See you in 2010!

Wishing you a grand, beautiful, rewarding New Year!

Matt Turney, famed Graham dancer, 84

Matt Turney, Longtime Dancer With Martha Graham, Dies at 84
by Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times, December 29, 2009

Profile of performance artist Marina Abramović

Taking it to the Limits
by Linda Yablonsky, ArtNews, December 2009

The joy of mambo!

One in 8 Million - New York Characters in Sound and Images - The New York Times

Great series overall, but don't miss the one about mambo dancer Candice Angelet--link here--interviewed by Catrin Einhorn!

South African poet Dennis Brutus, 85

Dennis Brutus, South African Poet, Dies at 85
Associated Press, in The New York Times, December 27, 2009

Kim Peek, inspiration for "Rain Man," 58

Kim Peek, Inspiration for ‘Rain Man,’ Dies at 58
by Bruce Weber, The New York Times, December 26, 2009

Trisha Brown Co.'s anniversary lecture series

Trisha Brown Dance Company
40th Anniversary Lecture Series

in association with Dance Theater Workshop

January 13 at 7:30pm
February 16 at 7:30pm
March 22 at 7:30pm
April 11 at 3pm
May 23 at 3pm

at the Bessie Schönberg Theater, Dance Theater Workshop


Launching on January 13, the series kicks off with a lively discussion moderated by Wendy Perron with veteran dancers Diane Madden and Carolyn Lucas. The conversation will offer a rare behind-the-scenes look into the company’s creative process and a chance to listen to stories from all around the world.

Upcoming events

February 16, 7:30pm: Diane Madden, Julie Martin and Trisha Brown discuss the premiere of Opal Loop in 1980 and the process of reconstructing the work in 2009-2010.

March 22, 7:30pm: tba

April 11, 3pm: Art Historian, Susan Rosenberg; Curator, Peter Eleey; and Dramaturge, Guillaume Bernardi, discuss the work from their perspective.

May 23, 3pm: Former TBDC dancers Eva Karczag, Lisa Kraus, Stacy Spence, Keith Thompson, Stephen Petronio, and Vicky Shick. Having all pursued their own choreographic careers, they will gather to discuss how their time with TBDC influenced their own choreography.

Admission: Free (Suggested donation: $10)
Reservations not required but can be made through the DTW box office at 212-924-0077. 

Dance Theater Workshop's Bessie Schönberg Theater
219 West 19th Street (between 7th & 8th Avenues), Manhattan

Oh, poor Shakespeare!

Well, today I find I really must correct and amend and update and repent and atone for my earlier post about my favorites of 2009!

In fact, I find I really must correct and amend and update and repent and atone for my earlier post that noted that a performance of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater would be my final show of 2009.

Turns out there was a serious omission. Turns out I neglected to take Romeo and Juliet into consideration. That would be the Romeo and Juliet presented at The Kitchen by Nature Theater of Oklahoma--you know, the folks who put the "w" in mellowdrama, as they hasten to remind us. That show, indeed, is the last one I was scheduled to attend in 2009. I went last night, and now it is definitely one of my favorite things of all time.

NTO's Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper got the cracked idea to call up a batch of people and ask them to recount, to the best of their ability, the plot of Romeo and Juliet, something most had read long ago in high school (or, as they say in this play, HIGH school!) or gotten some vague sense of from West Side Story (don't ask...). The resulting text--call it, perhaps, "Falling Off the Cliff Notes"--is a patchwork of their halting or rambling responses and digressions, declaimed with overwrought verbal drama and body language by actors Anne Gridley and Robert M. Johanson.

Amid all the plot notes, Gridley and Johanson--as mouthpieces for the respondents--also tend to expound at great length on matters as disparate as teenage lust, Anna Nicole Smith, Osama bin Laden, actors' neediness, and the demise of the cocktail party where, they say, people used to go to feel smart. Elisabeth Conner also shows up to...well, I won't try to describe what she does because I don't want to spoil it for you--you are going, aren't you?--and because, well, I just can't.

It's gutsy, hilarious and leaves you aching for the real thing.

Also, Nature Theater of Oklahoma--an Obie-winning, New York City-based troupe--happens to have the best name in theater. If you don't know how they got it, click this link.

So, anyway, sorry, guys! I'mma correct the record: NTO's Liska, Copper, Gridley, Johanson, Conner and their Romeo and Juliet production officially join my list of favorites!


See them at The Kitchen, now through January 17. Here are the details.

Starting the new year right

One day, the winter holidays will be over. The tree trimmings and Nutcracker productions will be tucked away for another year. And, you'll look around and realize it's that sad little unloved period ot time called early January. And you'll say to yourself, "Gee, I'm think I'm about ready for some cutting-edge performance!"

And that's where APAP comes in!

Each year, New York's artists and venues set up shows specifically targeting performing arts presenters, from all over America and abroad, attending the APAP Conference. These shows are a great way to catch up on work that you missed during previous seasons or to get another good look at dances that continue to intrigue you.

For example, here's the lineup for AMERICAN REALNESS, a fest running at Abrons Arts Center and other venues, from Jan 8-11.

Luciana Achugar, Franny and Zooey
Jack Ferver, A Movie Star Needs a Movie
Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People, Last Meadow
Trajal Harrell, Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church (S)
Zoe|Juniper, A Crack in Everything
Layard Thompson, cUp—pUck…
Jeremy Wade, I Offer My Self to Thee
Ann Liv Young, Ann Liv Young Does Sherry

You'll want to grab some of these, for sure. So, click here for schedule, location and ticketing details.

Performance Space 122 has it's own APAP-related series at home and other venues--they call it COIL--running January 6-17 and including the likes of Maria Hassabi, Morgan Thorson and LOW, LeeSaar The Company, Megan Sprenger/MV Works, Lisa D'Amour and Katie Pearl with Emily Johnson and The National Theater of the United States of America. Click here for details.

Dance Theater Workshop offers Tere O'Connor, Faye Driscoll and Pam Tanowitz in its APAP series, January 7-11. Click here.

Keep your eyes peeled for more great shows around town!

These are a few of my favorites [UPDATED]

What a year! Thank you all--whoever and wherever you are! 

But here's an extra-special, super-duper Thank You to the following--in no particular order:

Jeff Mozgala (Diagnosis of a Faun by Tamar Rogoff, La Mama E.T.C.)

Jared Gradinger (There Is No End To More by Jeremy Wade, Japan Society)

Deirdre O'Connell (The Dream Express by Steve Mellor and Deirdre O'Connell at The Chocolate Factory)

Donna Costello (Sensate by Carrie Ahern at The Brooklyn Lyceum)

Yasmin Levy (Sephardic Soul at Peter Norton Symphony Space)

Anna Deveare Smith (Let Me Down Easy as well as appearances at the World Science Festival and in Hymn by Judith Jamison at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater season at New York City Center)

Low: Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker (Heaven by Morgan Thorson at Performance Space 122)

Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards (Charlie's Angels by Jason Samuels Smith at The Kitchen)

Tanya Tagaq (at Smithsonian Museum's Museum of the American Indian)

Trajal Harrell (Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church (S) by Harrell at The New Museum)

Reggie Wilson and Andréya Ouamba (The Good Dance: dakar/brooklyn by Wilson and Ouamba at Brooklyn Academy of Music)

Kurt Hentschläger (creator of ZEE at 3LD Art & Technology Center)

Miguel Gutierrez, Michelle Boulé and Tarek Halaby; Lenore Doxsee; Neal Medlyn (Last Meadow by Gutierrez at Dance Theater Workshop)

Thomas F. DeFrantz (Monk's Mood: A Performance Meditation on the Life and Music of Thelonius Monk by DeFrantz at Joyce SoHo)

Rashaun Mitchell (Nearly Ninety by Merce Cunningham at Brooklyn Academy of Music)

John Kelly (Paved Paradise: Redux by Kelly at Abrons Arts Center)

