Sonia Sanchez, first Philly poet laureate

Philadelphia selects Sonia Sanchez as its first poet laureate
by Jim Timpane, Philly.com, December 28, 2011

Roxane Butterfly's journey with tap

Internationally-acclaimed tapdancer Roxane Butterfly--whose name, unfortunately, is incorrectly spelled and rendered on the video and on the program's Web site--is interviewed on The Women's Connection® by host Barrie-Louise Switzen. She talks about career and self-management, family, language, practice and "the discipline of being relaxed."  There are a couple of nice dance demos, too, in the final ten minutes. You'll be tapping in no time!

Adrienne Cooper, expert on Yiddish music, 65

Adrienne Cooper, Expert on Yiddish Music, Is Dead
by Joseph Berger, The New York Times, December 28, 2011

The new Cunningham diaspora

Here's a lovely piece on the--yes, hopeful!--future of Merce Cunningham technique classes in New York!

New Points in Space
by Siobhan Burke, DanceMagazine.com

Helen Frankenthaler, 83

Helen Frankenthaler, Abstract Painter, Dies at 83
by Grace Glueck, The New York Times, December 27, 2011

Michelle Boulé in focus

I'm sharing a couple of very interesting items I received in the press kit for last week's Dance & Process program featuring, among other choreographers, Michelle Boulé at The Kitchen:

Michelle Boulé

by Samara Davis, BOMB, April, 2010

Performance in Process: Michelle Boulé

by Lauren Bakst, BOMB, December 21, 2011

A new spectrum of Black identity in film

‘Pariah’ Reveals Another Side of Being Black in the U.S.
by Nelson George, The New York Times, December 23, 2011

Boulé, Alexander and Lanz at The Kitchen

The Kitchen's current Dance and Process show, curated by Yasuko Yokoshi, features some impressively fluid moving by Lindsay Clark (in Michelle Boulé's duet of randomness and beauty, Hello, I need you); the absorbing, authoritative presence by Julie Alexander in her solo, From nothing real; and an ultimately gorgeous blend of the odd and the exacting in Martin Lanz's resonance... Each piece, in its own way, speaks to me of the value of an artist's eye, choice, commitment and rigor.

See the final performance tonight at 8pm. For complete information and ticketing, click here.

The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street (between 10th and 11th Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)

A.O. Scott reviews Wenders' "Pina"

‘Pina,’ a Documentary by Wim Wenders
by A. O. Scott, The New York Times, December 22, 2011

Swingin' New York

Swing Dance Clubs Go Retro in New York City
by Shira Dicker, The New York Times, December 22, 2011

Christopher Plummer: Beginner Oscar winner?

Christopher Plummer Gets Oscar Buzz
by Melena Ryzik, The New York Times, December 21, 2011

Renewed Dance Theater of Harlem to audition dancers

Dance Theater of Harlem to Start Auditions for Revived Troupe
by Daniel J. Wakin, The New York Times, December 21, 2011

Happy Winter Solstice!

Here comes the sun, and I say 

It's all right...

Still looking for your Dance Person of the Year!

You’ve heard of Time’s PERSON OF THE YEAR. Now, who is your DANCE PERSON OF THE YEAR? (from any role related to the art of dance–performer, choreographer, teacher, AD, etc.)

Use the Comment feature to post your choice here, including:

• the person’s name/title/affiliation
• your (very brief, please) comment about him or her
• your name--or “anonymous,” if you choose

I expect to be getting some replies from Facebook, Google+ and maybe Twitter, too. I'll compile the most interesting of all of these for a special post at year's end!

Have fun!

Dan Fishback's got what you need

BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange

presents

Needing It: Performance in the Queer Community Tradition

a workshop with Dan Fishback

Tuesdays, February 28-April 10 (7pm-9pm)
FREE - participants must apply by January 3
Note: no class on March 20, additional class on Wednesday March 14 

Students will develop solo performances based on their personal obsessions and political impulses, all the while exploring the recent history of queer performance in New York City. Performance artist and instructor Dan Fishback will work closely with students to move beyond conventional notions of "self-expression" and "autobiography" to something more primal and satisfying.

Using traditional queer performance as a reference point, students will be encouraged to find new artistic language to stage their most vital urges. This seven-session class will be followed by a public live performance at BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange on Saturday, April 14, where each student will present finished work.

Learn more here.

Eligibility:

Students of all ages, races, genders and sizes are encouraged to apply. Unfortunately, BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, which is on the 2nd and 3rd floors of its building, lacks an elevator and cannot accommodate students with mobility issues. Students must be prepared to work on assignments outside of class. All students MUST attend every session AND the public performance on April 14. Students do not have to identify as queer, as long as they identify as being part of a queer community.

Application Instructions:

Please write a letter to the instructor, Dan Fishback. Explain why you want to take this class, and give a brief history of your artistic pursuits. (You will not be judged by the quantity or stature of your achievements.) If you do not identify as queer, please explain how you relate to queer community or queer performance tradition. Include your name, email address and phone number.

Please write or paste your letter into the body of an email, and send that email baxfishbackclass@gmail.com with the subject heading "APPLICATION FOR DAN FISHBACK CLASS."

BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange
421 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn
(map/directions)

Playing favorites...of 2011

So, my dear readers, here's my end-of-year list of cultural high points, fond memories and mad, mad crushes, completely personal and subjective, and sort of in chronological order...

@Carlos Saura, director, Flamenco, Flamenco (Dance on Camera Festival); all performers; cinematography/lighting

@American Realness festival--Ben Pryor. Including reprise of luciana achugar's PURO DESEO (with lighting by Madeline Best) at Abrons Arts Center

@John Scott for Action at La MaMa; dancers Philip Connaughton and Michael Snipe Jr.

