exhibitions through which I wandered. One was Dangerous Women, billed as an examination of the 16th and 17th centuries' fascination with “the exotically (and oftentimes meagerly) clad Biblical [sic] temptresses, Judith and Salome” who sometimes merged into one sword-wielding or -commanding beheader (read castrator) of men. Two paintings come immediately to mind: Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes (1598) and Artemisia Gentileschi's work of the same subject, Judith Slaying Holofernes (1612-13). While I didn’t expect to find either of them in this modest show, I was disappointed there were no reproductions. On the other hand, I appreciated the inclusion of Fede Galizia's Judith with the Head of Holofernes (1596), a painting I knew about but had never seen. Of the two versions that exist of this work, I’d want to see this one first, for here the artist has signed her name on the sword; on the other, her signature appears on the tray holding the severed head, a very different message.
I had more to choose from in Venice in the Age of Canaletto where I made other new acquaintances and renewed contact with old ones. I've never been a big fan of Caneletto, nee Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697-1768), whose work seems too studio bound, lacking the quality of Venice's unique light. Francesco Guardi (1712-1793), on the other hand, and even the lesser known Bernardo Bellotto (1721-1780)–-both following on the heels of Canaletto–-display the animation, color and chiaroscuro missing in the older painter's works. Two pieces by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770), a fresco, Allegory: Glory and Magnanimity of Princes (1757-61), transferred onto canvas and an oil on canvas modello for a larger work, The Miracle of the Holy House of Loreto, showcased his draftsmanship and colorito. Several fine paintings by Sabastiano Ricci (1659-1734), active much earlier than Canaletto, introduced me to his work.
Completing my peregrinations around the museum, I noted with excitement work such as Peter Paul Rubens's The Triumph of Divine Love (c.1625), a huge masterpiece just inside one of the museum entrances off the courtyard. Showing the figure of Charity in all her Rubenesque voluptuousness surrounded by and holding babies, this one looks autograph. The rest of the large paintings from the commission for which this was painted suggest a busy workshop, upon which Rubens surely depended.
Most of the permanent collection in the Ringling Art Museum reflects a collector lacking a Bernard Berenson to guide his selections but who nonetheless occasionally got lucky. Currently in the process of developing a fund for acquisitions and limited by a small conservation department with a long to-do list, the museum (owned by the state of Florida and managed by Florida State University) has great potential. Ms. Brilliant and company are working on bringing the museum into the 21st century for which I wish them the best in these difficult economic times. One can never have too many museums of art.
[Venice in the Age of Caneletto is on view until January 10, 2010.]
Deborah Feller is an artist and clinical social worker specializing in the treatment of incest and addictive/compulsive disorders. Her paintings and drawings depict the stories of her psychotherapy clients in narratives and still lifes. She also does portraits.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Come get your fill of "wine"
How could I possibly miss anything by Cynthia Oliver and her COCo Dance Theatre, let alone a multimedia primer on Caribbean-ness/womanhood/the glory of the body/and the gleeful sacredness of "wining"?
You know wining? I'm not talking about what you sip from a glass. I'm talking about what you do with the lower part of your body in response to calypso and soca and how the African deities radiate their energy through your cells and the garish/gleaming/sparkly/half-tacky-but-don't-care stuff you wear or half-wear on your pumping, rotating, figure-eighting hips and backside and how that body can come in any size like a big, tall, rangy swan whose limbs seem capable of scraping the balcony rails at St. Mark's Church and it's all wine-able and how talking does not preclude dancing and dancing does not preclude talking and how one feeds the other and tells the perennial, necessary tales and how the sacred and the secular do the same and how displacement and estrangement, love and disappointment entangle inseparably as Caribbean folk deal with being among family or out in the world of (and as) Other.
The one-hour piece, opened last evening at Danspace Project, is called Rigidigidim De Bamba De: Ruptured Calypso. Performers/text authors include A'Keitha Carey, Nehassaiu deGannes, Ithalia Forel, Lisa Green, Caryn Hodge and Rosamond S. King. The entire production team is fantastic, but let me point out Jason Finkelman (sound design and original music), Amanda K. Ringger (lighting) Marcus Behrens (video) and Meckha Cherry (costume design) for special recognition.
How raucous and rad and right this piece is, and its vibrant performers grab hold of you from the first and don't let go.
"Come test my wine! I dare you! I dare you!" (Destra Garica)
I dare you to test this wine.
