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Sunday, January 31, 2010

Charles Isherwood: Feeling Not So Good

Soon after I completed my now rather famous post on Alastair Macaulay, I sensed that a "Part Two" might be waiting in the wings--something about the welcome demise of the Great Man Theory and Practice of Criticism in this age of new media. However, writing that follow-up never became a serious project. Over the past two weeks, I've mainly dealt with the aftermath of writing about Macaulay.

To the extent that anything related to contemporary dance in New York can go viral, my calling out of Macaulay has spread all over the physical and virtual dance community. I've received numerous supportive comments on InfiniteBody and Facebook. People have emailed me privately in celebration of the post. They have emailed the link to friends and colleagues and posted it on their own blogs and Facebook pages. Now when I go to dance events, people thank me for having the guts to take on a powerful critic and news outlet.

Grateful for this outpouring of respect and support, I've been reminding everyone to find a way to take action. Be part of the solution. All of that released energy must be channeled into effective community strategies.

Meanwhile, another Times man was gearing up for battle. Theater critic Charles Isherwood suddenly decided that it was time to share his "conflicted reactions" to Bill T. Jones's musical Fela!

Fela! premiered in 2008 Off Broadway at 37 Arts Theater, winning raves from Times critic Ben Brantley, among others. It moved to Broadway last year. But Isherwood has remained silent, all this time, about his misgivings.

Burying the point of his essay--Feeling Unsettled at a Feel-Good Show--way below references to David Mamet's Race and Harry Reid's accurate, if inelegant, remarks about Obama, Isherwood eventually gets around to declaring that he enjoyed Fela! but it left him with "lingering questions about the depiction of the African milieu it evoked." As a white man, though, he'd thought it best to keep these misgivings to himself rather than risk saying that the highly successful production "tilted a little too closely towards minstrelsy."

Next, Isherwood provides a two-sentence definition and (inaccurate) history of the minstrel show in America. He takes pains to remind us that minstrelsy "disseminated ugly racial stereotypes." The paragraph continues, explaining the genesis of Fela! in the remarkable career of the late Fela Anikulapo–Kuti, the outspoken Nigerian singer/musician who created Afrobeat. The show--presented in concert form--is, in the critic's own words, "vibrant, exciting and fabulously performed."

Yes, indeed it is.

But now Isherwood arrives at his problem:

"...there are really no characters, aside from Fela Kuti himself." And though the critic goes on to name two actual characters--Fela's mother and an American woman activist--he clearly does not deem these two women sufficiently built out. Why can't they contribute to what should have been a far more conventionally conceived production? He expects "sustained dialogue" and "clearly defined roles to play." Most of all, he's bothered by all of those "hip-wriggling riffs on African dance."

This delicate concern--which continues to bother Isherwood throughout the piece--wouldn't pass the laugh test with anyone familiar with Fela's exuberant marathon performances. I never had the privilege of seeing the man perform live, although I have seen his son, Femi Kuti, who took up Fela's Afrobeat mantle as well as his role as emperor of the stage, deploying a mighty army of "hip-wriggling" African women. Jones and co-writer Jim Lewis, telling Fela's story, have merely faithfully recreated what Fela himself created.

On a roll, and warming to his once intimidating subject, Isherwood complains that the women are "largely festive window dressing." They are "attired in eye-catching, vibrantly colored, flesh-baring ensembles." They "strut around the stage and the theater looking exotic, imperious and sexy. So too do the male members of the ensemble, who also bare a lot of flesh but have little to do other than sing and dance."

"Hence my discomfort," he continues, now sternly instructing anyone unfamiliar with the festishization of the Black body.

"The presentation of African culture as a feast of exotic pageantry has the potential, at least, to reinforce stereotypes of African people as primitive and unsophisticated, albeit endowed with astounding aptitudes for song and dance." Later he writes that "the way the dancers weave in and out of the audience repeatedly seems ingratiating, a sort of seduction that almost sexualizes the performers."

These oddly forced objections lead me to suspect that primitive, exotic lack of sophistication lies in the eye of the critical beholder. How dare these dancers, bringing their “astounding” and “frolicking” bodies so close, ignore the sacred fourth wall--the protective barrier that, Isherwood says, gives the audience "some intellectual perspective."

It seems to me that not only has Isherwood had little or no exposure to the Fela aesthetic, he's been sheltered from much traditional African culture, which is gloriously colorful and undeniably sensual--although not necessarily sexual in intent--without the Western Christian overlay of judgment and shame. And--given his call for "individual moments" and "individual voices"--he not only ignores what Fela's shows were like but he also misses the point that traditional African cultures privilege inclusive, communal participation over isolated, spotlit expressiveness. Perhaps an annual trip to Brooklyn's far less stressful Dance Africa fest might eventually ease this critic out of his discomfort.

I'm not certain who "might not pick up on the fact" that these women represent Fela's wives--Isherwood's next worry. Would it be someone who knows nothing about Fela's life and, perhaps, failed to peruse the play's biographical material?

Isherwood is so sure that he'd feel on safer ground around all of this Black sensuality if Fela!'s sociopolitical narrative was spelled out in big, neon letters that he overlooks the fact that the man's defiant politics and grievous experiences are right there--in Fela's songs and in the play's unfolding. Isherwood needs to stop fretting about how close certain wrigglng hips are getting to him and pay better attention. Jones and Lewis have brought in as much stark material as popular theater will allow in what is, after all, a concert musical. The balance works.

Fela! is not telling the stories that Lynn Nottage told in Ruined or Danai Gurira told in Eclipsed which, Isherwood says, "explore the hard experience of African women by depicting fully developed lives caught in trying, sometimes terrible circumstances." But wait, why don't we take a count of all the Hollywood, Broadway and television stories about white women that skip over harsh reality in favor of romance or sex or lightweight comedy?

In its final three paragraphs, Isherwood's essay runs off the rails. First, he wonders if he'd feel any discomfort if he were "attending an African dance recital at Dance Theater Workshop." African dance at Dance Theater Workshop? I might not feel discomfort, but I'd feel amazement. African dance--let alone something labeled a "recital"--is not exactly DTW fare. It sounds as if he attends “downtown” dance as often as Macaulay does.

He next beats up on the Broadway production for being surrounded by $20 programs and T-shirts. (Hello! It's Broadway!) He takes exception to the decor--"the theater is bedecked in vibrantly colored panels of corrugated metal and African gewgaws"--which seems aimed at recreating, as best as would be possible, the feeling of The Shrine, Fela's nightclub. Should it look, instead, like a straight-up Broadway theater?

At this point, Isherwood gazes around--metaphorically speaking--and realizes the audience is "largely white, middle aged and middle class." (Hello! It's Broadway!) What must they be thinking? "Many will have had little exposure to African culture and some may come away with the impression that partying played a larger role in the lives of the people surrounding Fela than the grim political battles and the economic hardship...."

Leaving aside the strong possibility that Isherwood is projecting--well, let's not leave that too far to the side--let's give some credit to the audience for intelligence and the possibility that they might be able to detect a measure of complexity in the show or might actually have read the program notes.

Finally, Isherwood ends his critique with a curious "to be sure" paragraph that contradicts everything he has tried to establish in his previous argument and concludes with him throwing up his hands and basically urging people to go see Fela! and make up their own minds.