@Eunhee Lee for her performance in Oops!, her duet with Marcos Duran at Dance New Amsterdam

@Patti Smith (with Lenny Kaye and Sam Shepard) at 92Y

@Ursula Eagly (concept/choreography) and Jesse Harold (visual art) for Group Dynamics and Visual Sensitivity at Danspace Project

@Charles L. Mee, Dan Safer, Witness Relocation and ildi ! eldi for Heaven on Earth at La MaMa

@Verdensteatret for And All the Questionmarks Started to Sing at Dance Theater Workshop

@Cauleen Smith's Carousel Microcinema: GLOSSOLALIA 5.0 at The Kitchen

@The New Black Fest American Slavery Project--reading of Judy Tate's Fast Blood at Cap21. All performers

@Ntozake Shange and Marc Bamuthi Joseph in conversation at 651 Arts' Live & Outspoken at the Mark Morris Center

@Kathy Westwater performing in K. J. Holmes's This is where we are (or take arms against a sea of troubles) at The Chocolate Factory

@David Parker, curator and Michelle Dorrance and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, choreographers and performers at Danspace Project, part of Platform 2011--Body Madness. Performances by Cartier Williams, Caleb Teicher, Ryan P. Casey and Elena Steponaitis

@Yetta Yarushelmy in Doug Varone's Chapters from A Broken Novel at The Joyce Theater

@Trisha Brown Dance Company in Foray Forêt at Dance Theater Workshop (company's debut at DTW); performance by Elena Demyanenko

@John Scott, choreographer, Irish Modern Dance Theatre at La MaMa for Fall and Recover with performances by Francis Acilu, Julie Chi, Philip Connaughton, Aisling Doyle, Faranak Mehdi Golhini, Solomon Ijigade, Sebastiao Mpembele Kamalandua, Kiribu, Patience Namehe, Nina, Elizabeth Su, Haile Tkabo and Mufutau Kehinde Yusuf (Junior). With original music composed and performed live by Rossa O'Snodaigh

@Kumu Kawika Keikiali'i Alfiche's Halau o Keikiali'i for The Sacred Hula: Ka Wa Hula -- Hula Through Time at Symphony Space

@Eiko and Koma for Naked at Baryshnikov Arts Center

@Madeline Best (performance), Shaun Irons and Lauren Petty (video) and Brian Rogers (sound) for the horror the horror (I have plenty of energy to drive over there) at Abrons Arts Center

@Chase Granoff with Katherine Profeta, Maria Bauman, Faye Driscoll, Walter Dundervill, Jack Ferver and Andre Lepecki for Lobby TALKS at Dance Theater Workshop/NY Live Arts (discussion on narrative in dance)

@Alexis Rockman: A Fable for Tomorrow exhibit at Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington DC

@Belarus Free Theatre for Zone of Silence at La MaMa; entire cast, special mention: Pavel Gorodnitski

@A Prayer for Japan at La MaMa; featuring International Shinto Foundation (Rev. Masafumi Makanishi and Ms. Reina Hayashibara), Matou (Ataahua Papa, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Charley Buckland and Donna Kelly), Toko Emi, Kinding Sindaw, Vicky Holt Takamine and Pua Ali'i 'llima (Marina Celander, Erika Comrie, Veronique Lozano, Anne Matematico, Kiku Sakai and Yvette Wynn), The Silver Cloud Singers

@Ursula Eagly in Iskra Sukarova's It at Performance Mix Festival at Dixon Place

@Suzanne Bocanegra for When A Priest Marries A Witch at The Chocolate Factory; performance by Paul Lazar

@Muna Tseng for Stella at Danspace Project; special mention: David Thomson

@Susan Rethorst for Beau Regard (1989) during Susan Rethorst: Retro(intro)spective at Danspace Project; curation: Melinda Ring; Carol Mullins, lighting; performances by Vicky Shick, Naomi Fall, Rebecca Brooks, Irene Hultman Monti and Jodi Melnick

@Sean Kelly Gallery for Robert Mapplethorpe: 50 Americans

@Pavel Zuštiak + Palissimo Company for The Painted Bird: Amidst at Baryshnikov Arts Center; including performances by Pavel Zuštiak, Lindsey Dietz Marchant and Nicholas Bruder

@Coby Koehl (singer) at Dixon Place HOT! Festival 2011

@Maria Bauman/MBDance, Ephrat "Bounce" Asherie, Jen Abrams, Diana Y Greiner and Lauren M Feldman at Dixon Place HOT! Festival 2011

@Pamela Sneed for America Ain't Ready at Dixon Place HOT! Festival 2011

@Ruth Gruber, Photojournalist exhibit at International Center for Photography

@Metropolitan Museum of Art for the inaugural Members Grand Tour, September 15, 2011

@Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in Body Against Body programs at New York Live Arts, September 16-25

@Occupy--the brilliant performative embodiment of ideas, outrage and conscience at encampments and in minds worldwide and probably somewhere near you, September 17 and ongoing  

@Music according to Tom Jobim by Nelson Pereira Dos Santos, NY Film Festival, New York premiere, October, 2011

@Dancer Crush--curated by Carla Peterson and Annie-B Parson at New York Live Arts, October 5-8, 2011

@A Dangerous Method--directed by David Cronenberg, NY Film Festival, NY premiere, October, 2011

@Ordinary Witnesses and World Fair by L'A./Rachid Ouramdane at New York Live Arts, October 11-15

@The Bessie Awards at The Apollo, October 24. Kudos to Lucy Sexton, Lane Harwell (Dance/NYC), Mikki Shepard (The Apollo Theater) and the entire Bessies team.

