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Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Recommended: "Dancing Dreams"

Dancing Dreams (2009)

Documentary film by Anne Linsel (writing/direction) and Rainer Hoffman (director of photography)

89 min. German with English subtitles

(c)Ursula Kaufmann

I'm just catching up with Dancing Dreams--the most recent Anne Linsel film on choreographer Pina Bausch--which recently became available on DVD through First Run Features. In the wake of Bausch's sudden death in 2009, this film stands as a testament to her unique vision and an intriguing look at all that goes into making a Bausch piece work.

The documentary tracks the development of an unusual project that Bausch conceived in 2007. We watch the selection and training of forty Wuppertal teenagers with no previous training in dance to perform Bausch's 1978 work, Kontakthof (Contact Zone), a study of "tenderness and aggression" in human relations. Interestingly, something of the youngsters' natural adolescent awkwardness fits what's awkward (and also what's rambunctious) about Bausch's movement and scenarios, but that's not all to it. There's an incredible amount of work to be done--like trying to find within oneself and then convincingly release "a serious kind of laugh"--and you get a sense of how difficult it all is. Some of these youngsters agreed to join because they thought it might be a lark, a diversion to share with their mates. What they end up sharing is the challenge and opportunity of a lifetime.

To draw us closer, Linsel follows the struggles, hopes and determination of a few of the kids. We come to know a little about their lives and backgrounds and feel empathy. We hear, ultimately, that the project has boosted confidence and poise and improved school performance. Eventually, all grow into a "close community," as Bausch says, approving the exacting work of her two rehearsal directors--Tanztheater Wuppertal vets Jo-Ann Endicott and Bénédicte Billiet--who have brought these students so far in a relatively short time.

Dancing Dreams is an inspiring film for aspiring young dancers and, for all who will miss Bausch, a loving tribute.

Does this tutu make me look fat???

Dance Critic Thinks Ballerina Is Too Fat
by Margaret Hartmann, Jezebel.com, November 29, 2010

And don't miss Working Mother's profile of ballerina Jenifer Ringer here.

UPDATE: Downtown Dancer blogger Rachel Feinerman takes Macaulay to task over his Ringer comment. Read it here.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Art in a time of chaos

Review: Chaos & Classicism at the Guggenheim Museum
by Deborah Feller, DeborahFeller.com, November 28, 2010

Saturday, November 27, 2010

The dance of drawing

The Big Draw Flash Mob presents Breathe Time Draw In 
Tuesday, November 30, 7:00pm

Meets at the west end of Triangle Park
Thompson Street entrance (between Broome & Watts Streets), Manhattan
(map)


Left: Slick Photography by Ashley Woo; Right: Photo by Aehee Kang Asano.
This Tuesday, November 30 at 7pm, move through the streets of SoHo with The Drawing Center and The Rover, and explore drawing as gesture!
Traveling along a 4-block path, this dancer-led movement event invites participants to shadow dancers as they make their way through the streets. Drawing will be investigated through the embodied line, which will take the form of the path traveled, the lines formed by the body, and the metaphorical ‘line’ that connects the thoughts of those partaking in the movement. Connect, observe and explore your surroundings in a new way – no experience necessary!
Captained by Rani Welch/Tribe of Human, the event will begin with a cue from opera singer Abby Powell at the Thompson Street Entrance of Triangle Park. Participants will be led by three dance companies – Tribe of Human, Theo Boguszewski Dance, and Lane Gifford/Lane & Co. – who will trade off at three distinct points along the route. Each company will lead using movement motivated by one of three themes: site/sight line, negative space, and change of perspective. 
The event will end at 41 Wooster Street, for Sunday Brunch, a dance event hosted by The Rover at 8pm.

Dance NYC says "Go international!"

Do you create your own work or dance for someone else? Do you want to know more about international opportunities available to U.S. dance companies? 

Dance NYC's Town Hall Meeting: 
Internationale Tanzmesse
December 1, 2010
6:30-7:30pm
155 Mercer Street, Manhattan

The Internationale Tanzmesse NRW in Dusseldorf is a biennial marketplace and festival platform for communicating and networking in the field of contemporary dance. At Tanzmesse, dance companies and artists from all over the world present their work live on stage, and choreographers, dancers, agencies, presenters and cultural institutions worldwide network and co-operate in a lively marketplace.
Dance/USA sponsored a US delegation to attend this past August. Come hear from emerging artists and administrators who attended: 
Christy Bolingbroke (Mark Morris Dance Group) 
Brian Brooks (Brian Brooks Moving Company) 
Anna Amadei (Elsie Management) 
Christie Zummo (Jennifer Muller/The Works) 
After a brief presentation, small group discussions will further explore what these delegates learned and what similar opportunities could be available to you or your work in the future. 
Please RSVP at: http://tanzmesse.eventbrite.com/

You are what you remember

In Retrospect, created by Federico Restrepo and Denise Greber of LOCO7 Dance Puppet Theatre Company, riffles through the contents of an archetypal box of memories and reveries meant to elicit our own. The multidisciplinary puppet theater piece, concluding its run tomorrow afternoon at La MaMa, lasts less than an hour, just enough time to awaken the child within each of us.