Here the critic abruptly acknowledges the inclusion of "grim, harrowing detail," the death of Fela's mother, the "horrific abuse of his wives during a government raid on his compound." He credits the co-writers for doing their best "to include as much pertinent history as the concept for the show can comfortably allow."

"The signal truth of Fela Kuti's life is that his music was the vehicle for his political activism; the two cannot be separated."

Bingo!

I guess the whole thing comes down to all that African hip-wriggling. A little too much and way too close.

Other than that, one has to ask Isherwood that old question, "Was this trip necessary?"#

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Kinzel's responsible

Jon Kinzel's Responsible Ballet And What We Need is a Bench to Put Books On--curated by Sarah Michelson for The Kitchen--is a tasty bit for lovers of contemporary dance and its star performers. Vicky Shick, recovering from a fall, did not appear last night, but Kinzel, Hilary Clark, Jodi Melnick, Christopher Williams and promising newcomer Jeremy Pheiffer held everything together--not one of these folks duplicate any of the others or, for that matter, can anyone else in the dance-iverse duplicate them.

There aren't wings at the sides of The Kitchen's performance space, just one, smallish and dark partition--part of Kinzel's visual design--hanging in space. The piece begins when dancers scatter from behind this screen; when dancer return during the course of the piece, it amusingly hides everything but their legs. The bare, WYSIWYG space contains one other clever design element--a few long strips of masking tape. Yep. That's basically it. But really, it's fun when Williams rips the strips from the black wall and turns them three-dimensional. A little effort, a little act of down-to-earth alchemy. 

Responsible Ballet--free of overwhelming multimedia distractions--exposes its dancers and the arbitrary-seeming quirks of its movement. Kinzel favors spongey, stretchy, sometimes bizarrely distorted moves that shift and slither through positions that are unusually, continuously alive. This dancing writes across open space in an unknown or forgotten language--postmodern hieroglyphics.

In Kinzel's solos and duets, each dancer carries an elusive story of sorts. Melnick (with the big, intact valentine on her holey shirt) and especially Pheiffer carry the most distinct, resonant ones. Pheiffer's springy gyrations have a viscerally disturbing quality--like the first stirrings of seasickness--but I think something about him brings out the squirmy, sloshy-iness running through Responsible Ballet as a whole.

Clark, who has been more interestingly deployed, makes out less well than any of her colleagues here where it seems she serves merely as a blunt, undefined physical contrast. To be fair, that might not have been Kinzel's intention, but that is the effect. If Pheiffer writes with a fine Rapidograf, Clark wields a luxurious sable brush, but her hieroglyphics look all slash, splash and babble. And Kinzel has not added anything fresh to Williams' excellent track record.

Even so, these highly responsible and responsive dancers are well worth our venturing out to The Kitchen on some of this winter's coldest nights. But there's only one show left--tonight. Click here for ticketing.

Friday, January 29, 2010

Szabo: Why-o did I leave Ohio?

What is it about the kitchen? (lowercase t and k, mind you)

If I need a good cry--or even if I don't consciously think I need it but have no way to prevent it--I'm usually standing up at our kitchen sink, washing plates and eye-to-eye with a pigeon on the neighbor's fire escape. Clearly Michou Szabo (The Mill Michou Szabo) has some history here, too.

Szabo's new trio, Alone, OH--presented at Brooklyn's Center for Performance Research--takes us into what the quiet, spare kitchen of what appears to be a working class, midwestern (Ohio) household of three women. Hard to know the ages of these three, since the dancers could be roughly the same age, but from their deportment and behavior you can imagine a middle-aged mom (Sandy Tillett) with two youngish teenagers (Julie Alexander and Jennifer Lafferty). Designer Joanne Howard has arranged functional furniture--a simple dining table, chairs--as well as a sink, stove, basic equipment, dishes and silverware. Nothing outstanding. Even the decorative curtains--hanging straight down on either side of the sink--fail to be remarkable in any way. It's a feeling of hardness and withholding.

But this kitchen conceals an undercurrent of emotional energy that explodes, rarely in words or facial expressions, but in direct, brutal and relentless movement. There's something of Graham's psycho-physical starkness in this, but a Graham electrified and wilded. We think we are in the bedrock of civilization, but we will discover that we are not. Szabo peers into the minds of his three characters and channels psychological expression through the body with inescapable impact.

Composer Guy Yarden's score captures the low-grade but toxic obsession and tense emotional weather, but Tillett, Alexander and Lafferty--often punishing to watch--really make this piece. There's a fleeting moment in which, with posture and a single look, Tillett suggests what might be the source of her anger. In that moment, especially, she's stellar and stunning.
 
Alone, OH can be a long hour--with some overly repetitive motifs--but see it for these dancers' gutsy, all-in performances.

See The Mill Michou Szabo in Alone, OH at Center for Performance Research tonight and Saturday night at 8pm. Details here.

Center for Performance Research
631 Manhattan Avenue, Brooklyn

Directions: L to Graham Avenue (3rd Stop in Brooklyn). Exit to the right of the turnstile. Take a left down Graham, another left on Jackson Street and a right on Manhattan.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Dancing for Haiti

Jessica Danser/dansfolk
in conjunction with the Bronx Dance Coalition
presents

Men Anpil Chay Pa Lou (Many Hands Lighten the Load)
An evening of contemporary dance

with 100% of proceeds going to the Haiti Earthquake Relief effort
through the International Rescue Commitee

Friday, February 5, 2010 @ 8pm

$15 suggested donation

Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance—BAAD!
841 Baretto St. 2nd Fl, Bronx
6 train to Hunts Point, 2 or 5 trains to Simpson Street

Featuring performances by Jessica Danser, Emily Berry, Kristin Dexnis, Teresa Fellion, Anabella Lenzu, Shizu Homma, Caitlin Trainor, Alexandra Shilling and more

Reservations/directions: 718-842-5223 or www.bronxacademyofartsanddance.org

General info: dansfolk@hotmail.com

Can’t make it? Donate online

J.D. Salinger, 91

J.D. Salinger, 91, Is Dead
by Dave Itzkoff, The New York Times, January 28, 2010

J.D. Salinger Dies at 91: The Hermit Crab of American Letters
by Richard Lacayo, Time, January 28, 2010

J.D. Salinger, Literary Recluse, Dies at 91
by Charles McGrath, The New York Times, January 28, 2010

Oberfelder looks back to move forward

InfiniteBody Q&A
 
Dancer-choreographer Jody Oberfelder (Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects) talks about her upcoming retrospective season at Abrons Arts Center, March 11-13.
 
EYA: For HEADS or TALES--your upcoming program at Abrons--you've planned an imaginative retrospective of your dances and dance films. This season, we've observed some major anniversaries and retrospectives--Urban Bush Women (25 years) and Trisha Brown Dance Company (40 years), for instance. Great companies celebrating survival through especially tough times: "Wow! We're still here!" When you review your career, what does it teach you about your powers of survival as an artist?
 
JO: I consider the idea of a retrospective not as this nostalgic thing but more forward thinking. HEADS or TALES considers questions such as: What have I put into the world and what’s been my own voice?  How did some pieces succeed and others seem tame or like treading water?
 