@David Margolick's Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock (Yale University Press, 2011)

@Maria Hassabi and Hristoula Harakas in SHOW at The Kitchen, November 2011

@Kendall Cornell and her Clowns Ex Machina troupe at La Mama, November 2011 in Clowns Full-Tilt: A Musing on Aesthetics. Lighting by Carla T Bosnjak

@Chase Granoff, intuition is preceding over my understanding at The Chocolate Factory, November 2011. Poetry by Thom Donovan

@HIDE/SEEK at Brooklyn Museum, opened November 2011

@Jonah Bokaer and Irit Batsry for Sequel at CPR, December 7-10 (choreography & direction by Bokaer; visual design & installation by Batsry)

@Tere O'Connor for Cover Boy, at Danspace Project, with dancers Michael Ingle, Niall Jones, Paul Monaghan and Matthew Rogers. Composer James Baker. Lighting Designer Michael O'Connor. Set Designer: Aptum Architecture (Roger Hubeli and Julie Larsen). Costumes: FACADE/FASAD

@Merce Cunningham Dance Company at BAM Next Wave Festival, The Legacy Tour, December

@Robert Battle and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Winter Season at City Center. Rennie Harris for Home; Ohad Naharin for Minus 16

@The renovated City Center

@Elizabeth Streb and STREB EXTREME ACTION "action engineers" and collaborators for STREB: Kiss the Air! at the Park Avenue Armory

@Christopher Plummer and Ewan McGregor in Beginners, ending the list only because I recently got it from Netflix!

Wishing a grand New Year to all the artists and cultural workers who give of their best every year!

AND NOW, A FEW WORDS FROM SOME OF YOU!

Recently, I playfully requested your nominations for DANCE PERSON OF THE YEAR. I got a handful of replies--all of them on Facebook--and I'll just paste them in here. If you'd like, you can certainly add to this by posting a comment or two.

My choice is Lindsey Dietz Marchant. She's been sorely overlooked by the community despite more than a decade of significant, consistent, excellent contribution, and this year saw no shortage of her brilliance on many stages in many works by numerous choreographers. This is a great idea Eva. Thanks for putting it out there. ;-) [Alberto Denis]

Not to mention her own choreography as well. ;-) [Alberto Denis]

In the spirit of occupy I vote for all in the field of dance, who keep the art form alive in any form possible wherever and however. No judgement calls on aesthetic , on who is who, no to who is your favorite, but just honor all who love dance and keep dancing against all odds, keep presenting dance, keep teaching dance and about dance, keep funding dance. I vote for all of us who in whatever form possible stick with it. As Merce Cunningham said so beautiful:" you have to love dancing to stick with it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on your walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be oriented and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive. It is not for unsteady souls." so to all those who stick with it in one form or the other. Peace. [Gabri Christa] 

Lucy Sexton for having the patience and tenacity to bring back the Bessies.
[Anna Glass]

Elizabeth Streb [Barbara Levy]

I have two - Baraka de Soleil for always thinking in art mode and creating something and working hard to get it done!and my dance mentor Luigi, who still teaches at 86! [Alexis Marnel]

Good QUESTION!!! Gotta think about that. For me out here "at the quiet limit of the world," it was Pina Bausch; I'd never seen "Danzon" before, and though it's 15 years old, it was new to me; I was ravished. Sun moon stars rain. [Paul Parish]

And that's a pretty good way to end the year:

Sun moon stars rain.

STREB ascending

If STREB Extreme Action could hold onto the Park Avenue Armory indefinitely, the troupe's new show could easily keep running for years on the strength of New York's tourist trade alone. Oh, yes. STREB: Kiss the Air! is that kind of show and a world-class triumph for the mad genius (MacArthur-certified) Elizabeth Streb ("action architect and choreographer," according to her current self-labeling), her company of "action engineers" (not just dancers, thank you) and a regiment of technical and artistic collaborators. Forget Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and whatever Julie Taymor thought she was doing.  STREB: Kiss the Air! happens to be the real thing.

The visionary Elizabeth Streb steps up to the challenge of the Armory's enormous drill hall, filling it, from one end to the other, with lighting, huge video projections (including live videocam footage), massive scaffolding and equipment, a large, shallow pool of water, big sound and the formidable energy of her tribe of action heroes. She has developed and shown various components of STREB: Kiss the Air! over time, clearly honing and enhancing the choreography and risk-taking until it all stands before us like a mainstream-friendly hybrid of nouveau cirque, movie stunt work and the Olympics cranked up, like that Spinal Tap amp, to 11.

STREB DJ/MC Zaire Baptiste, wearing a row of lights up each leg of his pants, gets the action rolling by instructing us to disregard the standard theater announcement we just heard. "We want you to take out your cellphones, your iPhones! Take photos! Take videos! Upload them to Facebook...!"

How refreshing!

And for the audience--heavy on families with small kids--STREB: Kiss the Air! is refreshing indeed. The souped-up hybridization of everything Americans love--from extreme sports to action hero animations on big screen TVs--works because the discipline and skill necessary to pull it off are so much in evidence. Which makes me wonder if the reason most folks aren't drawn to just-plain-dance is because the actual skill and discipline it takes are not as nakedly obvious unless--as with certain big ballet companies or the Ailey troupe, for instance--it absolutely is. Dance, possibly, might not seem sufficiently hardcore. STREB? Now that's hardcore.