It's a curious mingling of, on one hand, broad gestures and haunting delicacy. Just because my critical Adult Self responds far more readily to the latter doesn't mean that, as far as my Inner Child is concerned, they are not both effective, each in its distinct way. If you go tonight (8pm) or tomorrow (2:30pm), you'll likely discover elements that will appeal to you. For me, there are a few moments of simple beauty yet resonant feeling--Restrepo gently and gracefully whirling a skeletal puppet; Restrepo again, nestling against two giant puppet feet descended from the flies. The piece is dedicated to his late mother, recently lost.

Federico Restrepo dances with life-sized puppet. 
(photo: Lee Wexler)
The performance and production teams are headed by Restrepo (performance, choreography, puppets, set, video, lighting and construction) and Greber (costumes, video performance and voice overs) with fanciful music by Restrepo's longtime collaborator, Elizabeth Swados.

Information and ticketing

La MaMa (First Floor Theatre)
74 East 4th Street
between 2nd Avenue and Bowery, Manhattan

Thursday, November 25, 2010

"Elling" closing on Sunday

'Elling' to Close on Broadway
by Patrick Healy, The New York Times, November 25, 2010

This is regrettable. I enjoyed this show (see here), and the lead actors were particularly wonderful in it.

Happy Thanksgiving, folks!

Autumn gift
(c)2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

...and thank you so much for your warmth and support for my work. You make it all worthwhile!

Bright blessings,
Eva

Genesis Project residency welcomes applications

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:
Genesis Project, New York
Artist Residency Program
Genesis Project is a unique, month-long, artists' residency program catering to body-based artists who identify as working between disciplines and/or seek to integrate other disciplines into their performance practice through individual experimentation and open-source collaboration. We seek to diversify the range of skills present in the residency; therefore, the committee will also consider artists working in non-performance disciplines and professionals from art-related fields who want to incorporate performance into their practice. To enhance the residency experience and to promote ideological exchange and discourse, local artists from various fields will conduct workshops with the program participants and take part in a lecture series throughout the month.

Genesis Project is a program of Culture Push, a New York-based non-profit arts organization that focuses on collaboration and group learning through active, participatory experiences. The residency will be hosted by 319 Scholes; a studio and exhibition space in Bushwick, Brooklyn that supports the minds and needs of contemporary artists of various disciplines. Genesis Project is directed by Culture Push co-director, Arturo Vidich.
Application Deadline: Friday, January 14, 2011
Notification: Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Residency Timeframe: Monday, August 1, 2011 to Monday, August 29, 2011

For more information, please send a brief letter of inquiry to genesisproject@culturepush.org

Genesis Project
Culture Push

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

What makes a muse? [UPDATED]

THE JUILLIARD SCHOOL EVENING DIVISION
presents

WHAT MAKES A MUSE?

Ballet choreographers discuss who and what inspires them

Host: Henning Rübsam
with Robert Garland, Matthew Neenan and Luca Veggetti


UPDATE: Due to a death in her family, Jessica Lang will not be able to join the panel. Mr. Garland is a resident choreographer at Dance Theater of Harlem and a Juilliard alumnus.

Thursday, December 2
6pm-7:30pm
free admission

Event Room - First Floor
The Juilliard School
60 Lincoln Center Plaza (entrance 65th Street), Manhattan
Juilliard faculty member Henning Rübsam opens up his evening division class "TERPSICHORE: The Muse of Dance" to the public on Thursday, December 2 by inviting fellow choreographers to discuss the role of the muse in their creative lives.
Rübsam asks his fellow choreographers Robert Garland, Matthew Neenan and Luca Veggetti: "What makes a Muse?" 
Choreographer/dancer Henning Rübsam directs SENSEDANCE, a New York City-based dance company, presenting annual NYC seasons since 1992. Since he began to choreograph in 1984, Rübsam created over seventy works, staging and performing them in Australasia, Central and South America, Europe and the U.S. Most recently he and the company performed at the festival Fiesta Iberoamericana de las Artes at Teatro Tapia in San Juan, Puerto Rico, represented the U.S.A. at the Danza Nueva Festival in Lima and toured through Peru. A documentary film about the SENSEDANCE Peru tour by director Greg Vander Veer is forthcoming.
An advocate for his art form, Rübsam introduced dance and dance history to the evening division at Juilliard in 2006, gave a lecture on modern dance for the Young Patrons Program at Lincoln Center in 2009, was the first dance artist to speak at the annual international GEL conference in 2007 and is invited back to lecture in 2011. (www.gelconference.com)

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Silence and so much more

Begin Again - A Biography of John Cage - By Kenneth Silverman
reviewed by John Adams, The New York Times, November 19, 2010

Capoeira in Bushwick

Moses (Bronx) and Sasha (Parafina) McCarter of Capoeira Concepts are offering a series of six introductory capoeira classes at Chez Bushwick! The classes are held every Monday at 7pm, now through 12/27.

