Dance/NYC: advocating arts activism

From Dance/NYC -- February 24, 2011

Dear Friend,

It is up to us - dancers, managers and audiences - to explain the value of dance in NYC to public policy makers not only locally but nationally. Strengthen your grant agencies:

National Endowment for the Arts

The urgency for federal advocacy was heightened this past week when the House of Representatives approved an amendment offered by Representative Tim Walberg (R-MI-7) to cut FY11 funding to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) by $20.6 million. This was on top of the $22.5 million funding reduction already recommended by the House Appropriations Committee.

The wide majority of New York State Representatives voted against the amendment - see list below. The vote was extremely close (217-209) and only five additional votes would have made the difference.

Please visit our partners at the Performing Arts Alliance to learn more and send a personal message to your Representative. Sending thank you notes to the Representatives who voted against the amendment is also helpful for securing their support going forward.

New York State Council on the Arts

Joining the New York City Arts coalition and sister groups statewide, Dance/NYC continues to advocate a restoration of $2.8 million of a cut to New York State Council on the Arts' (NYSCA) Aid to Localities, which is the source of its grants funding to arts groups. Visit the new Arts NYS Coalition Web site (www.ArtsNYS.org) to see the proposal, write your legislators and learn more about how you can make your voice heard in State budget proceedings.

How to Be an Advocate

Dance/NYC will address the role of dance advocacy at our annual symposium this Saturday, February 26. We are offering a free breakout session on How to Be an Advocate with Amy Fitterer, Executive Director of Dance/USA and Brandon Gryde, Director of Government Affairs; as well as a panel on Dance and Diplomacy with Maura Pally of the US Department of State. For more: http://dancenyc.org/news-room/news-and-announcements.php?id=159
Hoping to see you this weekend, and onward for dance in NYC!

 Lane

Lane Harwell
Director
Dance/NYC

NEW YORK

Timothy Bishop (D-NY-01) N
Steve Israel (D-NY-02) N
Peter King (R-NY-03) Y
Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY-04) N
Gary Ackerman (D-NY-05) N
Gregory Meeks (D-NY-06) N
Joseph Crowley (D-NY-07) N
Jerrold Nadler (D-NY-08) N
Anthony Weiner (D-NY-09) N
Edolphus Towns (D-NY-10) N
Yvette Clarke (D-NY-11) N
Nydia Velázquez (D-NY-12) N
Michael Grimm (R-NY-13) N
Carolyn Maloney (D-NY-14) N
Charles Rangel (D-NY-15) N
José Serrano (D-NY-16) N
Eliot Engel (D-NY-17) N

Nita Lowey (D-NY-18) N
Nan Hayworth (R-NY-19) Y
Christopher Gibson (R-NY-20) N
Paul Tonko (D-NY-21) N
Maurice Hinchey (D-NY-22) N
William Owens (D-NY-23) N
Richard Hanna (R-NY-24) N
Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY-25) Y

-VACANT- (NY-26) --

Brian Higgins (D-NY-27) N
Louise Slaughter (D-NY-28) N
Tom Reed (R-NY-29) Y

Dance/NYC's mission is to sustain and advance the professional dance field in New York City-serving as the voice, guide and infrastructure architect for all local dance artists and managers. The organization achieves this mission through three core program areas: advocacy and research, audience engagement and professional development. Visit www.dancenyc.org to learn more about our programs.

Ghosts in the machine

And All the Question Marks Started to Sing might be the most extravagant experience Dance Theater Workshop has ever hosted. The hour-long, enigmatic fantasia of theater, music and visual and sound art, created by Norway’s Bessie-winning Verdensteatret collective, commandeers nearly every surface of DTW’s performance space and explodes throughout its air.

DTW’s theater has been transformed into a complex machine that generates and splatters not only sounds but muted light, intense shadows and the roving, wall-high animations of ghostly imagery. In this highly functional display, the most prominent features are revolving wheels (bare or decorated in what appears to be dried flowers, leaves and/or feathers) that emit amplified bleats, thrums and other sounds as if hooked up to the shattered remains of a jazz band. Handlers--Hai Nguyen Dinh, Ali Djabbary, Gjertrud Jynge and Øyvind B. Lyse--manually spin some of these wheels and carefully attend to other matters. Sometimes they contribute vocalizations to the sonic layers.

While this is not officially a dance-oriented piece, movement looms large, quite literally, although I’m not talking about anything typically associated with the performing body. Rather, these human bodies serve the machine, and the machine and its effects dance without cease.