Continuing tonight and concluding tomorrow night, 8pm: Reservations at Danspace Project
You know wining? I'm not talking about what you sip from a glass. I'm talking about what you do with the lower part of your body in response to calypso and soca and how the African deities radiate their energy through your cells and the garish/gleaming/sparkly/half-tacky-but-don't-care stuff you wear or half-wear on your pumping, rotating, figure-eighting hips and backside and how that body can come in any size like a big, tall, rangy swan whose limbs seem capable of scraping the balcony rails at St. Mark's Church and it's all wine-able and how talking does not preclude dancing and dancing does not preclude talking and how one feeds the other and tells the perennial, necessary tales and how the sacred and the secular do the same and how displacement and estrangement, love and disappointment entangle inseparably as Caribbean folk deal with being among family or out in the world of (and as) Other.
The one-hour piece, opened last evening at Danspace Project, is called Rigidigidim De Bamba De: Ruptured Calypso. Performers/text authors include A'Keitha Carey, Nehassaiu deGannes, Ithalia Forel, Lisa Green, Caryn Hodge and Rosamond S. King. The entire production team is fantastic, but let me point out Jason Finkelman (sound design and original music), Amanda K. Ringger (lighting) Marcus Behrens (video) and Meckha Cherry (costume design) for special recognition.
How raucous and rad and right this piece is, and its vibrant performers grab hold of you from the first and don't let go.
"Come test my wine! I dare you! I dare you!" (Destra Garica)
I dare you to test this wine.
Continuing tonight and concluding tomorrow night, 8pm: Reservations at Danspace Project
Baryshnikov-Ringling partners launch arts fest
My wife and I recently took a short trip to Sarasota, Florida, where we lodged in a quiet Lido Key bungalow. We enjoyed mornings walking and birding in Myakka River State Park and on a nature trail near South Lido Beach--where we discovered mangrove trees and a pileated woodpecker. We made a side trip to St. Petersburg's fascinating Salvador Dalí Museum and caught up with a New Yorker friend who'd relocated to Gulfport. But our primary reason for visiting the region was the brand new Ringling International Arts Festival, a joint venture of New York's Baryshnikov Arts Center and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, a Sarasota institution governed, since 2000, by Florida State University.
We sampled a small but impressive selection of the festival's offerings, which ranged from orchestral and chamber music to avant-garde cabaret, from flamenco to contemporary dance and experimental theater. All in all, the five-day fest might not be The Greatest Show on Earth, but if the partners can sustain and build upon this initial level of diversity, accessibility and freshness, John Ringling's town will have another tradition to point to with pride.
Some highlights
The surprise fireworks show at opening night's pre-concert festivities had nothing on conductor Robert Spano's bang and dazzle as he later led the FSU Symphony Orchestra in works by Beethoven and Steve Reich. In the Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, the orchestra flowed in joy and intensity; the fragrant music fairly danced under and around the agile, vivacious playing of pianist Pedja Muzijevic. With Baryshnikov looking on from the balcony, the festival got off to a joyous start.
The next afternoon, we attended our first dance show, Compañia María Pagés. Pages possesses a ship's-prow body, a mature sturdiness to match her assertive, lusty self-presentation in Flamenco y Poesía--her suite of dances inspired by works by José Saramago and Federico García Lorca. We have come to expect flamenco, when genuinely rich in duende, to take us on a fiery, often wrenching inner journey of the soul. With Pagés, instead, we stormed the path of womanly righteousness.
"I want to dance the words, only the words," Pagés wrote about this U.S. premiere for the program booklet. But the notes provided no translations, or even identification, of the selected poems. This created the curious effect of keeping us pretty much focused on the diva herself. Yes, her handsome quartet of young male dancers executed Riverdance-style synchronized routines--wicked-sharp ones, if ultimately unaffecting. And, yes, the heartfelt singers Ana Ramón and Ismael de La Rosa and the sublime guitar work of José Carrillo "Fyty" and Isaac Muñoz contributed lavishly to the beauty and "all in" feeling of Pagés's presentation. But the inescapable fact is that María! María!--to echo one of de la Rosa's wild cries--ruled the stage.
Like Duncan, like Graham, Pagés evokes and invokes the raw, primal elements. They exist in her large, harsh, masculine face with its stark, jutting jaw; in her arms--not muscular but strongly deployed, all angular sculpture framing and whipping about her head and long, thickish but python-like torso; in her powerful winding, churning, twisting and folding upon herself. Large and in charge, she does not so much flirt with her men as rally them to her martial cause. For the most part, she saves her seductive strategies--and she does have these, and in surprising, radiant, killer abundance--for her captive audience.