$10/class and $45 for the workshop (6 classes)
Learn the fundamentals of capoeira including ginga (basic swinging step), esquivas (ducks) and kicks. We will then move on to floor movements, sequences and working in pairs. Basic acrobatics, handstands and bridges will also be introduced. As music is an integral part of capoeira, we will be learning songs in Portuguese and getting familiar with the instruments, including berimbau (single stringed instrument), atabaque (drum), pandeiro (tambourine) and agogo (cow-bells). 
Classes will begin with a warm up followed by stretching, strengthening and conditioning exercices specific to capoeira. Next we will familiarize you with movements and terminology through repetition sequences and partner work. Classes will culminate with a roda, which is the circle in which the experience of capoeira is shared. This is where we take all that we have learned and put it into practice along with instruments, singing and clapping. It is recommended to wear comfortable clothing, preferably white and be prepare to train barefoot.
For more information and directions to Chez Bushwick, click here or contact bronxcapoeira@gmail.com.

Chez Bushwick
304 Boerum Street, #23, Brooklyn
718-418-4405

Monday, November 22, 2010

"LENNONYC" airs tonight on PBS

Don't forget the PBS premiere of LENNONYC, a wonderful documentary by Michael Epstein, airing tonight on PBS (check local listings). I reviewed the New York Film Festival presentation of LENNONYC back in September, and you can find that review here.

PBS interview with filmmaker Michael Epstein

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Recommended: "Elling"

Looking for something Broadway-and-fun for the holiday season? Let me recommend Elling, a winning comedy exploring the bond between two former mental patients unsteadily but creatively adjusting to life out in the world. It's based on novels by Norwegian author Ingvar Ambjornsen and the 2001 Oscar-nominated film by Petter Næss.


Directed by Doug HughesElling boasts a couple of the most engaging stage performances in memory, rendered with tremendous physical investment and verve and detail and, most of all, fun by Brendan Fraser (as Kjell Bjarne) and Denis O'Hare (as the title character). Jennifer Coolidge, Richard Easton and Jeremy Shamos contribute terrific ensemble turns.

They loved it in London, and they were not wrong!

Ethel Barrymore Theatre
243 West 47th Street (between Broadway and 8th Avenue)

Saturday, November 20, 2010

"Don't make me stop now..."

choreographer Julian Barnett
(photo: Corrine Furman)

Julian Barnett Project in Super Natural
(photo: Corrine Furman)


So, is it super? Or is it natural?

In Super Natural, now showing at Dance New Amsterdam, choreographer Julian Barnett works the argument that it's both, and you can see that even from the clever division in his title. The performing body, pushed to extremes, manifests both. The dancer transcends himself or herself, becoming all intermingled with others in altered states, energy transmission and potential telepathic communication. At least, that's what Barnett has had to say about it. His research for this evening-length world premiere included interviews with psychics, and I'm certainly sympathetic to his interests and conclusions. But has he brought us anything new or even wrapped it in a new package?

I ask about the package because much has been made of Barnett's choice to reorganize the focal point of his performance space and audience seating in a V-shape along two sides of DNA's theater. The audience initially peers into a far corner where composer Chris Powers will play his drums. That might be a little different at first--an intense focus on the musician and his gleaming instruments, which he has first gathered from various points around the space. But after dancers occupy the space and complicate the view, it's unclear whether the original diagonal viewpoint continues to have effect or meaning.

Far more viscerally effective is the way one or another dancer might zoom up close to the front row of watchers, and the way dancers slam into the floor, sometimes repeatedly, causing us to feel their impact under our bottoms. Good effects, but innovative? Both have been done before--deliberately or by chance.

Dancers Barnett, Phina Pipia, Justin Ternullo and Jocelyn Tobias appear to be on intense individual but sometimes parallel, sometimes overlapping journeys in communal space, their movements alternately convulsive and stretchy and with a sense of fleshy solidity that underscores risk and consequence, far from lighter than air. And yet, as in ballet, these heedless dancers seem to want out of the very bodies that make it possible for dancers to get high--in both senses of that word.

My first look at Barnett's spatial arrangement made me think back, just a week or so, to Tom Pearson's premiere of Walking in Two at DNA which, in turn, had made me think back a few seasons to a piece Miguel Gutierrez showed at Abrons Arts Center. Both, in a roughly equivalent way, messed with the usual way audiences sit and stare. And those are just two recent examples.

If you really want to give audience members a near-psychic experience of bodies in motion, what would you do? It seems to me that simply angling them in a different way doesn't quite get it. You might have to hang us upside down over the space--or something. Or pass out some drugs. I'm not trying to be snarky, but if you really intend to shake us up, come harder.

Similarly, Barnett's quest for a kind of spiritual crescendo--in movement, in consciousness--has numerous antecedents, from Sufi whirling to David Zambrano's Soul Project and far too many points in between to mention. Zambrano's dancers modeled their quirkily virtuosic solos after the energy of Black soul music, and I thought of that when Barnett brought on Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long."

I like Barnett and happened to read a few interviews that he gave to journalists before the opening of Super Natural. Finally seeing the piece made me wonder if the way an artist might feel the need to explain a new piece (and his or her process in developing it) could sometimes end up doing it a disservice. It should take nothing away from the accomplishment of its fierce performers to question whether Super Natural can stand on its own without all the distracting talk. 

Julian Barnett Project performs Super Natural tonight at 8pm and tomorrow at 3pm. 