Anahid Sofian (Toward A Secret Sky by Sofian at Anahid Sofian Studio)

The South Bronx (The Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue by Melanie Joseph and Claudia Rankine)

Those saintly guys--way too many to mention--but you know who you are (The Golden Legend by Christopher Williams at Dance Theater Workshop)

Germaine Acogny, Carmen De Lavallade, Dianne McIntyre, Bebe Miller and Jawole Will Jo Zollar (FLY Five First Ladies of Dance at Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts)

Allegra Herman (Dover Beach by Sarah Michelson at The Kitchen)

Robert Frank (Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans at the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Georgia O'Keeffe (Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction at The Whitney Museum)

Adrian Clark, Douglas Gillespie, Leslie Kraus and Jennifer Nugent (works by Kate Weare at Danspace Project)

Alice Ripley (Next to Normal by Brian Yorkey at The Booth Theatre)

Sahr Ngaujah (Fela! by Bill T. Jones at the Baryshnikov Arts Center)

Jon Michael Hill (Superior Donuts by Tracey Letts at The Music Box)

Cynthia Oliver and the women of her COCo Dance Theatre: A'Keitha Carey, Nehassaiu deGannes, Ithalia Forel, Lisa Green, Caryn Hodge and Rosamond S. King (Rigidigidim De Bamba De: Ruptured Calypso by Oliver at Danspace Project)

Lionel Popkin and dance and music collaborators: Carolyn Hall, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Peggy Piacenza, Robert Een, Hearn Gadbois and Valecia Phillips

Mo'Nique (Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire by Lee Daniels)

Savion Glover (SoLo in TIME by Glover at The Joyce Theater)

Tere O'Connor and company: Hilary Clark, Daniel Clifton, Walter Dundervill, Erin Gerken, Heather Olson and Matthew Rogers (Wrought Iron Fog by O'Connor at Dance Theater Workshop)

SPECIAL UPDATE:

Nature Theater of Oklahoma's Pavol Liska, Kelly Copper, Anne Gridley, Robert M. Johanson, Elisabeth Conner and their Romeo and Juliet production at The Kitchen officially join my list of favorites! Read my review of last night's performance here!  

All the best in the coming year!

Return of the sun

May your winter be bright, peaceful and beautiful. Happy Winter Solstice!

Chunky Move at BAM reviewed

My review of Chunky Move at BAM is available now on DanceMagazine.com.

Ailey thoughts: My final show of 2009

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Saturday, December 19, 8pm--New York City Center

In the opening stages of Judith Jamison's Among Us (Private Spaces: Public Places), I could barely take my eyes off Jamison's bold paintings fanning out above the stage. But since Among Us is a dance production, not simply pictures at an exhibition, I wish I could say that the portraits set on her "gallery-goer" dancers have similar pull and avoidance of cliché.

The "freshest" idea here--the Obama-like role played by Anthony Burrell in a section called "Precedent (President)"--seems not only out of place but also choreographically didactic and melodramatic. The personal and political complexity of America's first bi-racial, Black-identified president is so clearly something that all of us are still wrapping our brains around. Wouldn't it make sense to wait a bit and study the man and figure out how to render him in art in a way that isn't merely sentimental?

I enjoyed Antonio Douthit, Samuel Lee Roberts and Guillermo Asca--a frisky trio of homeboys checking out everyone who passed them by in a section that, curiously, sort of reminded me of Camille A. Brown's 2007 Ailey hit, The Groove to Nobody's Business.

In other segments, Douthit worked a fey-fabulous role as a snaky genie in skintight blue like something spliced in from a Geoffrey Holder fantasia. I'm imagining that this feather-crowned djinn, who appears here and there, now and again, must stand for the Spirit of Creativity. At the end, with the genie presiding, the cool, pumping, boogie-down music by composer ELEW (Eric Lewis) brings the disparate gallery-goers together in a kind of disco party. You have to hand it to Jamison--whose other sectional endings are fairly vague--for finding a way to pump the audience and send her ensemble out with a flourish.

Also on the program: Jamison's Hymn (1993), restaged by Masazumi Chaya and featuring Anna Deavere Smith, performing live, giving the company's oral history the brilliant Anna Deavere Smith treatment. The choreography comes securely, compassionately swathed in a few amazing stories, portraits in courage and dedication, rendered by the perceptive Smith, as well as charged performances. The Ailey folks sure know how to move you.

At home with Jenny Holzer

Domains: Art House
by Edward Lewine, The New York Times, September 20, 2009

Good things come to...Carmen Herrera

At 94, Carmen Herrera Is Art’s Hot New Thing, and Enjoying It
by Deborah Sontag, The New York Times, December 19, 2009

Innovative novelist Milorad Pavic, 80

Milorad Pavic, Serbian Author of Unusual Novels, Dies at 80
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, December 19, 2009

Yamazaki: to make the invisible visible

Collaborators Kota Yamazaki (dance) and Cécile Pitois (set and concept) explore the evidence of things unseen in Rays of Space at Danspace Project. This new, hour-long work attempts to delve into the matter of energy, specifically the energy that passes to and from performer and audience.

Pitois' minimalist set--simply fanned-out rays of orange tape that span the wood floor--suggests a burst of energy directed towards the edge of the audience. Dancers deploy amid and along Pitois' energetic pathways, sometimes approaching the audience to dance a passage, like fish in a tank wriggling up to the glass to idly gaze at their keepers. Kathy Kaufmann's light design segments vignettes and creates a brooding and unpredictable atmosphere.

The piece begins with luxuriant and arresting quirkiness--bodies radically tilted, collapsible and springy; elbows, hips, necks and wrists taking atypically assertive, propulsive action that turns the rest of the body into a complacent go-along. The dancers move with impressive, pleasing agility and flow within Masahiro Sugaya's unobtrusive sound environment--a kind of white-noise background that could be natural or unnaturally devised to pacify both denizens and watchers.

The quintet of performers are a solid team, and Elena Demyanenko and Ildikó Tóth, in particular, are wonderfully absorbing. However, as Rays of Space spreads out in time, its repeated effects attenuate and begin to pall. The watcher's mind wanders to matters less poetic, such as: Why are we--the audience with our mounds of winter clothes--always crammed together while those five people have all that space to move around in? Who gets to choose which dancer wears which costume, particularly the ugly ones? Whatever happened to dances that lasted only as long as their creator's ideas warranted, instead of ballooning out to fill an hour or more?

Kota Yamazaki/Fluid hug-hug with Cécile Pitois will present two more evenings of Rays of Space at Danspace Project--tonight and Saturday at 8pm. Click here for more information and ticketing.

New tap dance center opens in West Village

Tony Waag's American Tap Dance Foundation hosts an open house in January at its new home on Christopher Street, the American Tap Dance Center:

Take a sample class (tap shoes not required), meet the faculty and get information about ATDF's tap programs.

Events (for ages 3-1/2 to teens and adults):

Monday, January 4, 6-7 PM (ADULTS)
Wednesday, January 6, 2:30-4:30 PM (YOUTH)
Wednesday, January 13, 2:30-4:30 PM (YOUTH)
Saturday, January 16, 12 noon-1 PM (YOUTH)

For complete details, call 646-230-9564. 

The American Tap Dance Center
154 Christopher Street, 2B
(between Greenwich and Washington Streets)

Getting into arts school

Auditioning Their Hearts Out, for High School in New York
by Jennifer Medina, The New York Times, December 17, 2009

The Brides of Fela

On Broadway, Actresses Find Depth in Fela’s Women
by Felicia R. Lee, The New York Times, December 16, 2009

Focus on leadership: Valentino Deng

His Gift Changes Lives
by Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, December 16, 2009


valentinoachakdeng.org

Getting the Ailey spirit

To honor beloved Judith Jamison on the occasion of her 20th anniversary at the helm of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ronald K. Brown choreographed a new work named for Jamison's 1993 autobiography, Dancing Spirit. While this evocative nontet has won a New York Times critic's stamp of approval for gently nudging Ailey's dancers past their patented smooth virtuosity, it scarcely departs from Brown's own comfort zone.

