koosil-ja in modern times

Gia Kourlas's New York Times review offers a comprehensive overview of Blocks of Continuality/Body, Image, and Algorithm, the new work presented by koosil-ja/danceKUMIKO at Dance Theater Workshop. I agree with Kourlas's assessment that koosil-ja's execution of an ambitious technological concept fails to cohere and that what virtue Blocks has lies in the fresh, exacting performances of three live, human performers--Melissa Guerrero, Ava Heller and Elise Hudson.

I felt so overwhelmed by the copious, heavy program notes that I tried to go back to my old Tere O'Connor experiment: sit there without taking notes, let the whole thing wash over me, and see what happens. After all, no matter what an artist writes, no matter what she says, and no matter how hard she works a work, the work itself must work.

My resolve did not last long, and I did take out my notebook. I wanted to be sure to remember how Guerrero, in particular, cut clear to the bone of movement that usually is so lush and fraught with tradition and cultural meaning. I felt it was important that koosil-ja's visual projections of theatrical and cultural dance styles that are normally so rich were, by comparison with her live dancers, rendered flatter than flat. Her contemporary movers--cleverly modeling themselves after the movement and still imagery they watched on screens--turned dancing into as yet arcane hierogylphics. They were consistently fascinating and rewarding.

But Blocks of Continuality feels not only like a retread but several retreads run together--the geeky computerized command base set-up; the almost ritualistic "calibration" of equipment and NASA-like checking in and launching; the live movement determining what the techno-toys do, and vice versa. Oh, look! Avatars! Wow!

Why did this all seem so drawn out--really, really drawn out--with a less than impressive payoff? Why is it that dance, when it tries to reflect what's happening now, so often seems to be lagging a few crucial heartbeats behind?

And why, if you've got a guy hooked up to a monitor so that his meditation--or whatever--supposedly makes a big, contorted contraption tap a wall, do we end up merely hearing something that sounds like the occasional thump and reverberation of a staple gun? What's the radical point here?

Blocks of Continuality/Body, Image, and Algorithm continues tonight and tomorrow night at 7:30pm. For complete information and ticketing, visit Dance Theater Workshop.