I found, nevertheless, an unmistakable dancerliness at moments when Jynge grasped one of the wheel stands and rose on her toes to vocalize into its crackling microphone. It seemed obvious that that stand could have been made short enough so that she wouldn’t have to strain to reach the mic. However, the clutching and the straining and the plastering of her torso against the stand and particular arch of her feet in her little boots seemed to be an essential part of the design. In other words, dance.

A co-presentation of Dance Theater Workshop, FuturePerfect and Performance Space 122, And All the Question Marks Started to Sing, with its multitude of recycled mechanical parts and contraptions, has a charming old-fashioned feel. And just look at those those angelic pigeons, that crazy little breeding gull, that accordion squeezing all by itself, the prayer beads clicking away in Djabbary’s hands. This baby is a machine, all right, but not from our slick, digital age. It’s made by artists. The beauty, the wit, the ingenuity go on forever.

And All the Question Marks Started to Sing continues tonight (7:30pm) and tomorrow (5pm) at DTW, and I wholeheartedly recommend it. Hurry for your tickets! (information and ticketing)

Dance Theater Workshop
219 West 19th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)

And All the Question Marks Started to Sing is the inaugural event of FuturePerfect 2011, a new performance, art & technology initiative in New York City. Produced in partnership with leading national and international cultural institutions, FuturePerfect highlights new hybrid performance practices, media forms, and artistic ideas that emerge as digital technologies evolve and become ubiquitous in contemporary culture. And All the Question Marks Started to Sing is also presented as part of PS122’s 30th Anniversary Season.

Filmmaker Saura's vision: "Flamenco, Flamenco"

Film review: Flamenco, Flamenco (Spain, 2010) by Carlos Saura

by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, Dance Films Association Journal, February 25, 2011

One night in heaven

From the sound of things, there was a fair chance that Heaven on Earth--the Charles L. Mee play developed by director/choreographer Dan Safer's Witness Relocation and France's ildi ! eldi, running now at La MaMa--could well have become an incoherent hellish mess. But none of the collaborators were about to let that happen. And, in a way, that tells you what Heaven on Earth has to offer--a vision of surviving disaster by cherishing and living for the little things that matter.

Ildi ! Eldi is new to me--though now I already adore their Sophie Cattani, thanks to her radiant comic performance in this piece. But I have built-up trust that Witness Relocation will exhibit brazen talent and take me on strangely compelling, amusing journeys that I won't find anywhere else. The two troupes here bravely propel themselves into Mee territory--vast open space with some resonant landmarks to be visited, furnished, decorated or completely ignored as they wish. The playwright--best known for his work with Anne Bogart's SITI Company--has given Safer and his team leave to create Heaven on Earth, and the co-conspirators allot room for audiences to enter as they wish.

The physical place-ness of Heaven on Earth, and its sense of past seeping into the present and future, is very important. Jay Ryan (set/lighting) and Deb O (costume/props) have included elements from from previous Witness Relocation shows. During last night's post-show Q&A, Safer told us that the collaborators had asked themselves, "What happens if we just, literally, drop all the sets on top of one another?"

It takes a pretty sharp crew to construct a crisp, vital piece out of the recycled detritus of older ones. The resulting collage around Mee's diffuse and lovely grid adds to the hyper, hectic texture created, as always, by Safer's extraordinary approach to movement and text.

Here's my loving counsel to you, potential theater-goer: Attend--in both senses of that word--but don't try to keep up. Heaven on Earth will overtake you. Let it. Let go. Another lesson for anyone facing the end of the world (as we know it).

Cast and co-creators: Abigail Browde, Heather Christian, Sean Donovan and Mike Mikos from Witness Relocation; Sophie Cattani, Antoine Oppenheim and Francois Sabourin. Video by Kaz Phillips Safer. Sound by Ryan Maeker.

Heaven on Earth continues tonight and tomorrow at 7:30 and Sunday at 2:30. Program information here. For tickets, call 212-475-7710 or click here.

La MaMa

74A East 4th Street (between Bowery and Second Avenues), Manhattan

Americans and the arts in the digital age

Computers Double the Number of Americans Involved in the Arts

by Curt Hopkins of ReadWriteWeb, The New York Times, February 24, 2011

Cairo's got a complaint...choir

Cairo's 'Complaints Choir' sings of revolution

by Heba Elkayal, Dailynewsegypt.com, February 24, 2011

Want to be a Jacob's Pillow intern?

Click for complete program and application details on:
Summer Festival Intern Program at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival

Publishing: Where are the women?