In terms of its delicious music mix, hybrid movement technique, staging, idealistic tone and spiritual reverence, Dancing Spirit is recognizably part of the Ronald K. Brown family of dances. It probably just looks more uniformly classy on Ailey than it might on Evidence, Brown's scrappier group.

And, yes, Dancing Spirit looks especially grand on Ailey, with the grandest of all performances coming from Matthew Rushing and Yannick Lebrun. They work Brown's movement through their bodies with openness and vivacity (Rushing), minute, agile precision (Lebrun), attentiveness and understanding (both gentlemen). They make you glad to be there. And what they most clearly tell me about Jamison is how focused and serious she is--like Brown--about attending to the work at hand.
 
I got unexpectedly emotional watching the all-too-familiar swirl and twirl of Memoria--Alvin Ailey's 1979 tribute to the late Joyce Trisler, his colleague and friend. (Haven't I seen this piece, like Revelations, a gazillion times?) But, this time, it brought a warm flush to my cheeks and tears to my eyes--perhaps, in no small measure, because of Constance Stamatiou's sensitive performance. She's lovely. Truth be told, though, it was probably Ailey's vision of the future--the exuberant chorus of young dance students swarming the stage in the work's celebratory conclusion--that did me in. In a difficult time, it feels good to reconnect with that sense of optimism and dedication.

New York City Center season (through January 3) schedule and ticketing

Monk's Mood: DeFrantz raises the ghost

I'm at Joyce SoHo, watching dancer (and dance scholar, professor, author) Thomas F. DeFrantz sketch out some somber matters from the difficult life of Thelonious Monk, and I'm simply bursting with joy. Can't help it. DeFrantz is that good. And Monk's Mood: A Performance Meditation on the Life and Music of Thelonious Monk is that beautiful. Not a hackneyed, unoriginal moment in this impressionistic narrative.

DeFrantz's postmodern tap choreography and elegantly quirky performance--an apt counterpoint to the vast, irresistible undertow of Monk's music--are revelations. And, unlike another production hitting the city this week that fuses the impulses of the dancing body with responsive computer technology--and which, for now, will go nameless here--DeFrantz and poly-media artist Eto Oro strike a balance between human and machine. And that's an excellent thing, because you absolutely do want to keep DeFrantz's (and Monk's) humanity in mind. As the collaborators attest, the tech must serve the story. "We want to reanimate the ghost in the music."

Watch a couple of clips. And then try to get a ticket for one of the final shows (tonight or tomorrow, 8pm) here.

One more thing, I totally get DeFrantz and Oro's interest in making their collaboration an open source thing, essentially offering the Monk's Mood API for other creative types to use as they see fit. We're in a new age. But I, for one, really hope that DeFrantz himself will keep performing this piece and digging into it. It's an extraordinary performance, and I hope more people will get a chance to enjoy it.

Welcome, DANY: Joyce Foundation's new rehearsal space

from DanceNYC's FYI e-newsletter:

THE JOYCE THEATER FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES OPENING OF NEW REHEARSAL SPACE

Eleven Studios to be Made Available to Dance Community at Affordable Rates

The Joyce Theater Foundation announced today that it has leased new rehearsal space at 305 West 38th Street in Manhattan, formerly home of New Dance Group. The venue, renamed DANY (Dance Art New York) Studios, will further The Joyce's ongoing efforts to serve the dance community by providing affordable rehearsal space.

About the new rehearsal space, Linda Shelton, Executive Director of The Joyce Theater, said, "We are grateful to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, along with Bloomberg, for their support of this project. Because of their generosity, it is not only possible for us to address the challenges that limited rehearsal space imposes on the dance community, but also to resuscitate this marvelous venue."

Marvin Preston, President of the Board of the New Dance Group said, "By working with The Joyce Theater, we have been able to transform this leasehold into a fully functional, conforming, sustainable, and maintainable state. The dance community will benefit greatly from The Joyce's effective management of this real, needed, valuable, and usable facility."

Consisting of eleven studios appropriate for rehearsals, auditions, classes, and workshops, DANY Studios is equipped with storage space, lounge areas, and audio/video systems appropriate for rehearsal use. It will be available seven days per weeks, from 8am until 10pm, with rental fees beginning at $5 per hour for some of the available hours.

DANY Studios will be an addition to the current rehearsal space at Joyce SoHo (155 Mercer Street), which houses three studios. It will now be possible to reserve space for both venues through one call-in line: 212-564-3808. DANY Studios is located on the second and third floors of 305 West 38th Street on Eighth Avenue NY, NY 10018.

Jung's Book of Shadows

Exhibition Review: 'The Red Book of C. G. Jung - Creation of a New Cosmology'
by Edward Rothstein, The New York Times, December 11, 2009

Oscar and race

Success of ‘Precious’ Highlights Oscar Absence for Blacks
by Michael Cieply, The New York Times, December 11, 2009

Struggling to hang on in Chicago

Decrease in Money Forces Cultural Institutions to Scramble
by Katie Fretland, The New York Times, December 10, 2009

D'Amour and Pearl bring us "Terrible Things"

A bunch of bright lights worked on Terrible Things, which you can enjoy at Performance Space 122, now through December 20. Written by longtime partners-in-crime-and-OBIE, Lisa D'Amour and Katie Pearl, choreographed by Emily Johnson, the piece is wonderfully performed by Pearl, Johnson, Morgan Thorson, Karen Sherman and a couple of amiable wrestlers (Rudy De La Cruz and Adrian Czmielewski).

If you're typically overwhelmed at this time of year--by the bigness, the brashness, the commercial-ness of it all--you might appreciate the compact intimacy of Terrible Things. Compact, yes, but big in personality. Just like Pearl, its undisputed star.

Everything/everyone here seems to be located somewhere in Pearl's busy cranium, a place bustling with memories, like the legion of plump marshmallows aligned with impeccable, subatomic regularity across the theater's floor. In the opening, dancers carefully, efficiently move through this strange, snowy field, delicately scooping aside some marshmallows with their elongated, velvety arms and making shapes of small quantities of the sweets. This sets the stage for the space to open up and light up with room to move freely, the vividness of primary colors, Pearl's non-stop, embodied storytelling, and the mystery of parallel--but not perfectly sync-ed--worlds in the time-space continuum.

Terrible Things is a modest delight, a fine corrective for the excesses of the season.

Schedule details and ticketing here.

Celebrating Bausch

Celebrating the Life and Work of Pina Bausch 
Screenings and Discussion

Monday, Dec 14, beginning at 10am

Martin E. Segal Theatre, Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Avenue (at 34th Street), Manhattan

Free. First come, first served.

10am Rite of Spring (Pina Bausch, chor., 1979) Inter Nationes, 1983 (40 minutes)

11am The Search for Dance: Pina Bausch's Theatre with a Difference (documentary film) Inter Nationes, 1994 (30 minutes)

11:45am Pina Bausch: One Day Pina Asked... (documentary film, dir. Chantal Ackerman) Bravo International Films, 1984 (40 minutes)

1:30pm Cafe Mueller (Pina Bausch, chor., 1979) Inter Nationes, 1986 (46 minutes)

2:30pm Kontakthof with Men and Women over 65 (Pina Bausch, chor., 2000) L'Arche Editeur, 2007 (149 minutes)

6:30pm Evening event: Discussion with Anna Kisselgoff (The New York Times) and Annie-B Parson (Big Dance Theatre). Moderated by Royd Climenhaga (Eugene Lang College/The New School University) 

About the Segal Center US Theatre series

Rogoff's "Diagnosis": Get it online now!