Hardcore and entertaining, not at all averse to showing its audience a good time, even if a good time means sitting there with your heart in your mouth because, at any moment, something could go wrong and someone could get seriously hurt. Elizabeth Streb herself might have started off in the rarified, purist territory of early post-modern experimentation, but today's STREB machine is built for people who love race cars, high-speed car chase scenes and Philippe Petit. It's built for the masses.

The 70-minute, multi-sectioned Armory program opens with harnessed performers, one after another, zooming over the heads of the audience and smacking into big square pads. They move on to Swing, in which bodies hurl--one at a time or in duets or trios--at and swing by two huge hoops dangling from metal scaffolding. Their movements on and around the swings grow more elaborate, their attack more daring, their cries, on impact and landing, more bloodcurdling. And if you somehow forget that these "action engineers" are, in Streb's mind, not just dancers but athletes--or military on maneuvers, even--they get an official break for re-hydration before moving on to a "pop action" drill lead by Associate Artistic Director Fabio Tavares Da Silva. As for that drill, think of it as an edgy kind of aerobics or yoga for action heroes, if repeatedly falling flat on your back were a kind of yoga.

In the daredevil world of STREB, weight and gravity are your frenemies. They make everything at once frustrating, thrilling and terrifying. Hence, the excitement of pulling or dropping away from bungee cords, slamming into mats or into one another, fine-tuning the velocity of a revolving metal ladder, and standing just millimeters away from the end of that ladder as it spins. For the audience, seated along either side of the long expanse of the Armory's drill hall, being close to all this action is a constant source of tension and rush.

Towards the latter part of the show, it can also be a frequent source of hydration--and I don't mean hydration of the healthful kind. Audience members in the mid-range of the hall are (imperfectly) shielded by Plexiglas and rain ponchos for good reason. All the belly flops and backflips in the pool kick up quite a lot of water, and a fair amount of it clears those Plexiglas walls. Hilarious fun to watch from a distance!

Not as much fun to watch at a distance--but still lovely, in its way--is Streb's Human Fountain section where the performers repeatedly climb up and leap from three levels of scaffolding to mats below in rhythmic patterns. This scaffolding is set up at the far end of the space. So if you happen to be closer to the hall's entrance, as my wife and I were, the action looks and feels remote--almost as if you were seated towards the back of a big, conventional theater. That's the only downside to the way Streb has arranged and utilized this great gift of space.

There is absolutely no downside to Elizabeth Streb's courageous Action Engineers: Sarah Callan, Jackie Carlson, Leonardo Giron Torres, Felix Hess, Samantha Jakus, Cassandra Joseph, John Kasten, Daniel Rysak, and Fabio Tavares Da Silva, with additional performers Tyler Ashley, Uys Du Buisson, Jessica Kreuger, CaCa Macedo, Mercedes Searer, McCurry Sherman, Ashley Caroline Walters.

Original music and sound design by David Van Tieghem
Lighting design by Robert Wierzel
Costume design by Andrea Lauer
Projection design by Erik Pearson
Set and installation design by Elizabeth Streb and Hudson Scenic

STREB: Kiss the Air! continues through Thursday, December 22. For complete schedule and ticketing, click here.

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue (between 66th and 67th Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Vaclav Havel, 75 [UPDATE]

Vaclav Havel, Dissident Playwright Who Led Czechoslovakia, Dead at 75
by The Associated Press, December 18, 2011

UPDATE:

Czechs’ Dissident Conscience, Turned President
by Dan Bilefsky and Jane Perlez, The New York Times, December 18, 2011

Cesaria Évora, 70 [UPDATE]

La chanteuse Cesaria Evora est morte
LeMonde.fr, December 17, 2011

Legendary singer Cesaria Evora dies aged 70
France24.com, December 17, 2011

Cesaria Évora: At Home on the Road
(interview, music, links) 
NPR Music, June 28, 2007

UPDATE:

New York Times obituary from The Associated Press--Cesaria Evora, Cape Verdean Singer, Dies at 70

Not your typical song and dance...

NEW YORK FESTIVAL OF SONG (NYFOS)

& the Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts

present

 INVITATION TO THE DANCE

Wednesday, January 18, 8pm

Peter Jay Sharp Theater at The Juilliard School

Juilliard singers perform songs about dancing (Brahms, James Sellars, Sondheim) and songs with dancing (Gershwin, Berlin, Carlos Gardel, and others)!

STEVEN BLIER, piano & arrangements

JEANNE SLATER, choreography
MICHAEL BARRETT, piano
ANDREW STENVALL, percussion

Featuring nine Juilliard singers:

sopranos Simone Easthope and Karen Vuong

mezzo-sopranos Elizabeth Sutphen and Rachael Wilson

tenors Kyle Bielfield, Nathan Haller, Miles Mykkanen

baritone Tobias Greenhalgh; bass-baritone Leo Radosavljevic

“These young people are classic triple threat entertainers—singers, dancers, and actors of startling individuality.” -- Steven Blier

Tickets: FREE by reservation

Call 212-769-7406 after January 4 to reserve your place.

For more information, click here.

Directions to Juilliard

DANCE PERSON OF THE YEAR?

You’ve heard of Time’s PERSON OF THE YEAR. Now, who is your DANCE PERSON OF THE YEAR? (from any role related to the art of dance–performer, choreographer, teacher, AD, etc.)

Use the Comment feature to post your choice here, including:

• the person’s name/title/affiliation
• your (very brief, please) comment about him or her
• your name--or “anonymous,” if you choose

I expect to be getting some replies from Facebook, Google+ and maybe Twitter, too. I'll compile the most interesting of all of these for a special post at year's end!