With supreme confidence, Pagés can also set aside strict flamenco stylings and don a little black dress and a pair of castanets to interject a bit of comedy, challenging two of the men to match her intricate percussive volleys with similar rapping of their walking sticks. This comedic interlude works in no small part because the Queen remains Queen throughout and, by that point, the conquered audience has pledged allegiance.
I'll have a full review of Aszure & Artist's Busk in an upcoming Dance Magazine. For now, I'll simply say that I continue to be charmed by Montreal's Aszure Barton. Busk--which shared a program with Annie-B Parson's The Snow Falls in the Winter, performed by the luminous OtherShore ensemble--just might be Barton's most sophisticated effort yet, a triumph for her terrific dancers and for the festival.
If a polite reception and overheard remarks offer a reliable gauge, Arena--Deganit Shemy's physically-gutsy meditation on toxicity and violence, premiered in April at Dance Theater Workshop--appears to have left Sarasotans a bit confused. Or maybe disturbed and dissociated in a self-protective way. But I hope it kept them thinking about it.
The current version does cry out for serious trimming; repetitiveness can give the impression of choreography going nowhere fast, no matter how striking or how valiantly performed. But the performers--all women and dressed and deployed to suggest athletes in the heat of competition--are, indeed, valiant and gripping. I'm familiar with a few earlier versions of Arena, and yet, as if I were encountering the work for the first time, the Sarasota performance gave me a nightmare. Literally. A very bad one. No lie.
We spent our last festival afternoon at a workshop premiere of Elevator Repair Service's romp through Hemingway--The Sun Also Rises (First Part)-- directed by ERS co-founder John Collins. Great fun. Check it out when it makes its formal premiere in late 2010 at the New York Theater Workshop.
Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Coming up:
Sideshow: The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, a review of visual arts at the Ringling International Arts Festival by artist and psychotherapist Deborah Feller
We sampled a small but impressive selection of the festival's offerings, which ranged from orchestral and chamber music to avant-garde cabaret, from flamenco to contemporary dance and experimental theater. All in all, the five-day fest might not be The Greatest Show on Earth, but if the partners can sustain and build upon this initial level of diversity, accessibility and freshness, John Ringling's town will have another tradition to point to with pride.
Some highlights
The surprise fireworks show at opening night's pre-concert festivities had nothing on conductor Robert Spano's bang and dazzle as he later led the FSU Symphony Orchestra in works by Beethoven and Steve Reich. In the Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, the orchestra flowed in joy and intensity; the fragrant music fairly danced under and around the agile, vivacious playing of pianist Pedja Muzijevic. With Baryshnikov looking on from the balcony, the festival got off to a joyous start.
The next afternoon, we attended our first dance show, Compañia María Pagés. Pages possesses a ship's-prow body, a mature sturdiness to match her assertive, lusty self-presentation in Flamenco y Poesía--her suite of dances inspired by works by José Saramago and Federico García Lorca. We have come to expect flamenco, when genuinely rich in duende, to take us on a fiery, often wrenching inner journey of the soul. With Pagés, instead, we stormed the path of womanly righteousness.
"I want to dance the words, only the words," Pagés wrote about this U.S. premiere for the program booklet. But the notes provided no translations, or even identification, of the selected poems. This created the curious effect of keeping us pretty much focused on the diva herself. Yes, her handsome quartet of young male dancers executed Riverdance-style synchronized routines--wicked-sharp ones, if ultimately unaffecting. And, yes, the heartfelt singers Ana Ramón and Ismael de La Rosa and the sublime guitar work of José Carrillo "Fyty" and Isaac Muñoz contributed lavishly to the beauty and "all in" feeling of Pagés's presentation. But the inescapable fact is that María! María!--to echo one of de la Rosa's wild cries--ruled the stage.
Like Duncan, like Graham, Pagés evokes and invokes the raw, primal elements. They exist in her large, harsh, masculine face with its stark, jutting jaw; in her arms--not muscular but strongly deployed, all angular sculpture framing and whipping about her head and long, thickish but python-like torso; in her powerful winding, churning, twisting and folding upon herself. Large and in charge, she does not so much flirt with her men as rally them to her martial cause. For the most part, she saves her seductive strategies--and she does have these, and in surprising, radiant, killer abundance--for her captive audience.
With supreme confidence, Pagés can also set aside strict flamenco stylings and don a little black dress and a pair of castanets to interject a bit of comedy, challenging two of the men to match her intricate percussive volleys with similar rapping of their walking sticks. This comedic interlude works in no small part because the Queen remains Queen throughout and, by that point, the conquered audience has pledged allegiance.