Well, as it turns out, my Dance Magazine review of Tamar Rogoff's "Diagnosis of a Faun"--starring Gregg Mozgala--is already online here.

Dance Magazine reviews: Cardona and more

My Dance Magazine review of Wally Cardona's Really Real at BAM Harvey Theater is now up here.

In coming months, Dance Magazine will feature my print or online reviews of works by the following choreographers:

Aszure Barton (Ringling International Arts Festival, Sarasota, FL)

Deborah Hay and Yvonne Rainer (Baryshnikov Arts Center)

Tamar Rogoff (La MaMa Ellen Stewart Theatre)

Chunky Move (BAM Gilman Opera House)

Reggie Wilson and Andréya Ouamba (BAM Gilman Opera House)

and, of course, I'll let you known when these are posted or printed. As always, thanks for your interest!

John Storm Roberts, scholar of world music, 73

John Storm Roberts, World-Music Scholar, Dies at 73
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times,  December 10, 2009

Some days, you feel like the kitteh. Some days...

Video: Kitteh Challenges Big Goggie « Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats – I Can Has Cheezburger?

Vision-impaired actress to understudy Keller role

Kyra Siegel to Understudy Helen Keller Role on Broadway
by Patrick Healy, The New York Times, December 8, 2009

Revolutionary Cameron Carpenter

The Revolutionary: An interview with organist Cameron Carpenter
by Stephen Greco, Classical TV, December 2009

Photographer Pokoik in conversation with dance

In Conversation: MTA at DNA
Art, Nature, and Community at Mount Tremper Arts (MTA)

Photographs by Mathew Pokoik
 
Tuesday, December 1 through Wednesday, December 30
Opening Reception: Thursday, December 10, at 7pm

To be followed by the premiere performance of A Number of Small Black and White Dances by the Aynsley Vandenbroucke Movement Group at 8pm

Dance New Amsterdam
280 Broadway, 2nd Floor (entrance on Chambers)
Manhattan

In Conversation: MTA at DNA documents the relationship between art and environment at Mount Tremper Arts (MTA).  Through photographs taken by MTA co-founder Mathew Pokoik, this exhibition presents the interplay between the many artists who have worked at MTA, and the grounds, gardens, and meals that foster an environment that support contemporary artists.

Includes photographs of Monica Bill Barnes + Company, Kimberly Bartosik, Jonah Bokaer + Anne Carson + Peter Cole, Brian Brooks Moving Company, Collective Opera Company, Hilary Easton + Company, Elke Rindfleisch, robbinschilds, Liz Sargent Installations, jill sigman/thinkdance, Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre, Aynsley Vandenbroucke Movement Group, and others, interspersed with photographs of and the grounds and gardens of MTA.

In the round

The Circular Logic of the Universe
by Natalie Angier, The New York Times, December 7, 2009

Neville's Nutcracker

The Nutcracker according to Brenda R. Neville is a cozy affair set in contemporary, high-rise Manhattan. Since her amiable Drosselmeyer (Yasu Suzuki) is a well-traveled, open-minded diplomat, she can rightly give him friends and associates of diverse races and nationalities and even have young Clara (Ally Taylor Sacks) get dreamy over an NYPD cadet (Christopher McDaniel) who happens to be Black. What's more, Neville Dance Theatre's Nutcracker puts out the red carpet for a bustling world of dance—from tango to Tinikling, from hip hop to Fayzah Claudia Chisolm's superbly crafted "Arabian" solo. Each of the non-ballet dance forms presented in the party celebration emphasizes carefully executed authentic movement rather than the usual balletic stylization of a sprinkling of light ethnic flavors. 

This past week, NDT brought its Nutcracker to Chelsea's Hudson Guild Theater, where--on Saturday's matinee performance--the floor gave dancers a few scares. The choreographer and troupe nevertheless made the best of cramped stage space, filling it with gaiety and flourish.

I never grew up a Nutcracker fan. (Sorry! At Xmastime, my family headed to Radio City for the movies and Rockettes.) But I can certainly get behind a project that indulges my love of world dance. Neville is onto something whose development could be supported and enhanced, I think, by nicer, more adequate space.

Click here to learn more about Brooklyn's Neville Dance Theatre.

Jeremy Wade: Cute, then not so cute

Director-choreographer Jeremy Wade concludes There is No End to More--performed by Jared Gradinger of Berlin's Constanza Macras/Dorky Park troupe--at Japan Society tonight. So, people, there really is an end to No End. Try, try, try to get in.

This production--and Gradinger's demanding, non-stop solo--hit me with the force of a thousand-thousand stars. If that sounds like a wild exaggeration, let it. It should give you a sense of the intensity of the manga-fabulous text dreamed up by writer Marcos Rosales with Gradinger and Wade, the increasingly maniacal, nightmare visuals by illustrator Hiroki Otsuka and video artist Veith Michel, and Brendan Dougherty's breathtaking sonic design.

Moving in the jerky, grotesque style that Wade, a Bessie Award winner, has made his trademark, Gradinger depicts a nerdy figure trapped in an overheated mental bubble filled with obsessive fantasies and fanciful artifacts of Japanese kawaii ("cute") pop culture. Gradinger believes he is "wearing a three-piece suit--and a cape."  He is "being chased, chased by...I don't know what!" As kawaii commercialism spins out of control, fantasy slips into sad realism which, in turn, becomes sinister phantasmagoria. This work is rich, visceral, unforgettable.

And enough cannot be said about the creative imagination--that sheer, defiant, leap-of-faith agility--of Yoko Shioya, Japan Society's perceptive artistic director. Following hunches, she commissioned this work from the Berlin-based Wade and brought it to New York, sight unseen. She tends to do this kind of thing, and bless her.

Information and ticketing or 212-715-1258

On The Dream Express way to your heart

The Dream Express started with the sip of a drink, the wail of a distant train, and a kind of yelping, high-lonesome, tumbleweed song. The Chocolate Factory hosted a "journey to the end of the night" with its upstairs theater marvelously, if tackily, re-purposed as an honest-to-god cabaret for Obie-awardees Steve Mellor ("Spin Milton") and Deirdre O'Connell ("Marlene Milton"), known as, they kept telling us, The Dream Express, along with co-conspirators Len Jenkin (writer/director) and John Kilgore (composer).

At first glance, the formerly-married Miltons--hulking, vaguely surly Spin and slightly tipsy, vaguely slutty Marlene--looked like the kind of people you'd want to keep at arm's length. Please, god, do not let either of them come down off that stage and start messing with us. By the end of the roughly 90 minute act, a mashup of songs and stories, you'll find that you've relaxed. You've chuckled some. You've pondered some. You've learned to trust that Spin will rise from his keyboard, now and again, without actually assaulting anyone. What's more, the Miltons and their consciousness-streamings have managed to work their way under your skin. You've been seduced by Marlene's adorable, gutsy charm and roused by Spin's gusty vocal power. Who else has the skills to segue from Olivia Newton John to "A Whiter Shade of Pale" without inflicting terminal whiplash?

As the Miltons' dearly-departed "Uncle Wolfie" would say, "Make 'em laugh, make 'em cry, make 'em kiss ten bucks goodbye!"

In this case, it's 15 bucks and worth every single penny. Go see The Dream Express at The Chocolate Factory, Tuesdays-Saturdays  through December 19 (No performances 12/15-17). For details, travel directions and ticketing, click here.

Pink Glove Dance

I love this!

Return from exile: Sanchez illuminates World AIDS Day

Last night, I made my first trip to WNYC's Greene Space for a World AIDS Day event featuring performances by the pioneering poet Sonia Sanchez and acclaimed dancer-choreographer Ronald K. Brown as well as a conversation among Sanchez and health advocates. Greene Space's intimate setting created a special feeling of welcome quite appropriate to the artists' theme of acceptance, truthful dialogue and reconciliation within the Black family and within the larger family that is the Black community.