I’m a survivor in the sense that I keep going while I try to be resilient in getting past the “struggling artist” paradigm. I enjoy going to the studio and making work. There is always the opportunity to find out what is new for you, and how to reframe your work differently or better. I’m realizing that everything you do as an artist is provoked by what you’re thinking, what you’re going through, and each piece is a prototype for the next.
 
EYA: Instead of simply re-running your repertory pieces, you're reworking them. What led you to that particular approach and how are you implementing it?
 
JO: I usually don’t like straight-up repertory concerts. I feel like I’m reading a history book. I’ve arranged bits of my favorite pieces into a kind of narrative. I’ve shaved down everything so it reads like a map. I am playfully questioning the transitory nature of performance and its essence as a metaphor for life. Every movement has within it many inherent stories that can be ‘read’ uniquely by different people. In this piece, I’m trying to make sense of it all. The little stories that make up your life—and your art, not necessarily in that order.
 
EYA: What have you been learning about your work and yourself--past and present--as you revisit your early pieces?
 
JO: There is part of me that feels like I’ve been making the same piece over and over, just saying it in different ways with different processes, different dancers, sometimes movingly, inducing tears and laughter. Those are the gems amid the trash bin of pieces I can barely look at because they were clunkers.

You have to go though the shit to get to the good stuff. Perhaps these less-than-perfect pieces fertilize the ones that are keepers. Once the post-performance afterglow/depression has passed, I love the blank slate. Each piece is its own entity.
 
I wonder if each choreographer has her own genetic code. The seeds of what you made previously, even though your next piece may be miles apart in idea or temperament, were propagated by what you did last.
 
When I revisited Head First--my solo, first performed at PS 122--I realized that it was who I am: feisty, physical, powerful, expressive.  I think I tried on other styles, tried to clean up my act and make well crafted phrase-y stuff for a while. That was not me. It has been magnificent to own up to what is me—at least the sense of the me who is enduring, relishing the effort of life: the drama, the comedy.
 
EYA: Has your work process changed or evolved in significant ways? What inspires you today?
 
JO: I feel I trust my process more now. I have a messy imagination, a messy process, and I’m realizing I’m good at it. I’m okay with fishing around now because I can articulate what I’m fishing for. I am noodling around in the service of a seed of an idea and getting better at following the right threads, so that it means something to me and, I hope, the viewer.
 
I’m inspired by life: the little happenings and big pictures. I don’t want to get cynical or stuck in my ways. I hope to continue to develop new perspectives and a keep a sense of wonder born of curiosity. I want to be rigorous in my choices. I want capture the rollercoaster nature of life and be freewheeling in my artistry. 

I'm okay with being a storyteller of sorts.  I like that our medium is human beings. I’m inspired by pieces you feel in your gut.
 
EYA: What has changed for you over time?

Getting commissions for opera or theater is new, and it’s pretty fun to have a story to hang your hat on. Lush music helps too.
 
When I got the Dido and Aeneas commission from Orchestra of St. Luke’s, it was like biting the bullet in the storytelling challenge of re-interpreting and re-contextualizing. I’d always skirted around the idea of people being "characters" or being epic in their proportions.
 
I like creating out of nothing, but creating out of something is good too.  Dance is all about capturing energy, moving it around, moving bodies to move people.
 
EYA: It's fun to think of Rock Me Mama performed again by the original cast with their grown-up (teenaged) babies! Tell us about that piece and how it fits into the scheme of your evening.
 
JO: For me, having kids was an identity issue, as well as a feminist issue, and so became an artistic issue. Beginning with my own body transforming into a rounded, weighted dancer, the shape shifting of pregnancy crept into my dance-making, I knew I had to make art out of the body and art out of my life.  The choreography resulted in a 16mm film, Duet, shot by Ben Speth very simply with three light sources in one take when I was eight months pregnant--naked, raw, and sculptural--to a sound score of fetal heartbeats. I performed live dancing in front of that film when huge with my second child.
 
A few years later I choreographed Mother Other with my five-year-old daughter and another mom I liked to hang with and her daughter. It was a glorified play date to Beatles’s music. I showed this in a comp class—at this point wondering what the hell I was doing--to the delight of my teacher Martha Myers.  She encouraged me to keep going, to make work that is my own. Next was Expectant Tango, a dance for eight pregnant women in red dresses.

Life was clearly becoming a resource--a subject via my body and the lives of like-minded women transformed.  Life as I knew it had changed so why wouldn’t this rock my process?  After this series, I went back to making straight dances. In hindsight, I think this period of "genre" pieces brought me closer to making subsequent dances more real.
 
Rock Me Mama was first a song written around a kitchen table with a fellow mom, Tine Kindermann, who sings with me on the track. I kept my eyes open for pregnant dancer/women about to pop. The first person I reached out to was Denise Roberts Hurlin. I had no idea who she was, or that she had danced with Paul Taylor for years and was the head of Dancers Responding to AIDS (DRA). We were just standing next to each other backstage at the Joyce, waiting to greet a fellow colleague. I think I put an ad in The Village Voice too. We set up rehearsals: Bring your babies and we rock out. No baby sitter needed.

This new version is comprised of alumni from three separate casts. A few of the teens have refused to dance with their moms or have a science fair that trumps a modern dance concert.
 
The piece will follow the X Cheerleader birth cheer. I'll show a clip of the pregnant film, a bit of Expectant Tango, followed by brief out-takes of the cast of Rock Me Mama, kind of like an MTV Behind the Music montage: “Where are they now?”

The moms and teens will do a version of the piece, expressing their teen-independence, with a special moment for Denise’s "baby"--Cate Hurlin--who now dances with American Ballet Theater and was Clara in the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular, followed by a new cast of five moms and their babies—all in eight minutes.
 
EYA: You're revisiting your early dance films, and also launching a new film project online. Tell us about this new series and where we can find it.
 
JO: We decided to release a series of trailers—we're calling them webisodes--to get people interested in our live performance at Abrons. Using an '80s film with me running around in a crash helmet in Frankfurt as a catalyst, we organized a crew of "extras"--16 dancers and two skateboarders who happened to be onsite and joined in--to be part of the "crash helmet brigade." It was pouring rain for our shoot on a dreary December day, but luckily our location was the skate park under the Manhattan Bridge. So we had cover. Our camera person (Sam Heesen) zoomed around on roller-blades the whole time and really captured the essence of this free-wheeling dance  (Webisode  #1).
 
Films are very satisfying to create. They last. And somehow they are easier to control. I love the editing process in film. No hard feelings like in the studio: We’re cutting that section we worked on for two weeks! 

I love the way film can bring the focus close up to detail, directing the eye; we can do that in dance and I’m trying to approach choreography cinematically as it is dance is also a MOTION PICTURE. Real people in real time sweating—an expressive medium codified in a physical language.
 
The beauty of dance--and all performance--is that you have to show up. You can't phone it in. You have to be at the event. Live is experiential. Dance is experiential. You can’t climb into the bodies onstage. But great dancers will let you into what they are experiencing—the moment to moment ideas/feelings served by technique. That’s our "close up." Like good acting, you forget it’s an actor playing a character. In dance, when it’s really happening you forget they did a lot of pliés in order to soar.

I hope people will come. It’s a lush show: sensuous and rowdy. 