I'll have a full review of Aszure & Artist's Busk in an upcoming Dance Magazine. For now, I'll simply say that I continue to be charmed by Montreal's Aszure Barton. Busk--which shared a program with Annie-B Parson's The Snow Falls in the Winter, performed by the luminous OtherShore ensemble--just might be Barton's most sophisticated effort yet, a triumph for her terrific dancers and for the festival.
If a polite reception and overheard remarks offer a reliable gauge, Arena--Deganit Shemy's physically-gutsy meditation on toxicity and violence, premiered in April at Dance Theater Workshop--appears to have left Sarasotans a bit confused. Or maybe disturbed and dissociated in a self-protective way. But I hope it kept them thinking about it.
The current version does cry out for serious trimming; repetitiveness can give the impression of choreography going nowhere fast, no matter how striking or how valiantly performed. But the performers--all women and dressed and deployed to suggest athletes in the heat of competition--are, indeed, valiant and gripping. I'm familiar with a few earlier versions of Arena, and yet, as if I were encountering the work for the first time, the Sarasota performance gave me a nightmare. Literally. A very bad one. No lie.
We spent our last festival afternoon at a workshop premiere of Elevator Repair Service's romp through Hemingway--The Sun Also Rises (First Part)-- directed by ERS co-founder John Collins. Great fun. Check it out when it makes its formal premiere in late 2010 at the New York Theater Workshop.
Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Coming up:
Sideshow: The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, a review of visual arts at the Ringling International Arts Festival by artist and psychotherapist Deborah Feller
A Heaven in a Wild Flower!
William Blake's World: A New Heaven Is Begun at The Morgan Library and Museum
from eCognoscente New York, October 15, 2009
Exhibition information at The Morgan Library and Museum
from eCognoscente New York, October 15, 2009
Exhibition information at The Morgan Library and Museum
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The Aesthetics of Math
The Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of the Imagination
invites you to an Art Exhibition and Artist's Reception
Saturday, October 17, 2009, 5:00-7:00pm
following the roundtable Mathematics and Religion
at
The Philoctetes Center
247 East 82nd Street
(Phone: 646-422-0544; email: info@philoctetes.org)
Mathematics has been used for millennia as a tool for organizing and explaining finite reality while simultaneously touching the infinite. Visual art draws on the language of images to convey both order and chaos in the tangible and ephemeral worlds. The Aesthetics of Math, the first exhibition of the 2009-10 Philoctetes season, explores the intersection between these ways of understanding beauty, complexity, and the sublime.
For Devin Powers, pattern and symmetry contain intimations of a higher reason. Joan Waltemath uses irrational numbers to unlock the aesthetic impact of her work, aiming at a heightened awareness of how art is apprehended. Sarah Ferguson shrouds her images in mathematical figures, creating a screen that is both porous and impenetrable, while Haresh Lalvani addresses the concept of infinity through the morphological permutations mapped in his metal sculptures.
This exhibition is part of a series on mathematics made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation. Events in this series include Naming God, Naming Infinity, Mathematics and Religion and Mathematics and Beauty.
The exhibition may be viewed by appointment M-F from 11:00AM to 5:00PM. Please call 646-422-0544 or email info@philoctetes.org to make arrangements.
Exhibition curated by Hallie Cohen, Chair, Art Department, Marymount Manhattan College.
Events at Philoctetes are free and open to the public. Seating is on a first come basis.
The Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of the Imagination was established to promote an interdisciplinary approach to the understanding of creativity and the imaginative process. To achieve its mission, the Center organizes roundtable discussions and music, poetry and film series. All programs are free and open to the public. Visit www.philoctetes.org for more information.
invites you to an Art Exhibition and Artist's Reception
Saturday, October 17, 2009, 5:00-7:00pm
following the roundtable Mathematics and Religion
at
The Philoctetes Center
247 East 82nd Street
(Phone: 646-422-0544; email: info@philoctetes.org)
Mathematics has been used for millennia as a tool for organizing and explaining finite reality while simultaneously touching the infinite. Visual art draws on the language of images to convey both order and chaos in the tangible and ephemeral worlds. The Aesthetics of Math, the first exhibition of the 2009-10 Philoctetes season, explores the intersection between these ways of understanding beauty, complexity, and the sublime.
For Devin Powers, pattern and symmetry contain intimations of a higher reason. Joan Waltemath uses irrational numbers to unlock the aesthetic impact of her work, aiming at a heightened awareness of how art is apprehended. Sarah Ferguson shrouds her images in mathematical figures, creating a screen that is both porous and impenetrable, while Haresh Lalvani addresses the concept of infinity through the morphological permutations mapped in his metal sculptures.