Warmly accompanied by jazz musicians Odean Pope (saxophone), Kenny Gates (piano) and Lee Smith (bass), Sanchez performed her award-winning Does Your House Have Lions?--a rhythmic conjure-work in book form. The poem deals with her gay brother's estrangement and struggles, his migration from the South to New York City where "a new geography created him," his political awakening and his passing, from AIDS, in 1981. Brown enhanced Sanchez's mesmerizing vocal performance with big, hungry, panther-ish moves. The radiance of speaker, dancer and musical trio reached across the short distance from artists to audience, hearts to hearts.

"How how how...how to return from exile?" Sanchez's poem asks. The evening's panel, moderated by pan-media journalist Esther Armah, explored this question as it relates to the disproportionate impact of HIV/AIDS on people of African descent. With an increase in HIV infection among Black men who have sex with men, young Black men and Black women under 30, the African-American community simply cannot afford to avoid frank, uncensored talk about sexuality and health.

Panelists Dr. Monica Sweeney, MD (Assistant Commissioner for HIV/AIDS for the New York City Department of Health) and Phill Wilson (Founder and Executive Director, Black AIDS Institute) offered some measure of hope, pointing to a gradual decrease in stigmatization of people with HIV/AIDS, even within Black churches, and more openness to honest talk about sexual orientation, sexual behavior and methods of preventing infection.

Societal and psychological barriers to prevention and care still exist, but Armah's panelists emphasized how individuals and communities can empower and protect themselves. "We need to have these conversations in more robust ways," Wilson said. "You have the power to stop transmission of HIV. You deserve to protect yourself."

Sweeney noted, with great concern, one segment of the population--women over 50--who sometimes engage in unprotected sex "as if age is a vaccine" and HIV something that happens to other people. She offers HIV testing to people of all ages and believes that if the test were part of all routine care, it would be accepted with no shame. The NYC health department's female condom program has been expanded, she says, enabling women to guard their health without having to figure out ways to negotiate safety with their partners.

One audience member raised the question of sexual abuse and domestic violence in the community and how they complicate prevention and healthcare. The panelists noted that the Black family and community have tended to shroud these issues in silence, although--thanks to high-profile cases, the testimony of celebrities who have been victimized, and works of art such as Sapphire's novel Push and the extraordinary film, Precious, based on it--more attention and resources are being directed to these parallel problems.

"AIDS is the health crisis of our day, and what we do about it will be our legacy," Wilson said. While he acknowledged the Obama administration's efforts around needle exchange programs, the extension of the Ryan White Act and the recent lifting of the ban for HIV+ people traveling into the US, he noted that we still lack a comprehensive, national AIDS strategy and meaningful healthcare reform.

I commend WNYC for presenting this informative and imaginative program. To view a schedule of upcoming events at the Greene Space, click here.

Naharin has a few tips for critics

Ohad's Advice to Critics
by Ohad Naharin, 2009 Dance Magazine Awardee

This is a must-read, and I hope my colleagues will give it a look-see, "especially if [they] are from England." :-D

I really do need to "dance [my]self a few minutes every day," but other than that, I'm pretty much checking off these items as done or, at least, reasonably do-able on a regular basis. On the issue of describable dance being bad choreography, he might have a point--but only because choreographic expression and writing feel as if they come from different universes. Most dance, not just good dance, is bitching hard to describe in words. Which is why dance writers get paid the big bucks. (Oh, wait...) Funnily enough, I have sometimes tried the "eyes going out of focus" thing. (I'm a psychic and try all kinds of tricks to sidestep linear thinking.) It's really neat, y'all!

World AIDS Day with Sonia Sanchez and Ronald K. Brown

In recognition of World AIDS Day 2009, WNYC's Jerome L. Greene Performance Space welcomes poet Sonia Sanchez and choreographer Ronald K. Brown, plus a discussion of AIDS in the African-American community.

Complete information here
Tuesday, December 1 -- 7pm-9pm

Breaking Ground: our day at Federal Hall

I was honored to be asked to invited to participate in Breaking Ground: A Public Charrette--a workshop created and facilitated by San Francisco-based choreographer Joanna Haigood through New York's Dancing in the Streets program.

Here's a post I wrote about my experience for Breaking Ground's blog.

Do spend some time at the blog's site: You'll find writing by other participants, photos from the event and lots of information about our site (historic Federal Hall) and Haigood's fascinating project.

John Kelly: The Mirror Stages

Art in America contributing editor Carol Diehl reviews John Kelly's show of visual art at Alexander Gray--The Mirror Stages: Self-Portraits 1979-2009.

Art in America, November 2009

Gray: the man behind the body

Book Review: Ruth Richardson's The Making of Mr. Gray's Anatomy
by Sue Taylor, Art in America, November 2009

Holiday dancing at WFC

arts>World Financial Center dance events for Holiday 2009

New York Theatre Ballet in The Nutcracker
Tuesday, December 1 (12:30pm and 6pm)

Hour-long version. The 6pm show will be preceded by the annual Winter Garden lighting celebration.

ETHEL and Annie-B Parson: Wait for Green
Friday, December 18 (12:30pm and 7pm)

Choreographer/director Parson once again joins forces with postclassical string quartet ETHEL, restaging their 2008 collaboration, Wait for Green.

Ase Dance Theatre Collective
Monday, December 28 (12:30pm)
Dance and song in celebration of Kwanzaa

All events take place in WFC's Winter Garden and are free; no tickets required.

Map and directions

For a complete schedule and information on all Holiday 2009 events in the arts>World Financial Center series, click here.

Audition for Aviles: female singers with sense of humor

Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre is preparing a new musical theatre/dance work called Super Maeva de Oz which takes inspiration from The Wizard of Oz to tell the story of a young Latina lesbian coming out in the South Bronx in 1977. The piece will need a chorus made up of 6 to 12 participants that backs up the actress. The songs include cursing, humorous and sexually explicit references.

Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre is seeking singers for the chorus who have: a good singing voice (formal training a plus); can sing with Spanish/ Latina accent; and OK with being perceived as Queer.

We are having auditions on Saturday November 28, from 10am to 12pm and from 6pm to 9pm. Also on Sunday, November 29th from 5pm to 10pm.

Audition will be at BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance, 841 Barretto Street, Bronx, NY 10474.

Preview performance of the songs will take place the second week of February at BAAD!

REHEARSAL STIPEND AND PERFORMANCE PAY. Rehearsals start in December.

Directions: Take #6 train to Hunts Point Avenue. Visit website: www.BronxAcademyOfArtsAndDance.org/directions.htm

To make an appointment call BAAD! at 718.824.5223.
Fax or e-mail resumes to 718.542.4077 or arthuraviles@gmail.com

Rogoff and Mozgala: Dancing the body's diversity

Overcoming Cerebral Palsy, Gregg Mozgala Learns to Dance
by Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times, November 24, 2009

I'm looking forward to seeing this piece, which I will be reviewing for Dance Magazine.

She's a revelation!

See my "Dance Matters" feature on Ailey's Judith Jamison--celebrating her 20th Anniversary at the helm of the world's best-loved company--in the December issue of Dance Magazine (pp. 20-22).

Bernard Dove: Gotta dance!

Experience Necessary - Bernard Dove Is Doing What He Loves, Leading Dance Classes
by Ralph Blumenthal, The New York Times, November 23, 2009

Run away and join the circus

Learning Acrobatics at New York Circus Arts Academy
by Nida Najar, The New York Times, November 22, 2009

Jones brings ‘Fela!’ to Broadway

‘Fela!’ on Broadway - African Rebellion
by Jon Pareles, The New York Times, November 19, 2009

A recovering heart

Robin Williams Opens Wide His (Repaired) Heart
by Dave Itzkoff, The New York Times, November 19, 2009

Ahern's spook house

Halloween might be long gone, but Carrie Ahern and her fellow dancers are haunting the Brooklyn Lyceum this week. They're decidely flesh-and-blood creatures. But, if you go, you'll feel the hairs on your arms tingling, particularly if you spend any time in the small, upstairs room where powerful Donna Costello might thrash around like a maniac only a millimeter away from you. 