And I want to add a thank you to the dancers and collaborators I've worked with over the years for leading me to new places.#

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

I'm over the moon!

But I'm also bummed out that Gotham Chamber Opera will be coming down to earth soon, ending its run of Il mondo della luna (The World on the Moon) after this Thursday. It's the kind of show that should stick around long enough for you to nag every one of your friends to see it. But, alas!

Trimming this tasty Haydn farce to a lively 90 minutes and staging it under the world-famous projection dome of the Hayden Planetarium were strokes of genius. Kudos to Gotham's artistic director/conductor Neal Goren and the production's director, Diane Paulus, last noted for the hit Broadway revival of Hair.

Gotham's orchestra plays on a raised platform beneath the dome as marvelous singers enact the story and an explosion of stars, galaxies and Alex Grey-style psychedelica dazzle the eye. In this comic tale, Buonafede (Marco Nisticò) gets scammed by a so-called astronomer (Nicholas Coppolo), his own daughters (Hanan Alattar and Albina Shagimuratova), his maid/mistress (Rachel Calloway) and a couple of the women's suitors (Matthew Tuell and Timothy Kuhn). The conspirators drug him and convince Buonafede that they have all been transported to the moon, where women know their place--firmly under the thumb of their men. Nisticò, guesting from the Metropolitan Opera, brings such a warm, mellifluous tone to his characterization of the blatantly sexist, remarkably gullible Buonafede that you almost feel empathy for the man. Almost!

There's also no lack of slick, driving charm in Coppollo's performance or winning effervescence in the three beauteous ladies--Alattar, Shagimuratova and Calloway--as Haydn's 18th Century metronomic perkiness inspires their Supremes-style choreography. Don't get the wrong impression, though: With a farce this broad, so much could have been overdone, but it's not. The music and singing are allowed their lyrical delicacy, and even the projections and fantasy costumes are more fizzy than bombastic.

The planetarium's seating might not lend itself to comfort over the long haul, but it was a treat to be in there anyway for a purpose other than scientific/educational. Kind of subversive! Clever staging, set manipulation and the resilience of the performers--in physically demanding roles--make the production not only work efficiently but continuously surprise and amuse. If performers truly do catch energy from audiences, this cast must have loved our crowd, for they were always near enough to us to hear our every chuckle, and there were many chuckles for them to savor.

Hurrah for Gotham! And hurry! Maybe you can still snare a ticket for the moon!

8pm tonight, tomorrow and Thursday

Il mondo della luna

Hayden Planetarium
American Museum of Natural History's Rose Center for Earth and Space
81st Street (between Central Park West & Columbus Avenue), Manhattan

Monday, January 25, 2010

And speaking of K. J. Holmes...

Perhaps you read my previous post about K. J. Holmes's series of classes for Movement Research. Well, I've just received this nice update from the good folks at Movement Research:

K.J. Holmes is holding two additional yoga classes to benefit relief efforts in Haiti. All proceeds are donated to Partners in Health. We're so glad to support K.J. in this effort, and we hope to see you all there.

Here are the fine details:

Saturdays, January 30 and February 6
9:30-10:30am

$10 minimum donation

Movement Research at Eden's Expressway
Studio opens at 9am.

Musicians rally for Haiti

Mizik pou Ayiti (Music for Haiti)
A Benefit Concert for the Reconstruction of Haiti

Friday, January 29 -- 7pm

The Brooklyn Public Library Dweck Center for Contemporary Culture
10 Grand Army Plaza -- Eastern Parkway Entrance

Featuring:

The Altino Brothers
Buyu Ambroise (Blues in Red Band)
Markus Schwartz ( Tanbou Nan Lakou Brooklyn)
Mozayik
Melanie Charles
Pauline Jean
Paul Beaudry (Blues in Red Band)
Chardavoine
Lou Rainone
Jean Caze
Steeve Belvilus (Blues in Red)
Allan Mednard (Blues in Red)
Tiga Jean Baptiste
and more...

$20 (minimum suggested donation)
All Proceeds will be donated to the Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund.

Please arrive early. Space is limited.

Organized by Gregg Richards / Rawle Jackman (Wanderers United)

Complete information here

Making contact with Movement Research

How would it ever be possible to resist a class called The Athletics of Intimacy, Improvisations?

Okay. Since we're in agreement on that, plan to join K. J. Holmes on Saturdays now through February 28 (11am-2pm) or March 6-May 29 (11am-1pm).

Holmes writes,

Classes combine skills and practices of Contact Improvisation, applications of Body-Mind Centering® and tutoring of somatic improvisational approaches in solo, duet (strong emphasis on partnering) and ensemble dancing. I am interested in the very physical, the very sensorial and the very imaginative, and in discovering new challenges and risks within our movement.

These sessions are brought to you by Movement Research and held at Eden's Expressway--537 Broadway, 4th Floor, between Prince and Spring Streets, Manhattan.

For complete schedule and fee information on more cool and intriguing Movement Research classes and workshops, check in here.

And see updated information on K. J. Holmes's classes here.

Lovely Betty, indeed!

Lovely Betty
by Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon, January 25, 2010

I've always adored Betty White--saw her last in The Proposal--and it's great to hear that she got SAG's Lifetime Achievement Award. I'd love a lifetime of her achievements!

Radio days: Air America and WBAI

Goodnight, Air America.

Thank you for introducing the world to the magnificent Rachel Maddow and acting as a political launching pad for Al Franken who might one day grow into a valuable senator. It's just too bad that what started out as a clever, aggressive reaction to Bush/Cheney and the right-wing lie-mongers in radio and Congress never took root, financially or otherwise. Air America's programming and scheduling always seemed to me to be hastily thrown together with no design, no thought-out strategy. Most of the shows made for tedious listening, and a so-called star host like Randi Rhodes was permitted to waste hours of airtime ranting and repeating herself. If you wanted to listen to Rhodes at all, you quickly learned to turn her off after, say, 15 to 20 minutes, because the rest of the show would be a pointless regurgitation.

Here are two reports on the demise of Air America:

Media Decoder: Air America to Cease Broadcasting Immediately
by Brian Stelter, The New York Times, January 21, 2010

Farewell, Air America, when we need it most
by Ron Reagan, Salon, January 24, 2010

Liberal Radio, Even Without Air America
by Brian Stelter, The New York Times, January 24, 2010

Back in the late '80s, I did time at Pacifica Radio's WBAI with what was then the Women's Radio Collective and the Gay and Lesbian Independent Broadcasters, as well as producing some specials on my own. Broadcasting was totally new to me and--after listening to a women's news program--I'd been drawn into it on a spunky impulse that, for a basically shy person, was a form of courage. This new challenge stimulated my creativity, and I brought to it a typical Virgo's preference and competence for organization, much appreciated by the station's engineers.

But WBAI was a roiling mess--and still is, if Michael Powell's hilariously snarky report on a meeting of the station's board is to be believed. And, having seen that place from the inside--I sat in a staff workshop on diversity where a fistfight broke out right in front of me--I do believe.

99.5 FM, Where the Board Meetings Make the Broadcasts Seem Tame
by Michael Powell, The New York Times, January 15, 2010


Announcement: playwright group forming

Are you a playwright of color with little or no production experience?