This exhibition is part of a series on mathematics made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation. Events in this series include Naming God, Naming Infinity, Mathematics and Religion and Mathematics and Beauty.
The exhibition may be viewed by appointment M-F from 11:00AM to 5:00PM. Please call 646-422-0544 or email info@philoctetes.org to make arrangements.
Exhibition curated by Hallie Cohen, Chair, Art Department, Marymount Manhattan College.
Events at Philoctetes are free and open to the public. Seating is on a first come basis.
The Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of the Imagination was established to promote an interdisciplinary approach to the understanding of creativity and the imaginative process. To achieve its mission, the Center organizes roundtable discussions and music, poetry and film series. All programs are free and open to the public. Visit www.philoctetes.org for more information.
Am I in the wrong blogging business?
New F.T.C. Rules Have Bloggers and Twitterers Mulling
by Kayleen Schaefer, The New York Times, October 14, 2000
Free designer handbags and jeans? Free cosmetics?
I--a lowly dance/performance critic--must be on the wrong end of the blogging business!
We do get free tickets, of course, but certainly--I hope!--none us receives payment from artists and organizations for writing dance reviews. If I want lip gloss, I have to purchase it myself with the meager pay I get from dance writing outlets. Hmmm... Maybe I should start looking around a little more widely in the wonderful world of blogging...! :-D
by Kayleen Schaefer, The New York Times, October 14, 2000
Free designer handbags and jeans? Free cosmetics?
I--a lowly dance/performance critic--must be on the wrong end of the blogging business!
We do get free tickets, of course, but certainly--I hope!--none us receives payment from artists and organizations for writing dance reviews. If I want lip gloss, I have to purchase it myself with the meager pay I get from dance writing outlets. Hmmm... Maybe I should start looking around a little more widely in the wonderful world of blogging...! :-D
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Jacob's Pillow names dance residency awardees
I'm delighted to learn that three of New York City's most intriguing contemporary dancemakers--Monica Bill Barnes, Kyle Abraham and Camille A. Brown--will show new work at the Summer 2010 Jacob's Pillow Dance fest developed through its prestigious fall-into-spring Creative Development Residency program. Wit, provocation and pizzazz--each of these choreographers are capable of all three!
See clips from Jacob's Pillow Dance 2009. For more information, click here.
See clips from Jacob's Pillow Dance 2009. For more information, click here.
Sokolow: Lectures by Jim May
Jim May, faculty member at The New School and disciple of Anna Sokolow has three remaining lectures on the great American choreographer during this 100th Anniversary of her birth.
Lectures: 6pm-9:30pm
Location: The New School, 65 West 11th Street, Manhattan (Room 263)
October 15: Walking tour through the East Village, the Henry Street Playhouse, Settlement House (where Sokolow was raised), and the HB Studios, where she taught.
October 22: Jim May describes as "dealing with Anna's recovery from her nervous breakdown by investigating other artists, finding strength from their efforts, and finding a new artistic direction. We will be viewing Kurt Weill, Kafka, Poe." The session will also address the question of the difference between a Master and a Genius.
October 29th: Mostly, a discussion of Sokolow, with a Q&A.
Guests are welcome to join Jim and his students at the New School.
RSVP: Audrey Ross at 212-877-3399 or audreyrosspub@aol.com
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
A Place Removed From 'the Pressure Of Received Ideas'
A Place Removed From 'the Pressure Of Received Ideas'
by Murray Gell-Mann, Science News, September 12, 2009
by Murray Gell-Mann, Science News, September 12, 2009
Darwin for Dads
Darwin for Dads: A daughter tried to help one member of an endangered species survive
by Joe Queenan, Smithsonian Magazine (August 2009)
by Joe Queenan, Smithsonian Magazine (August 2009)
Monday, October 12, 2009
Lerman's observations
As a dancer and choreographer I've spent a tremendous amount of my life defending something that's very hard to see. I mean people see dance, they see the dancers, but they have trouble understanding why it's valuable, what you're trying to say. And in some ways I feel that's reflected in what I learned initially from the physicists. It's very abstract, it's hard to see, people have trouble trying to understand it, it has tremendous value to us as a civilization but it's not easy to explain.