Sensate, running for three hours at every installation performance, offers each audience member his or her choice of arrival and departure time, viewing location and even intermission. (A restroom is conveniently located to the rear of the main space's primary seating area. Quietly slip back to your bench without fuss, and know that it's okay that you've missed what you've chosen to miss.) Ahern invites us to collaborate with her by creating our own experience of the work, going beyond her own efforts to shape its structure by willfully reorganizing her output.

From what I could tell, last night's small audience saw itself in a far more linear way. For instance, for long stretches of time, people sat in a conventional arrangement, facing the main space head-on. And Ahern's use of the Lyceum's features--including stairs to different levels--rarely went beyond expected functionality. It's certainly not the first time, we've seen dancers suddenly arrive or withdraw by taking the stairs.

A live, visually-innovative performance voice and electronic music by composer Anne Hege and eerie lighting by Jay Ryan contribute to the spooky, mysterious air. Costumer Naoko Nagata's raggedy layers make the dancers resemble survivors of some unnamed disaster. And the site itself, a former public bathhouse, is a potentially eccentric space for a show. But it needs more imaginative magic-making.

Ahern's choreography, however, and the Bacchante-like performances of her fellow dancers--Costello, David Figueroa, Kelly Hayes and Jillian Hollis--can often sizzle. The audience might evade Ahern's invitation to freedom, but her dancers do not. They take to this work with feverish abandon and put their bodies--maybe even their sanity--on the line.

You'll find the Brooklyn Lyceum (227 4th Avenue, Park Slope) right upstairs from the Union Street station on the R line. Remaining performances of Sensate run tonight (7:30-10:30pm) and tomorrow (3-6pm).

Information and ticketing
718-857-4816

Listening to Savion

Savion Glover - Tap Dancing (Or Is It Composing) at the Blue Note
by Ben Ratliff, The New York Times, November 20, 2009

TNC: Dream up, artists!

Performing artists and groups are invited to apply for the 2010 Dream Up Festival at Theater for the New City.

Environmental artist Jeanne-Claude, 74

Jeanne-Claude, Collaborator With Christo, Dies at 74
by William Grimes, The New York Times, November 19, 2009

A Spiral Model of Creativity

A Spiral Model of Creativity
by Harold Davis, Photo.net, November 2009

New online presence for Tudor trust

The Antony Tudor Ballet Trust launches www.antonytudor.org to reinforce the relevance and enduring importance of Antony Tudor's ballets, and, ensure his works are never lost.

The new website features a comprehensive online catalogue of Tudor's ballets, complete with premiere dates, details of music, production, and cast; supplemented notes on the work, revisions and stagings; rich and historical content on the life of Antony Tudor; and, upcoming performances and related ballet news.

Nearly every major and minor ballet company in the world and many
distinguished university dance programs have licensed Tudor ballets since his death. This website will best serve to further motivate artistic directors, and future artistic directors, to continue to perform and add Tudor ballets to their repertoire. A comprehensive catalogue of ballets, archival images, and video will reinforce the power of this master choreographer and his influence on so many choreographers of the twentieth century including: Jerome Robbins, Martha Graham, Paul Taylor, Pina Bausch, Sir Frederick Ashton, Agnes DeMille, Glen Tetley, and Eliot Feld, to name just a few.

"Only a handful of truly great ballets survive their creators," said Sally Brayley Bliss, Trustee. "Tudor's Lilac Garden, Dark Elegies, Judgment of Paris, Gala Performance, Dim Lustre, Leaves are Fading, Echoing of Trumpets, and Undertow, as well as his smaller works including Little Improvisations, Continuo, Cereus and Sunflowers, represent irreplaceable choreography threatened with extinction in society's current fixation on full-length ballets."

As noted by The Washington Post, April 4th, 2008, following The Antony Tudor Centennial Celebration at Lincoln Center, "His (Tudor's) works are largely written off as too delicately nuanced to teach to today's technique-oriented dancers, too demanding for an audience groomed on the ready thrills and speed of George Balanchine, too financially risky for boards of directors who prefer easy sells -- Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake and so on." And yet, performing in even one Tudor ballet, said the celebrated former dancer, Mikhail Baryshnikov, in a recent interview, amounted to "a passport to become mature, to be an adult dancer, a dancer in depth..."

The Antony Tudor Ballet Trust is a not for profit organization created under the Last Will and Testament of Antony Tudor. Mr. Tudor appointed Sally Brayley Bliss as the Co-Executrix of his Estate, and sole Trustee of his ballets, to preserve the artistic integrity and standard of excellence Mr. Tudor insisted upon.

New business chief at NYCB

Katherine Brown to Run New York City Ballet Business Affairs
by Julie Bloom, The New York Times, November 16, 2009

Stars to shine for ‘Fela!’

Jay-Z, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith Have Joined ‘Fela!’ as Producers
by Patrick Healy, The New York Times, November 16, 2009

@katiecouric: Sapphire

Katie Couric's intelligent and sensitive interview of "Push" author Sapphire on the new film "Precious"

Theater's role in healing

Theater of War Uses Sophocles to Help Anguished Soldiers
by Patrick Healy, The New York Times, November 12, 2009

Show some "Evidence" you can dance

Ronald K. Brown's Evidence, A Dance Company will hold a five-day workshop (November 16-20) including master classes taught by Brown and Associate Artistic Director and dancer Arcell Cabuag. There will be a student showing of Evidence repertory on Saturday, November 21 at 3pm. Invite your friends to see what you've learned!

Come for the whole week ($50) or by the class ($12).

Schedule

Brown: Tuesday, Thursday
Cabuag: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 

Location

Black River Dance
345 Lenox Avenue (127th-128th Streets), Manhattan

Hassabi's collage

When the audience enters Performance Space 122's theater, dancer Maria Hassabi is already in action--well, maybe not in action, since SoloShow is so much about the collaging of a series of static images--"the history of female representation...pulled from art history, pop culture and everyday life." But she's there, amid James Lo's recording of what sounds like a large, bustling audience assembling for a performance.

Wearing a cream-colored, sleeveless top and pants clinging to her ballerina-skinny frame, she occupies one corner of a large platform, shifting from pose to pose. We don't often see her expression. When we do, it's like a thunderclap;  she suddenly pivots towards us with that haunted, big-eyed face and legs splayed in tremulous, claw-like rigidity. Soon, though, she tilts her head back so far that her torso appears beheaded.  Although the soundtrack's roar subsides, the severe tension of her pose increases. Joe Levasseur's overhead lighting blasts her, but she appears to take to it, willingly, like a lizard adjusting and drying itself under desert sun.

Sometimes she drapes herself over the platform's edge, neck straining, blood pooling in her face. Often, she will turn her body into brittle sculpture on the featureless, ungiving platform. The work lasts about an hour of clock time--quite a testament to Hassabi's vigor and determination--but you might find yourself completely losing track of time.

I regret missing Hassabi's Solo--conceived as an autonomous half of a diptych and premiered at PS 122 last month as part of FIAF's Crossing the Line festival--and I also haven't seen her SoloShow alternate, Hristoula Harakas.

A joint presentation of Performa 09 and PS 122, SoloShow continues through Sunday: Friday and Saturday, 8pm and 10pm; Sunday, 6pm. Complete information and ticketing here.

What O'Connor wrought

The only way to have fit more people into Dance Theater Workshop for last night's Tere O'Connor world premiere would have been to stack them sideways over our heads. So, if you haven't made your reservation yet, I would advise you to do it now. Wrought Iron Fog runs through Saturday (7:30pm) with an additional 10pm performance on Friday.