Have fun!

What's hurting arts education?

The Three Horsemen of Arts Education
Nick Rabkin, The Huffington Post, December 15, 2011

MELT...with you

A sampler of the many imaginative workshops

from Movement Research's MELT Winter 2012 

(January 2-20)

Chris Aiken
An Eco-poetic Approach to Dance Improvisation and Performance

In this movement workshop we will explore awareness and intention through the development of perceptual acuity in relationship to our inner and outer landscapes. We will examine the delicate relationships between our poetic imagination and our sensory systems. The basis of my approach is that composition and performance are ecologically rooted acts. Our imagination grows from where and how we exist. Movement, story, image and gesture are imbedded in the relationships that are evolving all around us.  Come ready to dance, perceive, perform and imagine.

Keith Hennessy
Improvisation as Potential Shamanism     SOLD OUT/WAIT LIST OPEN

Five days of contemplative embodiment, intensive breathwork, fake healing, endurance shaking, post-contact, disco and séance, all in the attempt to invigorate improvisation practice for dancers, choreographers, and performance makers. Shamanism, in a general usage, refers to the ritual/spiritual practices of working with forces and energies, unseen and poetic, of transforming space and time to shift meaning and perspective, of communicating with the dead or not-human. Contemporary improvisation and performance practices often engages the same intentions. Let's dance in the borderlands of anti-systemic knowledge, magic, real and fiction, contagion and exchange, and various states of presence. Dance class is a ritual, potentially.

DD Dorvillier
Touch Move Talk Write: open studio practices

This workshop focuses on generating new practices through touching, moving, talking, and writing. We will shape each practice with simple rules and apply different sequences and durations, giving equal time to all four aspects. By pushing the notion of practice to extremes, one begins to understand assumptions about style, body, self, technique, unspoken rules, expertise, etc. etc... The aim is to proliferate unexpected results, to try many things quickly, and to foment revolution. Please don't come without a notebook and a pen.

Miguel Gutierrez
INEFFABLE INTANGIBLE SENSATIONAL

This workshop looks at some of the ways in which Miguel Gutierrez approaches a practice of movement and improvisation in his work. Working from the proposition that dance is a mode of perceptual inquiry, and working against the idea of dance as a non-verbal "language," students will be led through a series of movement explorations that prioritize sensation, non-rational action, and that trigger automatic, unprepared physical response. Some of the questions that guide this workshop are: What does movement "do" and how does it operate as a framework for complicated, nuanced, embodied meaning?

For full program, schedule and registration details about these and other MELT Winter workshops, click here.

Wilde kisses!

To Oscar (c)2010, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Oscar Wilde’s Tomb Sealed From Admirers’ Kisses
by John Tagliabue, The New York Times, December 15, 2011

All that jazz...and pensions, too

Jazz Musicians Campaign for Pensions
by James C. McKinley, Jr., The New York Times, December 12, 2011

Asuka!

So, tell me, how does this sound?

• live music by Arturo O’Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra...
• a dance homage to salsa legend Celia Cruz...
• and more dances to the music of the Buena Vista Social Club and Tito Puente

Ballet Hispanico 

at The Apollo Theater

December 17 (2pm and 8pm)

Catch the world premiere of Asuka, Eduardo Vilaro's first work for Ballet Hispanico since becoming Artistic Director.

Get all the details--and tickets, too--right here.

Talking with Jones on "Fela!" and theater

The Sunday Conversation: With Bill T. Jones
by Irene Lacher, Los Angeles Times, December 11, 2011

Listening in Africa

The Art of Listening
by Henning Mankell, The New York Times, December 10, 2011

Moving images

Breath Made Visible (2009)
directed by Reudi Gerber
Argot Pictures
English; 80 min.

Anna Halprin

"My greatest love is dancing in the natural world. The birds dance and the clouds dance. Everything is in motion all the time," says Anna Halprin--movement shaman, the subject of this affecting portrait and chronicle by filmmaker Reudi Gerber.

Through vintage and more recent footage of performances and workshops as well as interviews with Halprin, her colleagues, her late husband, the landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, and daughter, the dancer and psychologist Daria Halprin, Gerber traces the arc of a life that remains, in this woman's ninth decade, open to the deep currents of the natural world, of society, of relationship and of the body.

Halprin's early-career decision to leave New York for California--to join Lawrence--removed her from the center of the dance world but presented intriguingly different environmental and social realties and rhythms to explore. Much later, a cancer diagnosis brought Halprin to another critical decision--to turn away from choreography and performance for the public and refocus her efforts on dance as a powerful modality for personal and societal healing.

Gerber has an eye for stunning imagery, a sensitivity for human feelings, and an awareness of the mythic quality of Halprin's narrative. He gives us a sweetly humble yet heroic woman whose concern for people and loving engagement with life are instructive and inspiring. Breath Made Visible brought me to tears.

Purchase Breath Made Visible here.

Find a theater screening of Breath Made Visible here.

*****

Lovers of dance film, hang on. Next year, shockingly, is not that far off! The 40th Annual Dance on Camera Festival will open at Lincoln Center, January 27-31, celebrating "the immediacy, energy, and mystery of dance combined with the intimacy of film."

Look for director Ron Honsa's Never Stand Still--a grand, kaleidoscopic exploration of the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, down through the ages and up to the minute, narrated by Bill T. Jones and featuring...well, featuring just about everyone and every kind of dance you can imagine. It's a beauty. (2011. 74 min.)