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

Reports of ballet's death...

When the Critic Says an Art Form Is Dying
by Jennifer B. McDonald, The New York Times, November 19, 2010

Dance artists respond. Don't miss the fascinating reader comments.  Add your own!

New date for Bill T. Jones at NJPAC


UPDATE from NJPAC:
The following event has been rescheduled from December to February 19. Bill T. Jones has been selected as one of the recipients of the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors (The Kennedy Center Honors). He will receive his award with other luminaries, such as Oprah Winfrey and Sir Paul McCartney at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. The presentation will be televised nationally and President and Mrs. Obama will be in attendance. Tickets already purchased will be valid for the February 19th discussion. Patrons with questions should contact NJPAC Ticket Services at 1-888-GO-NJPAC  (466-5722).

New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), in downtown Newark, welcomes award-winning choreographer-director Bill T. Jones to its Alternate Routes "tell-all" discussion series Legacies and Legends.

Saturday, February 19, 7:30PM in The Chase Room (event description)
Legacies and Legends is a series of intimate conversations with artists, authors, scholars, entrepreneurs, filmmakers and others who have contributed to the cultural, educational, social, political and spiritual contexts and landscapes of society. All discussions are led by Baraka Sele, Producer/Curator of NJPAC’s Alternate Routes. In its inaugural season, the series hosted discussions with Susan L. Taylor and Judith Jamison.
For ticketing, directions to NJPAC and more information, call 1-888-GO-NJPAC (1-888-466-5722) or click here.

Remembering the edge


Edited by Dan Crowe; photos by Tom Craig
Published by Rizzoli (2010)

Armenia (c)Tom Craig
A collection of 14 first-hand accounts of life inside conflict zones where Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) provides emergency medical care. The book takes readers on a harrowing tour of countries in crisis, profiling people struggling to cope with war, disease, and lack of access to basic health care.

Sudan (c)Tom Craig

I'm grateful to 92nd Street Y and moderator Bob Woodruff (ABC News) for introducing us, last evening, to award-winning photographer Tom Craig in an event highlighting Writing on the Edge and the resourceful humanitarian work of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), work requiring ethical clarity, a pragmatic balancing act and tons of courage.


Assam (c)Tom Craig

Besides Craig, Writing on the Edge's contributors include director-producer Danny Boyle (Trainspotting; Slumdog Millionaire), novelists Martin Amis (The Rachel Papers; Money; Time's Arrow), Damon Galgut (The Good Doctor) and Joanne Harris (Chocolat), actor Daniel Day-Lewis and many other essayists.

Here are some excerpts about experiences in Burundi, Uzbekistan and Armenia.

For further information, click here.
To purchase, click here.

For information on Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières, click here.

Connect with the wide-ranging programs of 92nd Street Y here.

DANCE

Sign in a car near BAM
(c)2010, Gerry Gomez Pearlberg

Here's hoping that DANCE gave that driver some extra privileges!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

The impact of theater on American life

A short video on why/how/if theater matters in America...

Stage Matters
from Theatre Communications Group

The essential Marc Kirschner

TenduTV mainstreams and monetizes dance film
by Zachary Whittenburg, TimeOut Chicago, November 18-24, 2010

Dancing up Next for iPods
by Pia Catton, The Wall Street Journal, November 18, 2010

Check out this swan!

When Dancing on Pointe Isn't Hard Enough
by Stephanie Goodman, The New York Times, November 17, 2010

NBA win for Patti Smith

Patti Smith Wins National Book Award for Memoir
by Julie Bosman, The New York Times, November 17, 2010

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

The M6: voices in the night

Last night, Roulette--which will soon depart Soho for a new home in downtown Brooklyn--hosted a lovely concert of excerpts and short vocal works-in-progress by Meredith Monk, performed by The M6. This sextet--including Sasha Bogdanowitsch, Sidney Chen, Emily Eagen, Holly Nadal, Toby Newman and Peter Sciscioli--dedicates itself to the continuation of Monk's musical legacy.

In a companionable repertoire for a rainy city night, the singers evoked for me the flow of sound across open space; the coursing of time; the massing, receding of energies in nature; the traditions of deep-rooted communities; the passing on, from heart to heart and generation to generation, of old lullabys and love songs.

Some pieces I especially enjoyed: Three Heavens and Hells (1993)--inspired by a Zen-like poem by Tennessee Reed, Ishmael Reed's daughter, then just 11--tapped into my nervous system with its intriguing, rhythmic repetition. In the "Hocket" duet from Facing North (1990), Sciscioli and the astonishing Eagen rapidly traded deep, sharp sounds--as round and as delicious as gumdrops--in a process similar to Eskimo throat singing. I thought of the call and response of a pair of bonded sandhill cranes. Chen's performance of the solo "Boat Man" from Volcano Songs (1994)--revealed character and gusto within sound integrated with physical movement. 

All in all, a sometimes joyous, sometimes deeply soothing evening!