This piece might not have stirred and rocked me like Rammed Earth but it's a solid work of craft by O'Connor and his creative team--most notably, dancers Hilary Clark, Daniel Clifton, Erin Gerken, Heather Olson and Matthew Rogers; composer James Baker; and lighting designer Michael O'Connor. Walter Dundervill collaborated with Tere O'Connor on the beautiful set, and Gerkin and Jennifer Goggans designed costumes.

I really dug the transparency of how O'Connor set his dancers against the generous DTW space, almost always keeping them at fair distances from one another so each one's movements--even the little, witty details in the choreography--would be visible and prominent. This brings out not only the physical and stylistic differences in his fascinating corps--contrast the persistent neatness of Gerkin with the increasing rawness of Rogers, for instance--but also hints at the elusive, variable self enthroned by the body.

The empty air seemed charged as if each body was an instrument strummed, plucked, thwacked and shaken to produce Baker's dynamic music. With this magnetic spaciousness, graceful architecture and body-music as matrix, the abstract piece maintained coherence--and interest--throughout its hour, and then the audience roared its love.

Information and tickets at DTW

Perspectives on Dylan

The Inventions of Bob Dylan

a roundtable with Christopher Ricks, Matthew von Unwerth and Sean Wilentz
November 15, 2:30pm (free)
Philoctetes
247 East 82nd Street, Manhattan
info@philoctetes.org
646-422-0544
In consideration of Bob Dylan's 2009 releases, Together Through Life and Christmas in the Heart, this discussion brings together two scholars with multidisciplinary perspectives on Bob Dylan. In his book Dylan's Visions of Sin, preeminent poetry critic Christopher Ricks gives Dylan's work and words their most sustained reading to date, and reveals him as an inheritor and interpreter of the Anglo-American poetic tradition. Sean Wilentz, a Princeton professor and Historian-in-Residence at bobdylan.com, situates Dylan in the cultural and historical contexts that thrust him into the core of 20th century American iconography. Moderated by Matthew von Unwerth, this roundtable will explore Dylan's work as an ongoing conversation with tradition—literary, musical, historical, cultural—as opposed to and in productive tension with his works' innovations, and their erstwhile reputation as new, groundbreaking, and prophetic. Panelists will address Dylan's borrowings—from scripture, Chaucer, Civil War poet Henry Timrod, vaudeville—as well as his prolific non-musical output, including his stint as host of Theme Time Radio Hour, interpreting his work through the prisms of their respective expertise.
Christopher Ricks is Warren Professor of the Humanities at Boston University. He was President of the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics and Writers from 2007 to 2008, and Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 2004 to 2009. In 2004, he published Dylan's Visions of Sin.
Matthew von Unwerth is the author of Freud's Requiem: Memory, Mourning and the Invisible History of a Summer Walk. He is Director of the A.A. Brill Library of The New York Psychoanalytic Institute and Coordinator of the Film Program at the Philoctetes Center. He is a candidate in psychoanalytic training in New York.
Sean Wilentz is Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Professor in the American Revolutionary Era at Princeton University. A recipient of the Bancroft and Beveridge Prizes in American history, he is also Historian-in-Residence at Bob Dylan's official website, www.bobdylan.com. His new book, Bob Dylan in America, will be published by Doubleday in 2010.

More information at Philoctetes

Posted via email from Eva Yaa Asantewaa's posterous

Redhead in red shoes

Ballet’s Mean Streets
by Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, November 8, 2009

Speaking from the heart

Off Broadway Play ‘Let Me Down Easy’ Tackles Issues of Death
by Gina Kolata, The New York Times, November 9, 2009

Garbage endures

Researchers Explore Growing Ocean Garbage Patches
by Lindsey Hoshaw, The New York Times, November 9, 2009

jill sigman/thinkdance's Our Lady of Detritus project

Excerpts of performance at Solar One, Manhattan

Jason Samuels Smith: On time!

The fabulous Jason Samuels Smith--along with Ohad Naharin, Sara Rudner and Allegra Kent--will be picking up a Dance Magazine Award tonight. Make some noisssse!

Check out "The Time Step with Jason Samuels Smith."

Israel's Yasmin Levy

Yasmin Levy--innovative singer of Sephardic culture's endangered language, Ladino--performed on Saturday evening at Symphony Space, presented by World Music Institute. Her show was perfection--from Levy's own romantic, dramatic elegance to the exhilarating lilt of her skillful band. If you enjoy fado or flamenco, you will find much to admire in her stylistic approach and musical arrangements. Go here to sample songs from her new CD, Sentir, and her most recent North American release, Mano Suave; and check the schedule of remaining tour dates (North America and France). Be sure to give yourself a generous gift and catch her next time.

Interview with Yasmin Levy on FLY Global Music Culture

Interview with Yasmin Levy in The Independent

South Africa's great elder

Mandela Endures as South Africa’s Ideal
by Celia W. Dugger, The New York Times, November 9, 2009

Gerstler: poetic abundance

Animal Planet: review of Amy Gerstler's 'Dearest Creature'
by David Kirby, The New York Times, November 8, 2009

Deconstructing Lévi-Strauss

Claude Lévi-Strauss’s Two-Part Harmonies
by Larry Rohter, The New York Times, November 8, 2009

Without Merce

Can Modern Dance Be Preserved?
by Arthur Lubow, The New York Times, November 8, 2009

Meg Stuart lays it out on the table

I hope Meg Stuart and Performa 09 will not mind my quoting a bit of the promotion for Auf den Tisch! (At the Table!) which I attended, last night, at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. It's really the best way to get the concept right:

Picture this: you enter a room and can take a seat at an enormous table, with four microphones at the ready, as if in a conference situation. From your chair you can see how the table becomes a platform for action and reflection. Or something of the kind. You see performers sing, play, dance, and talk about performance issues, fragility, and territories. Or not. Meeting and improvising at an oversized table such as this one, it is no wonder that things get out of proportion. “Auf den Tisch!” (At the Table!) is a curatorial improvisation-project by Meg Stuart. Upon her invitation and initiation, a changing cast of performers, thinkers, writers, musicians, actors, and dancers confer about their pressing issues while presenting a performance of negotiations.

If you manage to get a reservation for tonight's final performance (7:30pm), you too can witness--or, as you wish, more directly participate in--this conference of sorts.

The table--a huge, blond wood beauty with a couple of unimaginatively used trap doors--is a total performer magnet. Who wouldn't look at this spacious, brightly lit thing and want to clamber on and act out?  Combining the likes of Stuart, David Thomson, Yvonne Meier, George Emilio Sanchez, Trajal Harrell, Keith Hennessy and others, you certainly have the makings of a major act of acting out. Audience folk sit to table with the performers or occupy a few rows of chairs that ring it. As Stuart settles down in front of her microphone and gazes around the room, there's a sense of something momentous about to happen.

She starts by reading text. It sounds sensitive, fragile and quiet, a kind of table-like base for what will follow, and might represent Stuart's essential nature as the dreamer and generator of the entire project. The performance I saw contained a repeating motif of a heavy body or bodies piling on top of or rolling over a body underneath. Stuart's opening words are followed by other voices around the table that accumulate and spill over one another, swelling, eventually subsiding.

Stuff happens. Lots of it. Anything can happen, since improvisation is in the room. Thomson, dressed in a comic-strip hoodie and jeans, prowled the

space between table and outer chairs. Later, he was the first to bust out dancing, top and center, in loose-limbed, splayed-out movements.

Meier--challenged by Stuart at one point-- retorted, "I'm sorry. I'm not sitting on my mouth." Someone, to clunky effect, alluded to the Fort Hood shooting: "I'm still stuck on the psychiatrist with a machine gun. Was he improvising?"

A parlor game broke out, and the possible fucking of pineapples and righteous politics of pineapples were contemplated. Thomson and Harrell engaged in a cross-table Q&A about forgiveness. A belligerent Janez Jansa somewhat reluctantly performed the history of Richard Schechner's "putting off of clothes." This "getting close to history" made Meier at last "sit on her mouth."