A new weekly or bimonthly playwriting unit of 4-6 writers is forming with the objective of assisting in the development and critique of new work and to collectively explore avenues of production.

Once or twice a month, we will have an in-depth discussion of your script. This group will not only provide the accountability you need to get your first script on paper, but also feedback from other writers on perceived strengths and weaknesses, applications of drama theory, writing ideas and more. Occasionally, we may network with established writers and theater professionals. After a few months, we would like to self-produce a night of readings or a series of small-scale staged productions. We have full-time access to rehearsal loft space in Brooklyn.

We would prefer to work with writers on the more experimental/avant-garde scale. As of now, the group's plays deal heavily on the social and historical dynamics of race and racism but this isn't the only topic that interests us. We welcome writers who take inspiration from the likes of Adrienne Kennedy, Suzan Lori-Parks, George C. Wolfe. We also welcome beginning and established playwrights writing traditionally structured plays like those of August Wilson, James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry. You should be queer-friendly but all sexual orientations are welcome and sexuality does not have to be a focus of your writing.

We hope you will join us in helping to build this collective. With dedication and directed energy to each other and to our craft, we can broadcast our voices and ensure each other's success.

If interested, please e-mail Christopher Fields at info@brandshire.com.

Jean Simmons, Actress, 80

Jean Simmons, 80, Dies; Actress Whose Talent Exceeded the Parts She Played
by Aljean Harmetz, The New York Times, January 23, 2010

*****
Wow. I think I remember her best in Guys and Dolls. But I keep looking at that very odd headline and thinking about how it would probably fit--like an obituary template--the majority of Hollywood actresses.

Grieving the cultural losses in Haiti

Cultural Riches Turn to Rubble in Haiti Quake
by Marc Lacey, The New York Times, January 23, 2010

*****
There really is no reason that Haitians should apologize for mourning the loss of their cultural legacy in this tragic event. The cultural legacy of a people speaks most eloquently about who they truly are and about their history, meaning and contribution to the family of humanity. These losses are grievous, indeed–for individual artists, for the Haitian nation and for the world.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Amy Greenfield's "Untitled Nude"

Untitled Nude--a solo exhibition of three short films by Amy Greenfield, curated by Lynn del Sol--runs through February 12 at creative thriftshop @ Dam Stuhltrager Gallery in Williamsburg. 

In her focus on the female nude--bound by strands of pearls or emerging out of waves or mud--Greenfield brings us a vision of something ancient, vital and occasionally dissonant captured and encased by contemporary technology. Will the body will ultimately triumph over newfangled flat screen tv? Or will it remain trapped? An interesting consideration for makers and lovers of dance, given our current artistic 'twixt/'tween moment.

Works on view: 

MUSEic Of The BODy (1994) 8:03 

Tides (1982) 12:01 

Element (1973) 12:03

creative thriftshop @ Dam Stuhltrager Gallery
38 Marcy Avenue, Brooklyn
near the L (Lorimer Street)/G (Metropolitan Avenue) station

Get hours and complete travel directions:
718-569-0903 or info@creativethriftshop.com

David Zambrano...words fail me...for now!

OMG! I know I'm pushing you to see a lot of things this week--and that's because there's a lot of great stuff out there to see--but if you don't see David Zambrano's Soul Project at Danspace Project, you will end up kicking yourself.

So, be kind to yourself and get a ticket now! There's only one night left and that's TONIGHT!

You'll find my review, one of these days, in (or on) Dance Magazine. I'll let you know when.

In the meantime, just go!

Friday, January 22, 2010

Katherine Longstreth's Soaking WET

Katherine Longstreth's evening of short solos and duets at West End Theater--part of the Soaking WET series, curated by David Parker--makes serious magic(k) in a modest setting. And that's magic(k) that builds throughout the evening and works on you until, gazing at Longstreth encased in a translucent hoop skirt whose distended hem contains and scatters a herd of balloons, you realize there's no escaping her mesmeric pull. Part poet, part oddball, she crafts lapidary pieces focused on clear, strongly sculpted gestures and intriguing relationships and set to a quirky, astonishing variety of accompaniment--Liza Minelli to The White Stripes and all points in between--that you simply savor, saying to yourself, That's it, that's it, just the right cut of music at the right time and what an ear this woman has!

I came to enjoy, too, the way these small pieces sometimes have uninflected endings, as if they were favorite passages roughly ripped out of a book and pasted into the scrapbook that became this concert.

Credit Jay Ryan, too, for touching each of the works with lighting artistry that beautifully enhances Longstreth's delicate but willful precision in all things and the expressive skills of her partners, Diane Vivona in Two for the Show and, especially, Kelly Bartnik, so exquisite in Three to Get Ready.

Longstreth's program runs now through Sunday at 8:30pm with an additional Sunday show at 5pm at the West End Theater, Church of St. Paul & St. Anthony, 263 West 86th Street (between Broadway and West End Avenue), Manhattan.

For more information and ticketing for this and other Soaking WET programs, as well as directions to the West End Theater, click here.

Melanie Joseph: city as stage

“I don’t believe theater can change the world. People can — through rigorously created art that can reveal to those watching what their politics are and through an interrogation of ideas that massages empathy, the place where all great politics comes from.”  -- Melanie Joseph, artistic producer, The Foundry Theatre

City as Stage, Audience as Family
by Celia McGee, The New York Times, January 13, 2010

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Shake it: Zollar is uncensorable!

Yes, she is.

Back in the early '80s, though, censorable, even self-censorable.

Today, absolutely not.

There's no holding her back.

As Jawole Willa Jo Zollar's company, Urban Bush Women, celebrates its 25th Anniversary, she's reclaiming themes, images and movement she once put away because, back in those days, presenters got very, very nervous about them.

This powerful and gorgeous production runs through Saturday at 7:30pm with an additional late-night show on Saturday at 10pm.

So, if there's a ticket still to be had--and, after the looks of last night's audience, I really wonder--head on over to Dance Theater Workshop for Zollar: Uncensored and some heavenly singing, percussive wizardry and extraordinarily erotic, dramatic and profoundly spiritual dancing.

Click here for information and here for ticketing. And just remember this main point:

"Shake it! Don't let it break you!"

You'll see what I mean.

ATDC: floors now open for business!

Last evening, I dropped by the American Tap Dance Foundation's new hub, the American Tap Dance Center, over on Christopher Street where the wine was flowing and the tap shoes tapping and, for one breath-catching moment, all was right with the world. Congratulations, again, to the effervescent Tony Waag--mayor of Tap City and ATDF's artistic and executive director--and his board and staff for creating this charming, welcoming homebase for tap students of all ages.

ATDC is located in the far West Village at 154 Christopher Street (#2B), between Greenwich and Washington Streets. Travel options: #1/PATH/Crosstown M8 to Christopher. A/C/E/F/V/B/D to West 4th Street. Walk west on Christopher from any station. 

Coming up at ATDC

Saturday, February 13

6-7pm: Tap historian and author Constance Valis Hill will sign her Tap Dancing America: A Cultural History.

7-9pm: Tap Talks/Tap Films presents archival and rarely seen tap films plus a panel discussion moderated by Constance Valis Hill and including Brenda Bufalino, Derick Grant and other notable tap dance choreographers.