Love Meredith Monk? Check this out:

 
at Le Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street, Manhattan (directions)

Sunday, December 12 
Doors open 6:30PM; showtime 7:30pm

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Dance Italia set for August '11

a new, international summer dance intensive 
organized by choreographer Stefanie Nelson

Classes run from August 1-19, 2011, (Monday through Friday, 6 hours daily) in the magical city of Lucca, located on the Tuscan coast of Italy, and will be held at Fuorientro Spazio Danza e Teatro, (Via Nottolini, 43, 55100, Lucca, Italia www.fuoricentro.org). The studio is located just outside the majestic Renaissance-era wall surrounding the city center, near the train station (3 minute walk), which provides a convenient jumping off point for traveling throughout the region.

Dance Italia offers Italian language classes, guided tours, and the unique opportunity to access Italian culture while pursuing creative and artistic fulfillment. 
The program brings world-renowned, cutting-edge, contemporary choreographers and teachers to a select group of advanced level dance students in an intimate and professional environment.
2011 faculty includes Massamiliano Barachini, Julian Barnett, Shaked Dagan, Cristiano Fabbri, Bruce Michelson, Stefanie Nelson, and Richard Siegal.
If you know anyone who may be interested in an extraordinarily rewarding, cross-culturally minded, intensive dance experience mixed with la vita bella, please help me spread the word!
Thank you.
Stefanie Nelson
www.sndancegroup.org
snelson@sndancegroup.org
347-831-3384

Visa issues delay White Light fest

Lincoln Center Scrambles After Visa Problems
by Daniel J. Wakin, The New York Times, November 15, 2010

Wasserstein Prize protest works

A Do-Over for the Wasserstein Playwriting Prize
by Patrick Healy, The New York Times, November 15, 2010

Monday, November 15, 2010

Zena Rommett, 90

Zena Rommett, who has been credited with expanding and extending some of this century's great dancers and athletes, died Wednesday November 10 at 1:26 PM in New York City. The cause was recurring cancer. Ms. Rommett was 90.
Memorial services will be held on Sunday November 14 from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm at the Perazzo Funeral Home at 199 Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village between Sixth Avenue and McDougal Street.
Immigrating to New York from Italy in 1925 at age 5, Ms. Rommett went on to dance on Broadway in Billy Rose's "Seven Lively Arts" under Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin, for USO in Europe with the Radio City Ballet Corp. She also toured as with the Rutloff Trio worldwide.
After teaching Ballet at Robert Joffrey's American Ballet Center, Zena Rommett opened her own studio on 3rd Street and originated Floor-Barre®, training dancers lying flat on their backs on the floor, which replaces the wooden bar dancers hold onto at the beginning of each day's preparation. Her studio from the late '60's into mid '80s became an oasis of dance, attracting actors, athletes, skaters and dancers from ballet to Broadway. Zena Rommett began teaching herself at Steps on Broadway in the mid-80's until 3 months ago. More than a decade ago Zena Rommett initiated teaching training of her Floor-Barre® every August in NYC, projected to continue after her demise in order that the principles and copyrighted verbal instructions can be passed on with renewal, vitality and growth. A list of qualified and current Floor-Barre® teachers are on FLOOR-BARRE.ORG
Zena Rommett is survived by daughter Camille Rommett, sister Lilias, and grandsons Alex Young and Austin Young.
Zena Rommett Biography

On March 10, 1925, from Genoa, Italy, the ship S.S. Duilio set sail for America, Land of Dreams. On board was Maria Buttignol with children Valentino and Angelina (Zena). Zena was 5. Eleven days later, on March 21, they arrived at Ellis Island. Met by father Antonio, two years already in America, the family settled in Elmsford, New York. Zena’s father eventually owned his own brick factory.
Zena’s singular dream was to dance. She convinced her parents to let her take class in Manhattan. Zena’s innate grace, her ability in the intricate technique of ballet, as well  as  hard work enabled her to surpass her peers. For eight years she trained on full scholarship with Anatole Vilzak and Ludmilla Schollar of Ballets Russes, Elisabeth Anderson-Ivantzova of the Bolshoi, and with choreographer Chester Hale.
On December 7, 1944, Zena Rommett made her Broadway debut at the Ziegfeld Theater in the Billy Rose production of “Seven Lively Arts,” featuring Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin.  Zena went on to dance in “Song of Norway” choreographed by George Balanchine, and in “Paint Your Wagon” by Lerner and Loewe. Zena toured Austria, France and Germany with the United States Overseas (USO), the Rockettes Corps de Ballet and with the famed Ruloff Trio. 
In 1965, American dance legend Robert Joffrey invited Zena to teach ballet at his American Ballet Center.  Three years later Zena opened her own school on 3rd Street in Greenwich Village known as ‘Oasis of Dance’.  In her own domain Zena originated Floor-Barre®,  her revolutionary proto-technique.  By utilizing the floor, and without the stress of gravity associated with ‘standing’ at the ballet-barre, dancers learn to align their bodies, lengthen their muscles, strengthen their joints, and fine-tune their movements.  Floor-Barre® makes it possible for dancers to execute movements with the principles of alignment which are anatomically correct, and by using only the appropriate muscles.
Over the past 50 years, Zena Rommett has earned the respect of the medical profession as a pioneer in injury prevention and rehabilitation.  Floor-Barre® receives endorsements from prominent physicians specializing in the treatment of dance and sports injuries.  Her influence and her fame are global.  Her lifetime work has elevated the art form of dance to a science of movement.  Seeking to pass on her life-long passion and achievement to future generations, Ms. Rommett and her daughter Camille Rommett have been training and certifying dance instructors and physical therapists in Floor-Barre® since 1998.
Participants travel from all over the world to become certified, and return yearly to participate in the sharing and the deepening of their understanding of Floor-Barre®.  In addition to her regular classes in New York City for the past sixty years, and training Floor-Barre® teachers, Zena Rommett has been a guest teacher in schools and for companies throughout the United States, in Germany, Italy, Russia, and Asia.  Zena’s long lists of devotees include stars of Broadway, ballet, film and sports, and prominent professionals sports medicine and rehabilitation. 
Ms. Rommett has acquired a reputation as a “modest legend” among countless gifted performers whose performing careers have been extended or revived by floor-barre® by Zena Rommett. 
UPDATE: New York Times obituary