--Liz Lerman (quoted in Science News, September 26, 2009), who is researching particle physics for an upcoming production
--Liz Lerman (quoted in Science News, September 26, 2009), who is researching particle physics for an upcoming production
Memorial for Francis Mason -- October 30
There will be a Memorial for Francis Mason on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 2:00 pm at The Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Avenue (at 19th Street). The speakers and program will be announced soon. It is open to the general public. Francis Mason (88), a cultural diplomat, editor, radio dance critic, writer, and dance devotee, died on Thursday, September 24 at his home in Rye, N.Y. He began his career as a dance writer in the 1950s, and for more than 50 years, he worked in the field of dance.
He was born on September 9, 1921 in Jacksonville, Fl. He received his bachelor’s degree from St John’s College in Annapolis. While serving in the Navy, he participated in D-Day. Cultures especially literature, music, movies and the visual arts were all early loves. In 1948, he was taken by a friend to the world premiere of “Orpheus,” with music by Igor Stravinsky and choreography by Balanchine. This began his devotion and advocacy for dance.
In 1949 he began his radio career for WNYC, on the program “Today in Ballet.” In 1954 he was the principal editor and author of the highly successful book “Balanchine’s Complete Stories of the Great Ballets,” which has been reissued numerous times. This book reflects Mr. Balanchine’s account of his ballets, as well as presents the scenarios of a wide range of other internationally acclaimed ballet repertory.
Mr. Mason was cultural attaché to the United States embassies in Belgrade (1956-60), and in London (1960-65), where he successfully urged the American government to sponsor appearances by American dance companies. These presentations forged the British recognition of Balanchine, Graham and other American choreographers and helped to further these careers. These performances helped to establish the popularity of American dance troupes both in Europe and the United States. The success of New York City Ballet, the Graham, Merce Cunningham and Alvin Ailey companies in London in the 1960s made a great impression back in the United States and in other countries. Martha Graham and George Balanchine would remain life long friends. His attachment to Balanchine, Graham and their respective dance companies continued after their deaths.
Some of his other positions included in Washington as chief of East/West Exhibitions (1965-67); a year in New York as president of Experiments in Art and Technology, invited by its founders, Billy Kluver and Robert Rauschenberg; later as assistant to Arthur A. Houghton Jr. (president of Steuben Glass and chairman of the Metropolitan Museum of Art); and, in 1975, assistant director of the Morgan Library & Museum.
He served for decades as a member of the board of the Martha Graham company, twice as chairman, from 1974 to 1976 and from 2000 to 2007. And during this period, he lead the company through a trying period of lawsuits, fund-raising and advocacy.
In 1980, he became the third editor of Ballet Review, which was founded in 1965. He brought the magazine to its’ annual quarterly publication and for the last three decades served as editor until his death. Mr. Mason published “I Remember Balanchine,” (1991) an anthology of his personally conducted interviews with an extraordinary range of people whose contacts with Balanchine stretched from the 1920s to the 1980s. And until a few months ago he was dance critic for the radio station WQXR-FM,
His wife, Patricia, whom he married in 1952, died in 1997. He is survived by a daughter, Leslie, a real estate broker in Manhattan, and his son, Spencer Mason, an opera singer in Pforzheim, Germany; and two grandchildren.
He was born on September 9, 1921 in Jacksonville, Fl. He received his bachelor’s degree from St John’s College in Annapolis. While serving in the Navy, he participated in D-Day. Cultures especially literature, music, movies and the visual arts were all early loves. In 1948, he was taken by a friend to the world premiere of “Orpheus,” with music by Igor Stravinsky and choreography by Balanchine. This began his devotion and advocacy for dance.
In 1949 he began his radio career for WNYC, on the program “Today in Ballet.” In 1954 he was the principal editor and author of the highly successful book “Balanchine’s Complete Stories of the Great Ballets,” which has been reissued numerous times. This book reflects Mr. Balanchine’s account of his ballets, as well as presents the scenarios of a wide range of other internationally acclaimed ballet repertory.
Mr. Mason was cultural attaché to the United States embassies in Belgrade (1956-60), and in London (1960-65), where he successfully urged the American government to sponsor appearances by American dance companies. These presentations forged the British recognition of Balanchine, Graham and other American choreographers and helped to further these careers. These performances helped to establish the popularity of American dance troupes both in Europe and the United States. The success of New York City Ballet, the Graham, Merce Cunningham and Alvin Ailey companies in London in the 1960s made a great impression back in the United States and in other countries. Martha Graham and George Balanchine would remain life long friends. His attachment to Balanchine, Graham and their respective dance companies continued after their deaths.