The spectacular "Floral Cat"--the spectacular Hennessy in costume--touched off a segment of leftover Halloween shenanigans. Sanchez--in a kind of Soupy Sales act flipped upside down and turned psychological--encouraged all of us to take a piece of paper money from our own wallets and simply rip it up. Amid more scampering, a few words were carefully added to a flipchart and just left there, meaninglessly, until someone gave the equally meaningless order for the flipchart to be flattened to the floor.

There were dashes of chemistry, untethered patches of the jazz of delicious movement (Thomson, Harrell) and wide-awake humor (Sanchez), and not a little mystification and diminishing returns. The performers seemed unwilling to acknowledge signs that energy and interest had dropped. What I had been told would last "maybe a little over an hour," stretched towards two hours before, having had more than enough, I rose to leave.

You have to know when to push back from the table.

At that point, Stuart, having just asked the audience if it had any questions, was answered by a heavy silence. For an interesting moment, we were left with her standing rather defenselessly before us in all her original sensitivity, fragility and quiet. Okay. Matters could have ended there, and quite reasonably.

But then, Performa founder and director RoseLee Goldberg took the mic and asked something on the order of "Do you think improvisation is still alive?"

I'm not really sure what she was going for with that question but, in light of the overall lack of surprise, challenge or revelation in the performance, I'd rephrase the question, maybe split it into two parts:

"Do you think there's still life in your improvisation?" and "Can improvisation still matter?"

Performa 09 information and resources

Baryshnikov Art Center

450 West 37th Street, Manhattan

Max Cleland on military PTSD

Op-Ed Contributor--The Forever War of the Mind
by Max Cleland, The New York Times, November 6, 2009

"Red Shoes" forever

'Red Shoes,' Newly Restored, Opens at Film Forum
by Manohla Dargis, The New York Times, November 5, 2009

Art D’Lugoff, Village Gate Impresario, 85

Art D’Lugoff, Village Gate Impresario, Dies at 85
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, November 6, 2009

Topaz Arts welcomes you to its Open House

TOPAZ ARTS celebrates nine years of providing a creative space for the performing and visual arts on Saturday, November 21, 4pm-8pm.

4pm: “Cabaret Solitaire,” a dance performance featuring solo works by choreographers Molissa Fenley, Nicholas Leichter, and Paz Tanjuaquio. Admission: $15. Seating is limited. Tickets at http://www.topazarts.org.

6pm: opening reception for “Footnotes For Revelation,” a solo exhibition of new work by visual artist Roger Rothstein. Free admission to the gallery after 6pm.

For full details on program and artists, click here or contact rsvp@topazarts.org or 718-505-0440.

Topaz Arts
55-03 39th Avenue
Woodside, Queens

Subways: #7 to 61 Street or R, V, G to Northern Boulevard

Jerome Robbins Bogliasco Fellowship in Dance

The Bogliasco Foundation is pleased to announce that, thanks to a generous grant from the Jerome Robbins Foundation, it will offer its sixth annual Special Fellowship in Dance to an American choreographer during the 2010-11 academic year at the Liguria Study Center for the Arts and Humanities, near Genoa, Italy. The one-month residency is intended for a single choreographer working on material for a future piece or on a solo work.  Bogliasco Fellows in Dance have access to a private studio with a sprung dance floor.  Applicants are expected to demonstrate significant achievement commensurate with age and experience.

Under the terms of this award, the recipients travel expenses of up to $1,000 will be paid and s/he will also receive a stipend of $1,000.  Bogliasco Fellows are provided with full room and board, and given studios/offices with computers and internet access.

The Bogliasco Foundation grants approximately 50 residential Fellowships during the academic year to qualified persons doing advanced creative work or scholarly research in the various disciplines of the arts and humanities.  Fellows come from many different countries and may be accompanied by spouses or spouse-equivalent companions for all or part of their stay.  They are housed in three villas, all of which offer spectacular views of the Mediterranean and Ligurian coastline, an inspiring setting that has proved to be a powerful stimulant for reflection and creativity.  Any choreographer who is interested in being considered for this special Fellowship needs to submit an application by January 15, 2010 for the fall/winter semester and April 15, 2010 for the winter/spring semester.   Announcements as to the recipients of all Special Fellowships are made on July 1.

We encourage interested candidates to visit the Foundations website for more detailed information about how to apply to the Bogliasco Foundation’s Fellowship program.

Scott on "La Danse"

Creating Dialogue from Body Language
by A. O. Scott, The New York Times, November 4, 2009

For the love of Judson

Join Judson Memorial Church, Movement Research and the entire New York dance and performance community for a benefit party to raise money for renovation of the church's bathrooms.


Friday November 6, 6-8:30 pm

Judson Memorial Church
55 Washington Square South, Greenwich Village

$20 available online (Scroll down.)

Auctions, free food, drink and live performances

The live auction, beginning at 7pm, will feature treasures from the Judson archive and tons of fun goods and services. Bring you checkbook!

Karen Williams performs to benefit Astraea

Join Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice for a one-night-only performance with extraordinary comedian Karen Williams in honor of Astraea's Lynn Campbell Memorial Fund.  

Whether as an organizer of the first Take Back the Night, or through her work with the Funding Exchange, or as co-founder of Funders for Lesbian & Gay Issues -- Lynn's legacy serves a reminder to us that justice is sweet, and worth the fight. Karen, known for her quick repartee, insightful commentary and audience rapport starred in LAUGHING MATTERS, the award-winning documentary film and also has her own Logo Network comedy showcase, “I NEED A SNACK.” She is currently on her national comedy tour, “HEALING WITH HUMOR – FREEDOM FROM FEAR,” which she dedicates to victory over sexual violence. Let's share and locate those essential moments of joy, humor and activism together.

Tuesday, November 10
6:30 PM - Wine Reception
7:30 PM - Program

Comix
353 West 14th Street, Manhattan

Tickets $60 (Limited income tickets available)
Tickets and sponsorships available here or call 212.529.8021 x14

Sponsoring Partner: Olivia Cruises

Host Committee: Katherine Acey, Carol Alpert, Marion Banzhaf, Alexa Birdsong, Jill Campbell, Mary & Warren Campbell, Cheryl Clarke & Barbara Balliet, Constance Cohrt & Amy Reichman, Steve Fahrer & Monona Yin, Tucker Farley, Kim Ford & Avril Dass, Ellen Gurzinsky, Ileana Jiménez, Terry Lawler, June Makela, Nancy Meyer & Mark Weiss, Shaheen Nazerali, Cheri Pies, Achebe Powell, Sarina Scialabba, Michael Seltzer & Ralph Tachuk, Carmen Vázquez, Karen Zelermyer

The Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice is the world's only foundation solely dedicated to funding LGBTI organizations in both the United States and internationally. For more than 30 years, Astraea has been raising funds and distributing grants based on the belief that all people can participate in the philanthropic process-from giving to grantmaking. Today, Astraea grantee and donor partners are fueling the movement for social, racial, economic and gender justice in villages, cities and towns around the world.

Always have Paris

Wiseman's Lens on Dance
by Tobi Tobias, Seeing Things, ArtsJournal.com, November 3, 2009

Woetzel named to President's arts council

President's Arts Committee Names 25 Members
by Dave Itzkoff, The New York Times, November 3, 2009

The genius of Anna Deavere Smith

Just a quick note: You're going to Anna Deavere Smith's Let Me Down Easy, aren't you? The only right answer--unless you've already seen the show--is a resounding Yes!

Everyone should see this piece, especially since much of the heated debate around health care reform has been devoid of heart and soul. This brilliant performance--perhaps Smith's best, certainly her most affecting--reminds us of what's so often missing.

Let Me Down Easy runs through December 6 at 2econdStageTheatre.

Thorson: Taken to "Heaven"

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...

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.