We need to talk...about space!

On premises
(c)2010, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Please join choreographer Gina Gibney and me on Monday, November 22, for a dance community discussion about rehearsal space needs and how the new Gibney Dance Center can be responsive and innovative.

Here are the details:

TIME TO TALK: Space Needs of NYC Dance Artists
by Gina Gibney, Gibney Dance, November 14, 2010

Gibney Dance Center
Monday, November 22, 6:30pm-8pm*
890 Broadway, Fifth Floor - Studio 1
*No building entry after 7 pm + no elevator service after 7:55 pm

Theater/dance fest seeks submissions

The Midtown International Theatre Festival (MITF) seeks submissions for its twelfth season, running from July 11-31, 2011.  The deadline for submissions is February 21, 2011.

The Festival accepts submissions in all genres--any sort of stage play, musical or otherwise, new or classic, mainstream or specifically focused on an ethnic or cultural niche.  To be eligible, each show must have a producer and production team attached to the project.   

For the first time, this year, the Festival will introduce a dance division.  In addition, the MITF will include a Short Subjects division.

Application forms for the Midtown International Theatre Festival are available online at www.midtownfestival.org.  All submissions must be postmarked by February 21, 2011 to guarantee consideration for the 2011 Festival.  Full details and further information about the MITF can be found at www.midtownfestival.org.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Last night of "Day"

So. I really don't have a taste for Josh Groban, but whenever I see an article about an artist who's changing directions, I like to take a look. You never know.

And so, this morning, I'm reading music critic Nate Chinen's Times piece on Groban, and I come across this quote from the singer's new producer, the genius Rick Rubin:
"The nature of Josh's instrument is formal," Mr. Rubin explained. "And so even if it was a song that meant a lot to him, when he sang it casually, it didn't sound believable."
And I said, Thank you, genius Rick Rubin. In those two sentences, you've summed up what I thought walking away from one of Danspace Project's last presentations of Day, the well-publicized breakthrough collaboration between dancer Jean Butler (best known for Irish step dancing and her choreography and starring role in Riverdance) and choreographer Tere O'Connor (whose stature in contemporary choreography is unquestionable). I respect and enjoy both of these artists and have particular fondness for Butler who was one of my dance writing students at DTW. But I have to disagree with previous writers who have found interest in Day since its premiere in May at the Dublin Dance Festival.

Like Groban--sorry to bring him up again; bear with me--Butler has a superbly refined instrument. Like another celebrity, Baryshnikov--her creative exploration has already been compared to his--she's eager to take a chance and stretch herself beyond past definitions and limitations. In Day, you can clearly see that she brings a determined work ethic. And this is a piece that certainly requires that, demanding rapid changes in physical force and expressiveness over an unbroken 40-minute stretch. There's a driven quality, lots of stressors, tiny moves, isolations, opposing directions, steps to keep track of and properly linked despite their weirdly disparate nature. What she gets right is--no surprise--a formal precision in all things even during awkward, strained or frenzied moments, of which there are many.

A virtuoso tears down her virtuosity in a way that requires her to be...a virtuoso. Day seems to me to be a shake-it-up, break-it-down strategy for Butler--a transitional work but not, in itself, a satisfying work from the point of view of at least this watcher.

James Baker's rich, alarming soundscape jumbles together things that don't belong together, don't hook up but, through his diabolical editing, share the same space and breathe the same air. It makes you feel the need for medication and fits Day to a T. Michael O'Connor (design) and Sylvia Grieser (costume) have gone for an austerity that might or might not have something to do with the dance itself--the white translucent curtains draped across St. Mark's Church's balconies, windows and entrance; lighting that sometimes seems capricious and disordered; the plain tunic of a bottle-ink blue that beckons memories of Catholic grammar school. It might be the vivid ink-like color that made me think of perfect penmanship (and its proponents, those nuns) and suspect that Butler was as good at it as I was, back in the day.

Her dancing in Day is exacting penmanship, very contained and self-conscious. Despite the forcefulness of her motions, her energy does not project beyond the lines of the choreography and, with neither comrades nor props for help, she does not inhabit what is a very roomy performance space resonant in dance history. What you really want from Butler's penmanship is some sense of the person crafting those individual letters, what any string of them might have to say and why they're urgent.