Some of his other positions included in Washington as chief of East/West Exhibitions (1965-67); a year in New York as president of Experiments in Art and Technology, invited by its founders, Billy Kluver and Robert Rauschenberg; later as assistant to Arthur A. Houghton Jr. (president of Steuben Glass and chairman of the Metropolitan Museum of Art); and, in 1975, assistant director of the Morgan Library & Museum.
He served for decades as a member of the board of the Martha Graham company, twice as chairman, from 1974 to 1976 and from 2000 to 2007. And during this period, he lead the company through a trying period of lawsuits, fund-raising and advocacy.
In 1980, he became the third editor of Ballet Review, which was founded in 1965. He brought the magazine to its’ annual quarterly publication and for the last three decades served as editor until his death. Mr. Mason published “I Remember Balanchine,” (1991) an anthology of his personally conducted interviews with an extraordinary range of people whose contacts with Balanchine stretched from the 1920s to the 1980s. And until a few months ago he was dance critic for the radio station WQXR-FM,
His wife, Patricia, whom he married in 1952, died in 1997. He is survived by a daughter, Leslie, a real estate broker in Manhattan, and his son, Spencer Mason, an opera singer in Pforzheim, Germany; and two grandchildren.
Friday, October 2, 2009
House of Harrell
How nice to get let into a performance space well before a show begins and be able to enjoy the quietly cheerful presence of its star-to-be as he greets friends. Last night at the New Museum, the stellar soloist in question--Trajal Harrell—started the show by handing out impeccably-printed cards with the lineup of twenty voguing “looks” to be performed over fifty minutes in the museum’s intimate theater space, surrounded on three sides by audience.
The piece is called Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church (S)—the S representing “small”; reportedly, there are XS, M, L and XL versions. Besides the museum, Harrell’s savvy co-presenters include Danspace Project and French Institute Alliance Française’s Crossing the Line festival. You have one more chance to see the exquisitely-performed (S): Go tonight!
Using a sextet of metal folding chairs—draped in pieces of clothing--as his dressing room, Harrell dons a changing, mix-match array. From Preppy Schoolboy (West and East Coast versions) to Legendary Face and Basquiat Realness, Harrell walks, embodying his long-imagined collision of Judsonian postmodernism (the party of NO!) and the aesthetics of the Harlem ball scene (YES! to glamour, YES! to theatricality, YES! to seduction). In fact, it is a big YES! to the importance of surface impressions and a hearty embrace of making magic (and magick) theatricality in postmodern dance.
For the most part, Harrell avoids the gleaming runway, created by artist Franklin Evans, taped over the theater’s floor. It’s there, but he’s elsewhere, breaking up not only the way we can look at him but the way he looks at everything with a gaze that sometimes draws the watcher in and sometimes evades or wards off the watcher, but is always pulled together and deployed like a serious and irreversible hoodoo spell.
This performance—a pleasure to witness--combines wit, patience, subtlety, awesome fluidity and grace and even some room for amusingly tacky effects (kitchen apron turned superhero’s cape with the help of an electric fan, for instance). The man’s keen taste in music and sure application of it for color and atmosphere are simply delectable. Harrell has always been an interesting thinker and creator. This piece, though, should make him legendary.
Tonight, 7pm, at New Museum, 235 Bowery, at Prince Street between Stanton & Rivington. 212-219-1222. Information also at Danspace Project.
The piece is called Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church (S)—the S representing “small”; reportedly, there are XS, M, L and XL versions. Besides the museum, Harrell’s savvy co-presenters include Danspace Project and French Institute Alliance Française’s Crossing the Line festival. You have one more chance to see the exquisitely-performed (S): Go tonight!
Using a sextet of metal folding chairs—draped in pieces of clothing--as his dressing room, Harrell dons a changing, mix-match array. From Preppy Schoolboy (West and East Coast versions) to Legendary Face and Basquiat Realness, Harrell walks, embodying his long-imagined collision of Judsonian postmodernism (the party of NO!) and the aesthetics of the Harlem ball scene (YES! to glamour, YES! to theatricality, YES! to seduction). In fact, it is a big YES! to the importance of surface impressions and a hearty embrace of making magic (and magick) theatricality in postmodern dance.
For the most part, Harrell avoids the gleaming runway, created by artist Franklin Evans, taped over the theater’s floor. It’s there, but he’s elsewhere, breaking up not only the way we can look at him but the way he looks at everything with a gaze that sometimes draws the watcher in and sometimes evades or wards off the watcher, but is always pulled together and deployed like a serious and irreversible hoodoo spell.