To get information on youth and adult classes (including ones for absolute beginners), intensives, the Winter Tap Jam (2/14) and other special events, click here or contact the center's office: registrar@atdf.org or 646-230-9564.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Tom Pearson: community and ceremony [UPDATED]

Thunderbird American Indian Dancers
35th Annual Dance Concert and Powwow

January 29-February 7 

Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue (10th Street)

All proceeds benefit the Native American scholarship fund.

For complete programming, schedule and ticketing details, call 212-254-1109. Online ticketing here.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Tom Pearson's Ceremony will be performed only on the evening programs, not the matinees.


InfiniteBody Q&A

Dancer-choreographer Tom Pearson (Creek/Cherokee) talks about performing with Thunderbird American Indian Dancers

EYA: Tom, to followers of contemporary dance, you're probably best known for your work as co-director of Third Rail Projects (with Zach Morris and Jennine Willett). With Zach, you won a Bessie Award for Vanishing Point, premiered at Danspace Project in 2008. But your involvement with Thunderbird's concerts and powwows reflects a commitment to personal identity and culture. How long have you been working with Thunderbird and how did you first become involved?

TP: I’ve been working with Louis Mofsie (Hopi/Winnebago), Thunderbird's artistic director, and, by extension, participating in Thunderbird events and programs since 2003. However, my experience with the Thunderbirds as an audience member and a writer pre-dates that by a few years. I first saw them perform in 2000, I think. Louie came to a performance of mine in 2003, in which I premiered the original version of my contemporary dance solo, Ceremony. He was interested in the work, and we began collaborating on the next version of Ceremony which performed alongside traditional dances on the following Thunderbird program. Since then, I have studied traditional dances with the members of the group and begun dancing at powwows and social gatherings, and Louie and I have collaborated on several contemporary dance projects over the years as well.

EYA: What's most meaningful and fun about working with Thunderbird?

TP: I think the one thing that stands out the most is how much of a family the group is--a family that spans several generations, and very warm and welcoming. There is a real sense of history and tradition, and not just in a big American Indian kind of way, but a very specific Native New York community kind of way.

Most people don't realize that there is a large population of urban Indians in New York, and a great number of them are performing artists, or the children and grandchildren of performing artists who found themselves dropped off here when the wild west shows ended their tours in the late part of the 19th Century and at the turn of the 20th Century. There's quite a bit of Native history entwined with performance history in the Native community in New York, but maybe that's a story for another time.

What I love about the Thunderbird group is that many of them come from this tradition, and everyone shares a common interest in preserving and sharing their traditions, and it’s all volunteer-based. No personal income is derived from the powwows and performances at Theater for the New City. So, it’s really driven by love.

EYA: I'm interested learning about the type of preparation--not so much physical but mental, even spiritual--that you make for the very different types of dance that you perform. Or even if these approaches to dance are different, as you see them, in the way they encode information and meaning.

TP: I think I actually do more concerted mental and spiritual preparation for the contemporary work I do than the traditional, because the contemporary is often so specific to my own vision, and there are so many more unknowns. The traditional dances are more codified. Each performer attaches his/her own style and approach, of course, but you are standing on the shoulders of giants with these. There’s a whole tradition that supports you, and each dance has its own inherent system of meaning.

But of course, with anything that the community has a vested interest in, you can often come under the scrutiny of the culture cops, self-appointed quality controllers. It’s sort of a joke, and at the same time not. It always becomes a question of what most honors the tradition--an exact replica of steps and staging, or a furthering of the spirit of the work. With the contemporary, at least, that type of pressure is off when you are generating new material.

EYA: You will be performing a traditional hoop dance in this year's concert but also showing a piece of your own, Ceremony, inspired by your exploration of your Native American heritage. Tell us a little about this piece. How has your cultural exploration and your work with traditional dances influenced your creativity? Has it reshaped your approach to contemporary work?

TP: Ceremony is a solo that I perform every couple of years, and though the dance is basically the same, the internal meaning and ceremony itself shifts. Originally, it was a work that I made to explore my own cultural inheritance by way of reclamation. I set up a couple of polarities within the work that I move between, and the in-between becomes the thing itself, a representation of my own hybrid identity, while at the same time referencing that which I am given and that which I claim.

When I created the work, I chose a traditional war dance song. For years, I had been attending powwows but not participating because I lacked a point of entry. Though I am Cherokee and Creek, my family had lost the cultural connection, and so I took what I could and applied my own movement vocabulary to it. I think this is what Louie responded to in my work, that I was working backwards through assimilation, and trying to honor all of my selves together. That’s probably the most direct way I can answer your question about how the traditional influences the work.

Also, I think the work I’ve done in a contemporary vein has been moving towards connecting with the traditional, and not the other way around. Mostly though, I think I draw upon the traditional for structural cues, especially with regard to ritual. For example in many of my individual works like Ceremony, REEL, Lacuna, and Mesa, the pieces often end where they begin, or move in a circular pattern. This is much more reflective of a Native approach to story-telling, ideas that move clockwise or up-and-down, and not along a linear path. Likewise, the identity politics in my work stem from issues of assimilation, loss, reclamation and representation that are all borne from a Native world-view.

I especially love that this year I get to perform Ceremony and a hoop dance (with the fabulous Donna Ahmadi) on the same program. I think it’s important for audiences to see the same dancer performing in two very different ways because they are then able to connect the dots between the “us” and “them” that often occurs when the beads and feathers block the view.

Many people get upset when their expectations aren’t met regarding what they perceive as Native American Performance, and people have very definite and historicized ideas about what that means. When the same dancer can play into those ideas and also challenge them, I think you get a little more mileage in terms of expanding an audience’s field of vision and bringing Indian identity into the present tense.#

Robert B. Parker, Author and Creator of Spenser, 77

Robert B. Parker, Best-Selling Author and Creator of Spenser, is Dead at 77
by Bruce Weber, The New York Times, January 20, 2010

Robert B. Parker Web site

We extend our condolences to Parker's son--dancer-choreographer David Parker--and to all of his family.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Rockin' Bushwick!

Call to Artists for Bushwicks' SITE FEST 2010

March 6 & 7

presented by Arts in Bushwick

SITE Fest is a two-day, multi-location interdisciplinary event, highlighting the diversity of performance in Bushwick. Encompassing theater, dance, music, and other forms of performance/live art, SITE seeks to expand the interaction between spectators and spectacle as both artists and visitors move through spaces, events, media, and styles.

Complete artist registration and venue information here

Registration deadline February 5

In the huddle with Forti

Now in her mid-70s, Simone Forti looks less like an esteemed elder from dance's radical Judson wing--which, of course, she is--and more like a pixie, slim in form and potentially mischievous in bright red boots. Though somewhat tentative in speech, she takes to movement with a breathtaking combination of instinctual eagerness and soft ease, a kind of "come on in, the water's fine" approach that makes you believe in yourself, even as a person just watching in admiration.

Baryshnikov Arts Center's BAC Flicks series presented Simone Forti: An Evening of Dance Constructions (2009), which documents the 2004 re-creation of some of her early works at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles).  The program, introduced by Forti, concluded with a Q & A and delicious live performances of Huddle (1961) and Scramble (1970).