If you've already enjoyed Check Your Body At The Door, producer Sally Sommer's fantastic documentary about underground house dancing, you might want to follow up with director Ina Sotirova's freedom2dance. Going to Dance on Camera Festival? See both on the same night--January 31. Far more conventional in structure than GYBATD, Sotirova's documentary puts the struggle around New York's nightlife culture and social dancing into historical and political context. (Yes, I'm looking at you, Rudolph Giuliani!) Check out the Facebook page for freedom2dance. (2011. 20 min.)

Mis Caminos a Través de la Danza (My Paths Through Dance), written, directed and produced by Daniel G. Cabrero, tells the story of a young Spanish girl's early training in classical ballet in 1920s Paris and the fortuitous diversion of her career from ballet towards the Bolero and diverse regional dances of her homeland. Influenced by the legendary Antonia Mercé "La Argentina," the youngster grew up to become Mariemma (1917-2008), performer, choreographer uncompromising educator and ensemble director of international renown. She was a dancer of great verve and warmth, dedicated to a dramatic, sculptural clarity of movement.

This film marks Cabrero's full-length feature debut, and he has a charming story to tell and a treasure trove of documentation--vintage photos, footage and prints--as well as contemporary interviews with colleagues, students and dance critics. Instead of injecting cutesy (and cringe-worthy) animated elements into the story's flow, Cabrero would have done well to place more trust in his wonderful historical materials. They are more than enough. If you can overlook these occasional lapses in taste, and the often awkward, sloppy English subtitles, there's a lot to learn and to enjoy. (2010. 90 min.)

For full information on the program and schedule of the 40th Annual Dance on Camera Festival, visit these links:

Dance Films Association

Film Society of Lincoln Center

Tendu TV's Dance on Camera channel on Hulu

Zahava on intimacy and improvisation

Zahava of Love Making Dances invites you to a special workshop in dance:

The Tantra of Contact Improv

Wednesday, December 14 (7-9pm)

Bring a beloved, friend, or hey an adventurous blind date!

Come learn techniques for conscious energy sharing.  Experience gravity as an intimacy with the Mother Earth as we root to fly and surrender to fall.  This contact improv class is the physical practice of trust, strength, and play as we linger and pounce in the mystery of desire, comfort, and connection.

This is a fully clothed class for women and men who do not have a physical injury.   Bring knee pads and an open mind.  Previous contact improv is recommended but not required if you have another movement practice.

Benefits:
1. More play in your relationship
2. Enhanced creativity
3. Heightened sensitivity to giving and receiving support
4. Expanded sense of intimacy

Admission: $25
Register here.

Red Bean Studio
320 West 37th Street, 7th Fl. (between 8th and 9th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

For more information on Zahava and her work, click here.

Seeing with Cunningham

"What is there to add?"

A writer colleague voiced this concern last night as we waited for the third program of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company's Legacy Tour at BAM.

Indeed. What to add about a durable dance institution only a year younger than I am, whose influence recharged dance-making in the modern age, whose generations of artists and students form a large part of the nervous system of contemporary and future dance, a company that, in a few weeks, will be no more?

What to add when so many words have been said and written over the years and, even more so, since the death in 2009 of its beloved founder?

I stayed for two of last nights three dances, for Pond Way (1998) and RainForest (1968), paying my respects and saying goodbye.

Dance does not leave us alone; it reshapes us. I believe that and spent an entire semester trying various wily ways to persuade college students of its truth. I could have done no better than to bring them all with me to witness the last Cunningham ensemble at work.

I know Cunningham's theater can train us to regard the solid earth with trust, to sturdily and cleverly connect with it for the physical and psychic strength to be a human being in space--more flexible, more capable, more creative. In this way, it reminds me of what I learned from women's and neopagan ritual back in the 1980s but demonstrated--stripped of mythic interpretation, of course--solely through the abstract actions of bodies on a stage.

On my way home last night, I found myself more than ever annoyed by the streaming Friday night traffic--vehicular and pedestrian--and wondering why. Then I realized that I'd just spent more than an hour under the influence.

After I got over being annoyed, I felt grateful for the time out of time that dance can provide. We have so few places of refuge, particularly in the urban environment, but sometimes dance can offer this chance to slow the breath, switch channels, detect subtle, often fleeting things that we usually miss out of habit and distraction.

Give yourself a steady diet of that, and there's no telling who you might become.

And so, thank you to Merce Cunningham, and his dancers, down through the years, for giving us all new ways to see, to imagine and to create.

BAM Next Wave Festival's presentation of The Legacy Tour concludes this evening with a 7:30pm performance of Program C: Pond Way, RainForest and Split Sides. Information here.

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn
(directions)

For information on the final performances of Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the Park Avenue Armory (December 29-31), click here.

NYPL announces short-term research fellowships

Short-Term Research Fellowships at The New York Public Library

The New York Public Library is delighted to announce the availability of short-term fellowships to support visiting scholars conducting research in the Library’s unique research and special collections.  Fellowships stipends up to $4,000 are available to scholars from outside the New York metropolitan area engaged in graduate-level, post-doctoral, or independent research.  Scholars researching in the humanities including but not limited to art history, cultural studies, history, literature, performing arts and photography are welcome to apply.  Applicants must be United States citizens or permanent residents with the legal right to work in the U.S.

Click here for additional details and to download an application (deadline: March 18, 2012).

Wim Wenders discusses "Pina"

Wim Wenders on ‘Pina,’ His Film on Pina Bausch’s Dances
by Julie Bloom, The New York Times, December 9, 2011

Bon Iver: "There was a lack of hating it."