Let us wait and see what Butler can do. I believe she can reach for more than this.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Bob Herbert on "Restrepo"

Killing and Dying
by Bob Herbert, The New York Times, November 12, 2010

Topiary's "Landscape"

I wasn't sure where the evening was headed when C. Ryder Cooley sat high atop a platform, strumming a ukulele and singing, in a twee folkie's voice, an elegy to the spirit of a slain goat. (The head of a Pyrenean ibex lay under her platform.) And I wasn't totally sure when writer/video artist/performer Samuael Topiary, dressed to suggest the Renaissance Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel, climbed down a ladder situated at the rear of the audience rows and started picking out potential models. Something about that seemed a little ordinary, a little...done. But trust quickly kicked in because, with Topiary, it soon became clear that we were in the hands of a multi-talented artist who knows what she's doing and why she's doing it.

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, presented at Abrons Arts Center, is named for the Bruegel painting in which the mythic flyboy's disastrous splashdown is totally marginalized by the luminous environment dwarfing it. A consideration of this famous painting becomes Topiary's starting point for a deep, flowing meditation on the state of an America pitching towards 9/11 and economic turmoil.

In the course of guiding this Big Myth journey, Topiary assumes not only the role of Bruegel but also doomed high-flyers including explorer Henry Hudson, a bull she calls the Wall Street Minotaur, Amelia Earhart, David Rockefeller (who envisioned the World Trade Center) and, of course, Icarus, weaving connections among them that are both informed and intuitive. "It's pretty fucking meaty," as Miguel Gutierrez, Topiary's director, said during the post-performance Q&A, adding, "It's a show where you can really learn something." Indeed, and yet the learning comes through a fair amount of seduction. Most powerful in this regard are Jocelyn Davis's graceful, minimalist costumes, the eerie atmosphere created by Cooley's musicianship and Peter Kerlin's electronic soundscore and the gifted Topiary's vocal talents and physical authority.

Nothing's forced. It's as if Topiary is not only instructing us but excavating our memories and feelings with all the great care of a seasoned archeologist. No sudden moves. No aggressive jabs. Not right away, at least. Just steady work until, finally, something valuable emerges. Okay, now let's calmly, rationally examine it.

It's interesting to hear that she first conceived this work not terribly long after 9/11, when she was still in grad school and bore a skeptical attitude towards the imperial American overreaching that those two rather graceless buildings stood for. In the Breugel painting, she said, disaster is rendered as a fairly tiny detail in a larger context, whereas after 9/11, America had become obsessed with disaster and could not, would not, look at context.

"People got mad at me and thought I was blaming the victims." Not hard to imagine the flak she got. People were scared and pissed and having these human, understandable feelings worked up and manipulated to the max. Some of the "sacredness" associated with the site of the fallen towers--now complicating the building of an Islamic community center two blocks away--is as much about the supposed "sacredness" of the preeminent icon of corporate America as about reverence for a place where thousands of innocent people perished. With those two things--American power and American vulnerability--so firmly interlocked, will we ever be able to see clearly?

It's still not popular to bring this up, although Topiary's beautiful and intelligent Landscape probably reads differently to an audience of "downtown" artists and arts junkies like most of us and will (and should) be received well in its run at Abrons.

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, now through November 20, Thursdays-Saturdays at 8pm 


Abrons Arts Center
Henry Street Settlement
466 Grand Street, Manhattan

Friday, November 12, 2010

Dual identities, dual explorations


Mayuna Shimizu in Tom Pearson's Ceremony
(photo: Corrine Furman)

I was honored to be asked to moderate Dance New Amsterdam's post-show Q&A for choreographers Tom Pearson (Third Rail Projects) and Donna Ahmadi (Mantis Dance Theater) last evening. Listening to artists share their experiences, their concerns and their own questions draws us closer in empathy to the human being behind the phenomenon that we have just witnessed. Tom and Donna, as people of mixed ancestry (Euro- and Native American) seem so keenly tuned into the complexities of history, heritage, environment and contemporary context, that listening as they talk about their lives and work opens us up to a network of treasures beyond their immediate selves, stretching into the past and the possible future. The Third Rail Projects family of artists are not only collectors of quaint and quirky artifacts, as they assemble for their installation works, but also collectors and connoisseurs of the living spirit within places, things and people.

Choreographer Tom Pearson
(photo: Corrine Furman)


Now through Sunday, as part of its Heritage Series, DNA is presenting "Walking in Two." The show features Pearson's landmark solo, Ceremony (re-set on Third Rail's Mayuna Shimizu, who brings to the role her sensibilities as an immigrant from Japan); the world premiere of Ahmadi's powerful trio work, Scalp Lock; and the world premiere of Pearson's site-specific ensemble, Walking in Two, which messes with the showbiz roots of America's "cowboys and Indians" myth and delves into Pearson and Ahmadi's own roots as Native performers. DNA's galleries are hosting Pearson's visual art installation Kissing the Gunner's Daughter, part of which you may touch and explore. (Gallery admission is free, 9am-10pm, Monday-Sunday.)