The Lack of Female Bylines in Magazines is Old News

Want more women writers in magazines? Get more female editors.

by Katha Pollitt, Slate Magazine, February 11, 2011

Flamenco yesterday, today and tomorrow

Dance Magazine Editor-in-Chief Wendy Perron and I both have our say on the entertaining Flamenco Hoy by Carlos Saura (New York City Center). Check out our reviews here.

What happens, what remains

Click here for my Dance Magazine review of Walter Dundervill's Aesthetic Destiny 1: Candy Mountain (Dance Theater Workshop).

Apply now for DTW's new "Writing on Dance"

I'm honored to be facilitating a new session of Writing on Dance (Spring 2011) for Dance Theater Workshop, beginning March 30!

This series will be an informal, supportive lab for discovery of your self as writer; for lively engagement with art; for celebration of your unique voice and creative response.

We share this lab with others who are also questioning: Why do I write? Who am I as perceiver and witness of art? How do I relate and respond to dance? Why write about dance? What is my role? Who is my reader? What is the larger context in which art is made, presented, experienced and interpreted for the public? How can I, as writer, make something new, meaningful and useful in this time of disruption and transition?

Please note: Although I will encourage participants to attend, contemplate and write about dance performances during this course, our work will not focus on the nuts and bolts of dance criticism or dance journalism, and our group need not be limited to students who wish to pursue a professional career in dance criticism.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: March 11

For Writing on Dance's complete schedule and application details, please click here.

What you don't see

Presented by The Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library, Dana Salisbury and the No-See-Ums perform BARK, an “Unseen Dance” for blindfolded audiences. Dancers reveal themselves and the space through sound, scent, touch, temperature and air currents. The audience is placed within the action and periodically moved, causing shifts in their relationship to the environment, the performers, and one another. Based on non-visual perception, this is the first dance form fully accessible to the visually impaired.

For sighted and visually impaired audiences. This program is not suitable for children.

All New York Public Library programs are free of charge. Register by phone or in person.

March 5 at 2pm
The Richmondtown Library
200 Clarke Avenue (at Amber Street), Staten Island, NY

718-668-0413

March 12 at 2pm
Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library
40 West 20th Street, Manhattan New York, NY
212-206-5400

March 19 at 2pm
Webster Library
1465 York Avenue (near East 78th Street), Manhattan
212-288-5049

March 26 at 2pm
115th St Library
203 West 115th Street, Manhattan
212-666-9393

Dana Salisbury is an independent artist/choreographer who creates events and performances for blindfolded audiences highlighting non-visual perception. Her work has two related branches—the dance company, Dana Salisbury and the No-See-Ums, which creates "Unseen Dances" and Dark Dining Projects which offers sensory feasts for blindfolded audiences. Her work has been performed in a wide variety of settings- theaters, cultural venues, restaurants, festivals, and conferences examining the intersection of arts and science. Learn more here. 

For additional information, email Dana Salisbury,  or call 917-686-7474.

An interview with painter Sibel Kocabasi

Sibel Kocabasi

interviewed by Barbara Ann Levy

BALGallery.com

New life for Ohio Theater

SoHo Theater Is Reborn in the West Village
by Rachel Lee Harris, The New York Times, February 20, 2011

Egypt: The Cultural Revolution

Egypt: The Cultural Revolution

by Robyn Creswell, The New York Times, February 10, 2011

From tears to action

A heartbreaking performance

by Paul Nagle, ICISCS blog, January 23, 2011

Facebook de-friends figurative art?

Art School Runs Afoul of Facebook's Nudity Police

by Miguel Helft, The New York Times, February 18, 2011

A piece of East Village cultural history threatened

Preservationists Focus on a Little Brick House

by Suzanne Rozdeba, The New York Times, February 18, 2011

Bonnefoux and McBride to receive Ilona Copen Award

On March 22, at NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, New York International Ballet Competition (NYIBC) will celebrate the life and achievements of Ilona Copen, late Founder and Executive Director Emerita. The evening will feature performances by dancers from American Ballet Theatre, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Dance Theatre of Harlem Ensemble, Joffrey Ballet, Limón Dance Company, New Jersey Ballet and North Carolina Dance Theatre, including several NYIBC alumni, followed by a Dinner/Dance.

A highlight of the event will be the presentation of the first Ilona Copen Award to Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux and Patricia McBride, in honor of their contributions to the lives and artistry of young dancers, and to the world of dance in general. The Award will be presented by Virginia Johnson, Artistic Director of Dance Theatre of Harlem.

Click here for more information on this event and ticketing. 