This performance—a pleasure to witness--combines wit, patience, subtlety, awesome fluidity and grace and even some room for amusingly tacky effects (kitchen apron turned superhero’s cape with the help of an electric fan, for instance). The man’s keen taste in music and sure application of it for color and atmosphere are simply delectable. Harrell has always been an interesting thinker and creator. This piece, though, should make him legendary.
Tonight, 7pm, at New Museum, 235 Bowery, at Prince Street between Stanton & Rivington. 212-219-1222. Information also at Danspace Project.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Media disrupted?
Warrington Hudlin invites you to
MEDIA DISRUPTED
A Debate on the Future of Journalism and Filmmaking in the Digital Era DV Republic Debate Forum
October 3, 2009
DV Republic Citizen
While no one debates that digital media has created a technological sea change, what is being debated is the social and business impact of this transformation.
Through generous support from Intel, this debate among industry leaders and thinkers is being presented as a free public forum on Saturday, October 3rd, 3pm-5pm, in New York City, live on stage and live on the Internet.
Audiences members and viewers will be able to interact via text messaging on their cell phones during the Q&A session and in the audience poll at the end of each debate.
Debate Topics
IS PRINT JOURNALISM DOOMED?
Should We Mourn or Celebrate?
Journalism faces fundamental challenges in the digital era. From the economic viability of print media to its status as a "trusted source" , this debate is whether journalism, as we have known it, is doomed and whether or not we should care.
Ty Ahmad-Taylor (Founder of FanFeedr and digital media veteran of MTV Networks, Comcast, and @Home)
Errol Louis (Columnist, New York Daily News and radio talk show host WWRL 1600 AM)
STEAL THIS FILM:
Is The Only Place Indie Film Can Find Justice Outside The Law?
Content holders are suing their consumers, creating an environment where media users are are pitted against the content rights holders. The digital appropriation enabled by new technologies could be seen as a new era of media abundance rather than theft. But is this justice?
Brian Newman (former CEO of Tribeca Film Institute)
Neil Sieling (New Media Fellow for the Center for Social Media at American University and a founder and consultant for Link TV)
Debate Moderator Omar Wasow
Internet Pioneer
Co-Founder Black Planet.com
Warrington Hudlin (host)
Debate Venue
The debate will take place in a beautiful art deco theater at 120 West 14th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenue), Manhattan
Doors open at 2:30pm
Debate 3pm-4:30pm
Networking 4:30pm-5:30pm
Live webcast: Streamed live and interactive.
Networking & After Party Location will be announced at the Debate
SPONSOR - INTEL
C0-SPONSORS
The Center for Media, Culture and History
The Center for Social Media
IFP
Integrated Media Arts MFA Program Film and Media Studies at Hunter College, CUNY
The Medgar Evers College Film & Culture Series
Film Division: Columbia University School of the Arts
Hue-Man Bookstore
Long Island University-Brooklyn Campus-Media Arts Department
Email for info: rsvp@dvrepublic.org
Online here
October isn't LGBT Pride Month, but...
Great stuff coming up in October from lbgt@nypl and Manhattan's LGBT Community Center!
PANIC!@theLibrary -- Saturday, October 17 (2:30pm)
PANIC!, hosted by Charlie Vasquez, is New York City’s only ongoing LGBT reading series, held every last Wednesday of the month at Nowhere in the East Village. The New York Public Library's Jefferson Market Branch--425 Avenue of the Americas at 10th Street, Manhattan--hosts a special presentation of PANIC! on Saturday, October 17, featuring Vasquez, Brandon Lacy Campos, Rosalind Christine Lloyd and Karen Jaime.
Free admission. For information, call 212-243-4334.
In Good Conscience -- Monday, October 19 (6pm)
In Good Conscience (film) with a talk by filmmaker Barbara Rick
Screening of the award-winning documentary about Sr. Jeannine Gramick, the Catholic nun who is defying a Vatican edict that shut down her 30-year ministry to the gay and lesbian community. Jefferson Market branch, 425 Avenue of the Americas at 10th Street, Manhattan.
Free admission. For information, call 212-243-4334.
The Healing Power of Humor -- Friday, October 23 (6pm)
The Healing Power of Humor, Anti-Violence Workshop by lesbian comic Karen Williams at the LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues), Manhattan. Free admission. Register here.
The Center presents Comedian Karen Williams -- Saturday, October 24 (7:30pm & 9:30pm)
"Known for her quick repartee, insightful commentary and audience rapport, Williams is a comic craft master, a gifted actor, a multitalented writer, and an inspirational lecturer."
Admission: $35 online; $45 at the door