Bon Iver, Fitness Guru?
by Randy Kennedy, The New York Times, December 9, 2011

Tere O'Connor's gentle men

Some musings on Cover Boy by Tere O'Connor Dance (Danspace Project, December 8, 2011)

Years ago, I listened as an urban birding guide jokingly described geese madly flapping, flapping, flapping as they struggled to lift their heavy bodies to the sky. The broad, fabricated "wing" arching from one side of O'Connor's dance space to the other kept the guide's words close to mind, and I wasn't at all surprised when, late in the hour, a similar "heavy goose" image briefly emerged from the dancing itself.

The white, jointed and slotted "wing"--created by Roger Hubeli and Julie Larsen of Aptum Architecture--made some slightly trembly, shallow adjustments at the start. But, basically, it just hovered over all like a protective force. I don't know why I expected its articulated segments to flap, or at least ripple. No, that's not right. I do know. I was remembering the graceful, almost-alive sculpture that Reuben Margolin made for Chunky Move's Connected, but I quickly put that out of my mind.

The evening opened with a musical statement thrust into unlit space--sounds chugging forward, though fuzzy in nature. The four men, soon appearing at the lip of the space, would occasionally speak during the hour but often in whispered asides meant for one another, not for those of us watching. Murmurs, mutters accompanying private gazes at one another. At other times, these baby birds might throw their sweet heads back and blow pure music from their throats. Not that that ever made sense. Making sense didn't seem to be the point of the moment.

Under shelter of the wing, the four first skittered to scatter to four directions, then turned into the center. Small, gentle hand gestures appeared to mark the space for ritual.

They would look at one another, turn away, tumble backwards hard and giggle. Again and then again, the tumble landing harder each time. After the last tumble, there was no giggle.

Over the course of the hour, we'd see not only some tender cuddling between men but also a lot of all-out smooching, nuzzling and rutting (fully-clothed). I still can't decide: Was this intended to look
self-conscious? Un-self-conscious? We're meant to see it, although, in a way, it is presented as if we're not seeing it.

Other moments are, without question, for show, for "See me! I am here!" or "See us! We are here, and aren't we glamorous?" with the men striking cool poses like rock bands on album covers or, grinning at us as they sashay towards us down an imaginary fashion runway.

Some things are for private and some for show, and sometimes it's hard to tell which is which and in which condition we find ourselves. Some things seem mechanical, and some seem floridly real, as if a veil has been ripped back and some funky part of personal history exposed.

What does it mean to be an artist, queer, a marginalized Other? O'Connor shelters--and complicates--the light and the dark of it.

Cover Boy is shot through with lucid, coherent performances--individually and together--by Michael Ingle, Niall Jones, Paul Monaghan and Matthew Rogers. Their willingness and sophisticated skills are a good match for O'Connor's unfettered imagination.

With music by James Baker, lighting by Michael O'Connor and costumes by Façade/Fasad.

Tere O'Connor's Cover Boy continues tonight through Sunday at 8pm and then returns on Tuesday, December 13 and Thursday, December 15, both at 8pm.

For tickets, click here or call 866-811-4111.

Danspace Project
Second Avenue at 10th Street, Manhattan
(directions)

Queer "Community Action Center" video needs you!

Community Action Center -- a video by A.L. Steiner and A.K. Burns

A.K. Burns and A.L. Steiner's Community Action Center is a 69-minute sociosexual video incorporating the erotics of a community where the personal is not only political, but sexual. This project is a unique contemporary composition, an archive of an intergenerational community built on collaboration, friendship, sex and art. Burns and Steiner worked with artists and performers who created infinitely complex gender and performance roles that are both real and fantastical, set to a soundtrack of music by Chicks on Speed, Effi Briest, Electrelane, Chateau featuring K8 Hardy, Lesbians on Ecstasy, Light Asylum, MEN, Motherland, NGUZUNGUZU, I.U.D. (Lizzi Bougatsos & Sadie Laska), Kinski and Thee Majesty (Genesis P-Orridge), and featuring original compositions by Justin Bond, Nick Hallett & Sam Greenleaf Miller, Ashland Mines & Wu Tsang, Sergei Tcherepnin and Tri-State Area with AV Linton.

We would like to compensate the collaborators who worked with us to realize the project, as well as plan a tour of Community Action Center to LGBT centers across the U.S. This work has been created with the generous support, time and creative energy of more than 50 visual artists, performers, musicians, composers, PA’s, advisors and technicians. Our fundraising effort will provide honoraria to these people, without whom this work would not have been possible.

We view this work as an important political gesture regarding feminist politics and expanding the vocabulary of queer sexuality, thus our other primary goal is to be in dialogue with LGBTQ communities throughout the country. We will be screening the video at universities, film festivals, museums and galleries internationally who can independently fund our presentations, however there are thousands of additional members of the LGBTQ and extended communities whom we can reach via local screenings, but whom cannot fund our presentation. We screened Community Action Center at The LGBT Center in NYC last year, and the success of that powerful and empowering event highlighted the value of a series of screenings + live discussions in smaller urban and rural communities.

We feel deeply that this pivotal portrait gives voice, body and historical context to vibrant and viable queer communities.

For more information on this project and how you can help, click here at USA Projects.

Spirit in Afro-Atlantic culture

Que viva Chango!: West African deities in the Americas
by Denise Oliver Velez, Daily Kos, December 4, 2011

Anthem for revolution

Out of Protest, an Anthem for Egypt's Revolution
by Kristen McTighe, The New York Times, December 7, 2011

Campbell: From Ailey to Harlem School of the Arts

At Harlem Arts School, New Chief Hits Her Stride
by Felicia R. Lee, The New York Times, December 5, 2011

Jacob's Pillow...and you...on the move

Do you KNOW DANCE?