While it was interesting to swivel one's attention between dances running simultaneously on two screens--besides Huddle, these dance-sculpture pieces included Slant Board, See Saw, Rollers and a few more--the live works stole the show. Huddle and Scramble might hail from the touchy-feely, playful days of the '60s--evoking the groovy group-mind in motion--but their ideas and looks don't in the least feel ancient or alien to me. Their subtleties sing.

Huddle is just what its name says it is--a mound of dancers, with upperbacks bent and arms linked, who form a sensitive, living "rock" upon which one or another of them will clamber up, crawl across and climb down. The dancers below and the one above seem to orient themselves through listening to their bodies, not looking with their eyes. I loved, most of all, the way the dancers' hands, grasping for purchase and gently kneading the bodies below, seemed more like lizards' claws and the way each crawler eventually blended into the "rock" as another emerged from the huddle to climb. At BAC, most of the audience, seated on the floor surrounding the huddle, was close enough to feel pulled in and hypnotized.

With Huddle, as in other pieces, dancers escape the tyranny of propulsion by leg and foot--the walking, running, skipping, leaping into horizontal space so commonly, conventionally identified with the idea of dancing. By doing so, Forti expands our experience beyond the human into all of nature.

I could say something similar about the challenging distension of time in Accompaniment for La Monte's 2 sounds, a solo performed by Forti in the film. And it may be true. Forti takes us into a different dimension, a different living of time as she quietly dangles from a thick rope, sometimes slightly twisting and swaying. But I am a Black woman, and when I see that image--surely intended to be abstract--time reverts for me to the era of lynching.

Scramble--a dance as responsive in real time as Huddle--resembles a meeting of two schools of fish passing through each other, twisting in and out, towards and away. Dancers peeled off to the sidelines, eventually leaving a small, tight group that became wonderfully rambunctious.

Simone Forti explaining herself:

"Everywhere I looked, I looked at something designed by people, and I felt I was in a house of mirrors."


"Chubby Checker's 'Twist' brought a lot of us together!"

"Sometimes when I saw a dance, I'd say, 'There's so much movement, I can't see the body!"

About Huddle: "The weight passes through everybody else's body. The weight passes to the ground through this structure. We learn to not be afraid. Put your foot on somebody. Spread your weight."

Click for information on Baryshnikov Arts Center and its Spring 2010 season

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Pay to read the New York Times online?

New York Times Website May Charge: Will You Pay? [POLL]
Pete Cashmore, Mashable, January 17, 2010

What do you think? Would you pay for access to articles on the Times site?

Participate in Mashable's poll, and also leave your comments here. I'm curious!

Friday, January 15, 2010

Summing Up Alastair Macaulay

Alastair Macaulay is a bored man.

The New York Times chief dance critic, an import from London, has been holding down a position of outsized power that he never merited. When he first got here, I thought he'd bring a voice of passion, which I value. But, for the most part, I stopped reading his work when it became clear that his experience and sympathies mainly run to elite choreographers—Balanchine, Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Mark Morris--and a handful of other artists he deems masters of the craft. Ask Macaulay to stray beyond his comfy zone, and he loses it.

As an arts critic and former Bessie Awards committee member, I've seen a ton of dance of all kinds in New York and had been doing so even before I was first published in 1976. When I go to a concert, if I happen to stumble in any direction, I'm going to fall onto a dance critic. When it comes to contemporary “downtown” dance—a stupid term we've learned to live with--I can count, on one hand, and that's being generous, the number of times I've noticed Macaulay in the mix. I see everybody out there, and everybody sees me. If Macaulay were attending and humbly studying up on anything other than major, mainstream events, I'd certainly run into him.

New York dance and performance artists have been incensed about Macaulay for a long time, but he really struck the rock when the Times published his end-of-decade summary, Choreographic Climate Change (aka, A Decade's Worth of Dance, Dancers and Choreographers). I must admit I'm only reading this article now after having been directed to it by the vigilant folks at Movement Research and on Facebook.

We ought to thank Macaulay for producing a document that—like the solemn wisdom of Pat Robertson and the learned policy pronouncements of Sarah Palin—gives us a vivid idea of who he is. He is a very bored man. And boredom comes from not caring enough to look deeply.

For instance, if you are bored, you're likely to fail to notice that “political relevance” can come in numerous forms, some of them not obviously in your face. If you are bored, when you call the 1980s and 1990s decades of decline and loss, you might note the deaths of Tudor and Balanchine, the deaths of MacMillan and Robbins, yet fail to commemorate the toll that HIV/AIDS would come to take on the wider dance community. If you are bored, you might overvalue the souped-up technical proficiency of today's ballet dancers. If you are bored, you might seek out and laud contemporary ballets that are “happy,” that “express joy” and give you an apparently much-needed, if temporary, boost.

But think now, what if that were the criterion for every art? Only happy plays? Happy music? Happy cinema? Surely unthinkable. Then why envision the dancing body as only a source for entertainment, something to be consumed like a drug?

That “age-old belief that dance expresses joy?” That may be true but only a fraction of the story. Look to any traditional dance, and you will find a spectrum of purposes, meanings, moods and challenges to both performer and audience. Even flamenco master Soledad Barrio's work, which Macaulay clearly enjoys and repeatedly writes about, dares to explore the rougher terrain of the soul. So what's he talking about?

Frankly, not much. His article is a scandal of bubble wrap masquerading as critical assessment. There's not much there there. Really, this thing would get extremely poor marks at university.

Senior Dance Critic. New York Times.

So, here's the quote that has everybody steamed:
  • Dance critics like to look for hope in the best modern or postmodern choreography being shown in downtown Manhattan. I’ve seen good material there too and among young modern-dance choreographers elsewhere, and yet — amid a field too large for anyone to keep complete track of it — I sense that too little of late has amounted to anything historic.
“Dance critics?” Well, apparently not Macaulay. He does not look because he rarely attends. And when he does attend, he does not look. At least, not deeply.

Senior Dance Critic. New York Times.

“Downtown Manhattan?” Progressive contemporary dance and performance exist throughout the New York metropolitan area, and a substantial amount of it rewards exploration.

Senior Dance Critic. New York Times.

“I've seen good material...” Ah, the whiff of condescension.

“young modern-dance choreographers” Please. What is this modern-dance? That's a legacy, admirably upheld by some existing companies and choreographers, but there is much, much more to post-balletic dance, and it certainly cannot be summed up by the term “modern-dance.” But Macaulay has neither time nor inclination to identify what he's talking about. Instead, why don't we hurry on to safer territory—African dance!--because, you know, African dance is, itself, just one thing.

He calls contemporary dance “a field too large for anyone to keep complete track of it.”

There it is: “Why, you don't expect me to actually attempt to catch up and learn something about this field, do you? I simply don't have time!”

Senior Dance Critic. New York Times.

And those sketchy allusions to African, Indian, flamenco, tap? Please. These art forms and their artists deserve more attention and specificity, even in an article of this nature and slapdash-ery. And speaking of slapdash-ery and outright slapping:


You can afford to be left cold by its most famous current leader, Savion Glover and still find a wealth of excitement in the performances of several other stars well under 40.

Oh, poor Savion. You're the one tap guy Macaulay bothers to identify, and he rises up and uses this moment of power to slam you. How very useful to the field of tap dance.

Senior Dance Critic. New York Times.

Dance is the art with no history.

