Shemy's "2 kilos of sea"

UPDATE: Since the rain forced Shemy to cancel a few performances last week, she's adding two more this Wednesday--12:30pm and 5pm.

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The John Street United Methodist Church--a city landmark, nestled among lower Manhattan's financial-district towers--is the home of the country's oldest Methodist congregation, established in 1766. (The current building was erected in 1841.) Its people are proud of their history of service to the city--from the Revolutionary War to the Depression to 9/11. And now, its tiny outdoors courtyard is serving art, playing host to a Sitelines project that features Deganit Shemy and Company (continuing today through Thursday).

Israeli-born Shemy inserts her seven dancers into this confined, austere setting, turning it into a theater of sorts in which soft, human flesh conforms to (and messes with) rigid structure and takes on mechanical behavior. You become aware of the vulnerability of bare feet in a narrow patch of wood chips and on thin carpets of Astroturf. But the dancers, dressed in tacky polyester vintage-store clothing,  seem blasted beyond vulnerability--trapped in dissociated or pathologically elated states of mind.


Shemy--remember her Arena and its similarly driven, dissociated, often brutal women athletes?--has an endless well of invention of this sort of stuff. She puts it to use, once again, in this site-specific piece, 2 kilos of sea. Her dancers--the excellent Denisa Musilova, Savina Theodorou, Erika Eichelberger, Nicholas Bruder, Christina Robson, Leah Nelson and Michael Ingle--turn the courtyard into the most grotesque musical jewelry box or Swiss clock ever. Jim Dawson's soundscape gets under your skin.


Mysterious, fragmented, deeply weird and sometimes perplexing, 2 kilos of sea might send some Wall Street area workers back from lunch break with queasy stomachs.

Take your own chances, today through Thursday, at 12:30pm and 5pm; Thursday, only at 12:30. Free!

A co-presentation of the River to River Festival and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

Directions

Located at 44 John Street, John Street United Methodist Church is 1.5 blocks east of Broadway between Nassau and William Streets.

Subway: Broadway/Nassau (A & C lines) and Fulton Street (2, 3, 4, and 5 lines). John Street is one block south of Fulton Street.

Bus service: #15 to John Street, #6 to Fulton Street, or The Downtown Connection to South Street Seaport and Fulton Street