Choreographer Donna Ahmadi (left)
with Rebekah Morin and Marissa Nielsen-Pincus
in Scalp Lock
(photo: Corrine Furman)
For more information and tickets for Walking in Two, click here.

Walking in Two
Dance New Amsterdam
280 Broadway, 2nd Floor, Manhattan (entrance on Chambers Street)

Also see this interesting exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, now through January 16, and look for the photo portraits of Pearson and Ahmadi!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Bill T. Jones tells all! (NEW DATE)

UPDATE from NJPAC:


The following event has been rescheduled from December to February 19. Bill T. Jones has been selected as one of the recipients of the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors (The Kennedy Center Honors). He will receive his award with other luminaries, such as Oprah Winfrey and Sir Paul McCartney at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. The presentation will be televised nationally and President and Mrs. Obama will be in attendance. Tickets already purchased will be valid for the February 19th discussion. Patrons with questions should contact NJPAC Ticket Services at 1-888-GO-NJPAC  (466-5722).
*****

New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), in downtown Newark, welcomes award-winning choreographer-director Bill T. Jones to its Alternate Routes "tell-all" discussion series Legacies and Legends.

Saturday, February 19, 7:30PM in The Chase Room (event description)
Legacies and Legends is a series of intimate conversations with artists, authors, scholars, entrepreneurs, filmmakers and others who have contributed to the cultural, educational, social, political and spiritual contexts and landscapes of society. All discussions are led by Baraka Sele, Producer/Curator of NJPAC’s Alternate Routes. In its inaugural season, the series hosted discussions with Susan L. Taylor and Judith Jamison.
For ticketing, directions to NJPAC and more information, call 1-888-GO-NJPAC (1-888-466-5722) or click here.

Puppet theater of the damned

If you've never seen Phantom Limb's brilliant, acerbic marionette show The Fortune Teller, HERE Arts Center is giving you through December 4 to find some place to slap this on your calendar.

Premiered in 2006 at HERE through its Dream Music Puppetry Program, this smartly-written, compact piece--about 50 minutes--recounts the tale of a fateful gathering of seven men who believe they might inherit money from a deceased millionaire, one Nathaniel Ax. Each of these men represent "a rogue's gallery of our city's finest lowlifes," says the narrating crocodile (wonderful urbane voice by Gavin Friday). As you might suspect, they're all in for the surprise of their lives.

Instead of a reading of the will, each of the attendees is subjected to a reading by a mysterious fortune teller who doesn't mince words. Each vignette offers a view into the life and character of one of the seven and a certain little forecast. A hunter, a miser, a snoop, a self-absorbed actor and more--all of these grotesque, creepy guys have it coming to them. Revenge is a dish best served by a persistent butterfly or a manic roasted chicken or...what? Okay, well, if you go, you'll see what I mean.

Creator/directors Erik Sanko (who also designed the outstanding marionettes) and Jessica Grindstaff lead a crackerjack team including puppeteers Honey Goodenough, Anne Posluszny, Ian Sweetman and Sabrina D'Angelo who, in short order, make some of the weirdest, least-lovable puppets come alive in convincingly off-putting ways. Sanko also teamed up with famed film/television composer Danny Elfman for the score--a suitably over-the-top mix of florid oompah-pah and chiming tickytock. Kudos, in particular, to Andy Green for his chillingly rich sound design. It's dreadful--and I mean that in a good way!

Phantom Limb's The Fortune Teller, now at HERE through December 4

HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Avenue, Manhattan
Entrance on Dominick Street (directions)

Schedule and ticketing

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

The poetry of photography

Highly recommended: A visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exquisite new photography exhibit--Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand. Open now through April 10.


Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Maybe not HERE

Soul Leaves Her Body, running now at HERE Arts Center, would benefit from relocation. No disrespect to HERE, but this piece--co-directed by Peter Flaherty and the dance artist Jennie MaryTai Liu, who also choreographed it--seems ready to bust its sheath. 

At 75 minutes, it's a biggish kind of multidisciplinary work which, unfortunately, often moves at a ponderous, earnest pace. But there are some very good big things about it, too--like set designer Peter Ksander's tall, adjoined glass panels that cleverly serve as video screens and create dramatic entranceways. Of the four live performers, including Liu, the work is best served by dancer Leslie Cuyjet's vivid, delicately-detailed performing and actress Wai Ching Ho's beautiful warmth. These two possess an assured subtlety and conviction that tug at one's attention.

The piece, inspired by a story from China's 13th Century Yuan Dynasty, overlaps and merges ancient and contemporary narratives in a way that is sometimes intriguing, sometimes drawn out and not quite fresh. The point of it all--which, according to press materials, is something about love and family and distance and digital communication--wanders about and gets lost at times. But its visual elements--especially the larger-than-life imagery of characters in period theatrical garb and makeup--are knockouts.

Soul Leaves Her Body feels not only stuffed into its space but, with the maneuvering of the glass panels or the deployment of the video, shoved into our laps and faces. I imagine it, instead, in a more generous setting where its virtues can perhaps be reconsidered and better appreciated.

Soul Leaves Her Body continues through November 23. Ticketing information and directions

HERE Arts Center
145 6th Avenue, Manhattan 
(entrance on Dominick Street, one block south of Spring)