Patricia McBride and Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux
(photo courtesy of NYIBC)

Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux was born in France and began his dance training at the age of 10 at the School of the Paris Opera Ballet. At age 14 he joined the company, and by age 21 was named Danseur Etoile. Bonnefoux danced with the Bolshoi and Kirov Ballets before being invited by George Balanchine to dance with New York City Ballet. After 10 years with NYCB, Bonnefoux joined the School of Music at Indiana University as chairman and artistic director of the ballet department. Since 1983 he has been the artistic director of the ballet company and school at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua NY. In 1996 he joined North Carolina Dance Theatre as artistic director and was named president in 2003.  He and his wife, Patricia McBride, have added new works to NCDT's repertoire, have attracted talented dancers from all over the world, and championed the effort to build a new facility for the company. In June of 2010, NCDT opened the Patricia McBride & Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux Center for Dance.

Patricia McBride began her ballet training in her hometown of Teaneck NJ, before receiving a scholarship to the School of American Ballet. Within a year of joining the company, she danced a solo in The Figure in the Carpet, created for her by Balanchine. McBride attained the rank of soloist in 1960 and by 1961, at age 18, she became the youngest principal dancer in NYCB. She spent 3 decades with the company, and created leading roles in many memorable ballets, including Harlequinade, Tarantella, the "Rubies" section of Jewels, Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, Coppelia, Union Jack, Who Cares?, and Vienna Waltzes. Jerome Robbins choreographed principal roles for her in his Dances at a Gathering, In the Night, The Goldberg Variations, Dybbuk, Opus 19 and The Four Seasons. Her years of performing under Balanchine's direction have gained her the expertise necessary to restage many of his master works. McBride has been associate artistic director of NCDT since 1996 and also serves as a master teacher at NC Dance Theatre School of Dance and Chautauqua Ballet's School of Dance. She is married to Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux and they have two children.

New York International Ballet Competition

Educating, mentoring and providing performance and career advancement opportunities since 1984.

Founded by Ilona Copen and Igor Youskevitch

New York International Ballet Competition (NYIBC) is a three-week intensive professional training, performance and artistic education program for forty-eight talented young dancers from countries around the world, all of whom receive full scholarships. NYIBC nurtures promising dancers aged 17 to 24 from all ethnicities, providing them with an exceptional opportunity to completely focus on training to perform at their highest artistic level. The contemporary duet form and the classical pas de deux are the core of the repertory NYIBC participants learn from world renowned coaches under high standards of fairness. In addition, NYIBC attracts hiring artistic directors and choreographers who are confident that a dancer who has been mentored and trained at NYIBC can endure the rhythm of work and life in a ballet company. Beyond having access to extraordinary performance and career advancement opportunities, during their time at NYIBC the dancers form a versatile international company in which lifelong associations are born.

For more information, visit the NYIBC website.

Looking at "Madness," again

It's that nutty Danspace Project again, presenting PLATFORM 2011: Body Madness, Part 1 - Absurdity & Wit, curated by Judy Hussie-Taylor, this time with New York's Ursula Eagly and Minneapolis's Chris Schlichting sharing a show. Okay, now that's out of the way.

I really think you should encounter the Eagly team's Group Dynamics and Visual Sensitivity without a lot of preparation. So I'm only going to say that I loved it for the way it flips and shuffles two-dimensionality and three-dimensionality. Its guided imagery approach is a presentational, storytelling idea that works, perhaps to a scary degree, and we're invited to join the artists in making it work. It can be an amazing experience. (Created by Eagly in collaboration with Lindsey Dietz Marchant, Jesse Harold, Abby Harris Holmes and Jeremy Holmes).

In the solo Public Hair, Schlichting's immediate advantage is that he looks and moves like the kind of guy whose face might end up on the front page of a tabloid newspaper for all the wrong reasons. Bursting through the front door, he looms in the silent space, a figure with no discernible standout features, his arms hanging listlessly at his sides, his buttoned-down shirt and pullover sweater and plain dark slacks containing him but saying nothing at all about him.

And yet, as you watch Schlichting trace the air around his lips--as if he's applying Chapstick or even lipstick--he gives you the creeps. The circling gesture grows larger, jerkier, taking in the entire head. Just as it becomes quite violent in force, he retracts his energy and simply drifts away to other unusually odd and suspicious postures and gestures.

Schlichting is a maker of images bent and broken, an interesting crafter of tiny and big things. He relates to the church's space quite well, in unexpected ways, as well as ways that make you want to get out the cleaning supplies and scrub it down.

But the weirdest thing for me was leaving St. Mark's and having a stranger approach me at the door.

"Is the early show over?" he asked.

"Well, yes, the show's over," I replied.

"What was it about?"