Jacob's Pillow wants you to share what you know!

In connection with the new documentary film Never Stand Still, directed by Ron Honsa, the KNOW DANCE project asks, "What do YOU want people to know about dance?"

Answer this question by typing a comment or recording a video response.

Make sure to include:

1. Name, where you live.
2. Connection to dance (fan, teacher, dancer, choreographer, etc.).
3. Respond to "What do you want people to know about dance?"
4. Email your video link to knowdanceproject@gmail.com

You don't have to be a dancer to participate--we encourage anyone who has an interest in or passion for dance to answer this question and join the conversation.

Visit the Know Dance video playlist (here) to see responses from around the world.

Thank you!
Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival

For Never Stand Still screening dates (including NYC premiere in Jan 2012) and to sign up for DVD purchase visit the film's Web site here.

The enchanting Angelique Kidjo on PBS

Angelique Kidjo sings 'Batonga"--the song that gave the name to her Foundation in her PBS Special Spirit Rising featuring the Kuumba Singers, Christian McBride, Dianne Reeves, Josh Groban, Branford Marsalis and Ezra Koenig


Watch it tonight, 10:30pm, on Channel 13 in New York!

Provocations, improvisations: A dancer's life in New York

Reflections, doubts, discoveries and gifts of a dancer's life, filtered through the sensibilities of a multi-talented artist. An engrossing, witty, often touching film created by and featuring Jeremy Finch.

 


Sketchbook (2011) is a short film by Jeremy Finch combining dance and hand-drawn animation.

Benjamin Ford Asriel: Dancer/performer
Mimi Bai: Title sequences and bed animations
Briana Deutsch: Bed animation assistant
Jeremy Finch: Writer/performer/animator/music
Stephanie Fungsang: Dancer/performer and co-collaborator
Noah Hutton: Editing and filming of dance sequences
Shamiso Mtangi: Museum guard voice
Brandin Steffensen: Dancer/performer

More at www.jeremyfinch.blogspot.com

Tapping our city's past

The birthplace of tap (PHOTO)

At the original waterline of manhattan (the pre landfill shoreline) our ranger tells the story of tap dance, which was born out of Irish and Africans engaging in dance competitions on the waterfront. (click)

from African Burial Ground National Monument

"Bellydance Past and Present" at 92Y

Although a serious knee injury has sidelined Anahid Sofian, she showed up at 92Y's Fridays at Noon Bellydance Past and Present program yesterday and introduced a video clip of her 1976 performance, Raqs Sharki, at the New York Dance Festival at Central Park's Delacorte Theater.

Being selected to perform a solo at the festival was "an incredible experience--also, totally terrifying," said Sofian, part of a legendary generation of Middle Eastern nightclub dancers in New York who sparked the boom in bellydancing's mainstream popularity in America in the 1970s. Trained in ballet and modern dance, Sofian had adopted bellydance as physical therapy for an injury. But the Turkish and Arab rhythms drew her in more deeply and inspired a new direction for her work. She eventually grew to become one of the most highly respected dancers and instructors in the business (Sofian photo gallery).

Sofian had been trying to get into the festival lineup for a few years and finally made it. But when she got  her first look at the Delacorte stage, she panicked. "I almost had a heart attack! How was I going to fill this space?"

This dilemma forced her to revise her plans, scrapping stationary passages and movement subtleties for choreography that could travel and read big to the outdoors audience.

The video shows a young, lithe Sofian whirling with her sail-like veil, brightly articulating isolations, drifting like incense smoke and melting to the floor for a sequence of sensual undulations.

"It was well received, and it was reviewed by every major publication," she remembered.

Earlier, Sofian had reminded me that I had reviewed that show in Dance Magazine, which would have been at the start of my career as a dance critic and at the height of my own involvement with Middle Eastern dance as a student. It was also amazing to be reminded of the long-defunct New York Dance Festival itself and its rare cultural and aesthetic diversity.

"Carmen de Lavallade was on the same program, as was Kei Takei's company," Sofian said, noting the unusual range of aesthetic sensibilities. "In 1977, Morocco danced in the festival, and in 1978, Serena Wilson," she added, citing two of her venerable colleagues, then luminaries of New York's bellydancing scene. "But the festival folded for lack of funding."

If this annual event still existed, I'm sure it would help heighten awareness of dance's value and build new audiences for the art. A pity that it's gone, but at least we have documentation at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Sofian's presence--her expertise and link to the art's creative heritage--helped to contain, ground and inform the 92Y event. The afternoon's bill included entertaining cabaret-style numbers from the sunny Altagracia and Layla and the wonderfully down-to-earth Zenaide, and it served to introduce the audience to some new currents in the field through the innovations of Fayzah Fire and Elisheva, sharp, fusion-oriented performers with backgrounds in diverse dance techniques who find inspiration in hip hop and Loie Fuller and all points in between.

For information on upcoming programs in 92Y's Fridays at Noon series, click here.

92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Avenue, Manhattan
(directions)

Hear audio from Patti Smith at the Met Museum

Click here tonight at 7pm for live audio streaming of Patti Smith's Artist and Muse show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Patti Smith, Jesse Smith, and friends will salute Alfred Stieglitz and his circle, focusing on his collaborative relationship with Georgia O'Keeffe.

"The roles of artist and muse are interchangeable, resulting in work elevated above any conventional concept of love and gender." - P. Smith

This concert is presented in conjunction with Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe, October 13, 2011–January 2, 2012.

The Met's "Storytelling in Japanese Art"

‘Storytelling in Japanese Art’ at the Met
by Roberta Smith, The New York Times, December 1, 2011