Come again?

Senior Dance Critic. New York Times.

He continues:

When a step has happened, it leaves no trace.

You know, that's only true if you're bored, and the traces of that dance cannot penetrate your hard head and harder heart.

Senior Dance Critic. New York Times.

I make no predictions of where dance is going or how posterity will judge the decade’s choreography. But it closes with many of us feeling greater delight in the field, and hope renewed.

Well, you could knock me over with a feather boa!

“It closes with many of us”--excuse, me, who's that us?--”feeling greater delight in the field, and hope renewed.”

That's what you call tying a neat bow around an empty package.

Aside from all the aforementioned happy dancing, I can't locate the rationale for Macaulay's “greater delight” nor for his “hope renewed,” and I certainly doubt it has anything to do with the kinds of artists of all kinds who give me hope on a daily basis in this crazy world.

Let me say it plain, because I have little to lose:

The New York Times does not care about dance. If it did, it would give dance a senior critic with diligence, breadth of knowledge, curiosity, serious chops and respect for artists.


Coming in for a landing

The lowdown on landings
Gerry Gomez Pearlberg, Global Swarming Honeybees, January 15, 2010

Final moments of bee landing tactics revealed
ScienceDaily, January 2, 2010

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Madden's ladder to success

Still thinking about the divine Diane Madden turning a ladder into a necklace and then a hat last night at DTW's Trisha Brown panel (moderated by former TBDC dancer and current Dance Magazine Editor-in-Chief Wendy Perron). Best argument ever--ever!--for movement being far more persuasive than words.

BTW, it was nice to hear Carla Peterson saying that she'd make up for DTW's decades-long oversight in never having the Trisha Brown Dance Company perform on its stage: "We're going to fix this!"  Oh, you'd better.

For information on more TBDC 40th Anniversary special events at DTW this spring, click here.

Helping the people of Haiti

There are many online sources of information about how you can help the people of Haiti. Be cautious, though, because the inevitable scams have also quickly emerged.

Here are some lists of reputable humanitarian organizations:

Haiti Disaster Relief: How to Contribute (New York Times)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/12/haiti-earthquake-relief-h_n_421014.html (Huffington Post)

How and where to donate to Haiti (and avoid scams) (Lifehacker)

Please keep in mind my personal favorite, Doctors Without Borders, whose facilities in Haiti were devastated in the earthquake. They do excellent work and will need much help to get continue serving the people.

Thank you.

Eva


Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Workin' it: Niles Ford/Urban Dance Collective

Here's my Dance Magazine review of Niles Ford/Urban Dance Collective in In Search of the Invisible People at Dixon Place.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Aszure Barton busking in Sarasota

Hit this link and scroll down the page for my Dance Magazine review of the world premiere of Aszure Barton's Busk.

Wilson & Ouamba at BAM

Here's the link to my Dance Magazine review of The Good Dance by Reggie Wilson and Andréya Ouamba last month at BAM.

Monday, January 11, 2010

The Bessies are coming back!

I started out this morning, wishing all my Facebook friends a day of revelations. And, indeed, the day revealed itself to be a big one for dance and performance in New York!

Suspended during the 2008-09 season,The Bessies (New York Dance and Performance Awards) are up and running again, thanks to the collaborative efforts of its longstanding producing team and its new administrators, DanceNYC and, as independent fundraiser/producer, the dance and performance artist Lucy Sexton.

In a brief press conference at the French Institute Alliance Francaise, Gus Solomons jr--who served on the Bessies' inaugural nominating committee (1983-84)--underscored why these awards have lasting significance to artists:

"It was the first time that there had been an annual gathering where we could reflect on and celebrate each other's work and draw attention to artistically challenging work some of the audience was unaware of. So often in New York you feel like your working in a cave, struggling to find ways to continue dancing and making work, struggling to get that work seen and written about, struggling to pay your dancers and your rent. Here at last was a way to say publicly that work was being seen and appreciated, and that there was a real community to which that work mattered."

"The Bessie Awards will return next fall, yes!" cheered Elizabeth Streb, pumping her fist in the air. "That's really the most important thing I'll say today. There are many questions still to be answered, but we didn't want it to go on another year--or even another month--with anyone wondering if the Bessies were going to disappear."

The strategy and some ideas in development for reviving the beloved awards include:

  • Current producers (Danspace Project, The Joyce Theater and Dance Theater Workshop) working in partnership with DanceNYC as it transitions into its producing responsibilities
  • DanceNYC dedicating part of its soon-to-be redesigned Web site to a homepage for the Bessies, scheduled to debut on March 15, as "a hub for the New York dance world, a place to share information on companies, shows and projects, as well as...detailed information on the Bessie Committee and ongoing developments related to the awards"
  • Seeking ways to extend the usefulness of the awards to the community and the award winners--for instance, pursuing commissioning grants to attach to certain awards, creating opportunities to show winning work at events targeting presenters, streaming awarded work on the Web site, and rebroadcasting the awards ceremony.

Sexton asked for our "patience and support" as work continues on making the Bessies process transparent and meaningful to the community. "There's no 'They' in this. It's us. It's important for all of us to keep talking to each other."

Streb noted, "The city is changing. The way dancers survive here is changing, as it always has. The scene is more decentralized than it has ever been and actually more vital--and more viral. So, the Bessies need to explore ways to better serve the changing landscape."


The committee for the 2010 awards includes:


Nolini Barretto
Rashida Bumbray
Lili Chopra
Joan Finkelstein
Boo Froebel
Stephen Greco
Ishmael Houston-Jones
Virginia Johnson
Brad Learmonth
Stanford Makishi
Brian McCormick
Nicky Paraiso
Brian Rogers
Philip Sandstrom
Yoko Shioya
Sydney Skybetter
Ivan Sygoda
Charmaine Warren
Susan Yung

A new Bessie Awards Steering Committee is in formation, currently including Michelle Burkhart, Martin Wechsler, Judy Hussie-Taylor, Andrea Sholler, Carla Peterson, Jennifer Goodale and Reggie Wilson.

An announcement of details about the Fall 2010 awards ceremony will be made on May 1.

For further information, contact Lucy Sexton at thebessies@gmail.com

A complete list of former Bessies recipients can be found at this link (pdf). And for information on DanceNYC, click here.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

2010 International Association of Blacks in Dance conference


at The Doubletree-Center City, Philadelphia, PA — January 14 -18, 2010

The 22nd Annual International Association of Blacks in Dance, co-hosted by PHILADANCO and University of the Arts, is a meeting of African American artists, educators, historians, videographers and students interested in dance of the Diaspora, and the future and success of this art form.It will include four full days of classes, lectures and workshops; dance market place; luncheons and receptions; liturgical showcases; and other events. The conference welcomes people from diverse backgrounds.

Nightly performances will feature over 30 dance groups, including Duke Ellington School for the Arts, Cleveland School for the Arts, Baltimore School for the Arts, William and Mary College, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Lula Washington, LA Creative Outlet, Camille Brown, Urban Bush Women and Ailey II.

Awards banquet, Saturday, January 16: Maurice Hines, keynote speaker; awardees: Mary Hinkson, Mary Barnett, Caroline Adams, and Delores Browne

Registration information and other conference details: Kim Bears Bailey at 215-387-8200