A combination of my exhaustion from an unexpectedly demanding day and the effects of Eagly's piece had left me desperately sleepy and less than articulate. And besides, how was I even to begin explaining "PLATFORM 2011: Body Madness, Part 1 - Absurdity & Wit, curated by Judy Hussie-Taylor, this time with New York's Ursula Eagly and Minneapolis's Chris Schlichting sharing a show" to some guy lurking outside the door?

(Earlier in the day, I had struggled to explain "PLATFORM 2011: Body Madness, Part 1 - Absurdity & Wit, curated by Judy Hussie-Taylor, this time with New York's Ursula Eagly and Minneapolis's Chris Schlichting sharing a show" to my sister-in-law. But don't worry: My sister-in-law's a smart cookie, and that eventually worked out well.)

I looked at this guy and mumbled something vague, and that seemed to be enough. But then he asked me:

"Would it be appropriate for a small child?"

I'm ashamed to say that, just to get away from him, I quickly told him yes.

In truth, I couldn't figure out if this show would be appropriate for a small child. Most likely not, but that might depend on the child and, really, how small are we talking?

It was all way too much for me.

Racing away from him, I thought about it: Geeze, I'm not even sure this show was appropriate for me, let alone a small child. (I'm not kidding: I woke up from a quite frightening dream in the middle of the night....)

Later, I wondered if this guy wasn't part of the show...

If you happen to encounter him outside St. Mark's, do let me know.

Ursula Eagly and Chris Schlichting: A Shared Evening continues tonight and tomorrow at 8pm. For information and ticketing, click here.

Danspace Project
St. Mark's Church
Second Avenue and Tenth Street, Manhattan
(directions)

Studying NYC's cultural sustainability

Today New York City welcomes a new policy think tank dedicated to cultural strategies for the 21st Century.The Institute for Culture in the Service of Community Sustainability (ICSCS)will build synergies between arts and other sectors around a platform of cultural, community and environmental sustainability. Led by Paul Nagle and Lise Brenner, the organization will combine traditional research and evolving technologies with the collective wisdom of the community to gain new and deeper understandings of how culture works.

“From the trenches of Off-Off Broadway to the chambers of City Hall, Paul Nagle has spent the last 20 years fighting for a stronger cultural ecosystem,” said former NYC Councilmember Alan J. Gerson, for whom Mr. Nagle served eight years as cultural policy director. “The important unifying frame of cultural, community and environmental sustainability that he has created for ICSCS is a true and very needed innovation.”

ICSCS will develop strategies and recommendations that support artists; enhance the operating environment for multiple sectors; foster strong, diverse neighborhoods and communities; and strengthen New York City as an international creative economy.

“Humankind faces huge and existential challenges. Not accepting the limitations of time and space, nor the creed that nothing can be other than it is, artists and cultural workers can facilitate the great act of imagination that it will take for the human race to begin creating a sustainable life,” said Executive Director Paul Nagle. “ICSCS sees the health of the cultural community and the health of the greater community as absolutely interdependent.”

In addition, ICSCS has launched artspolicynow.org, an interactive website that will facilitate artists, policy thinkers and leaders from other sectors in working together on issues of cultural, community and environmental sustainability. Those interested in these issues can explore, engage and upload creative content, create profile pages, initiate public discussions, share information and co-develop initiatives with other users. The website will also be a searchable repository of ICSCS research and a valuable tool to spot trends, identify and facilitate collaborations, as well as coordinate data assembling and reporting across networks.

About ICSCS

The Institute for Culture in the Service of Community Sustainability (ICSCS) is headquartered in New York City and supports development of public policy that articulates and strengthens art’s central role in civic life and enhances cultural, environmental and community sustainability. Through regularly scheduled live events, integrated with ICSCS’s highly interactive website, artspolicynow.org, ICSCS assembles, interprets and disseminates new and existing empirical data and field research to combine it with the collective wisdom of the community. The organization facilitates artists, policy thinkers and leaders from other sectors to work together on issues of cultural, community and environmental sustainability, to coordinate data generation and to report across networks.

Patti for President!

Patti Smith reads from "Just Kids" at 92Y
(photo: Joyce Culver for 92Y)

Sam Shepard, Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye at 92Y
(photo by Joyce Culver for 92Y)

A woman turned to her friend and cried, “It’s like Trader Joe’s!”

Nearby, I was cooling my heels, too, stuck on the same ticket-holders line that snaked through recessed parts of 92Y that most people probably never see.

Fifteen minutes to Patti Time!

The line started moving. We soon found ourselves back in the main lobby where we encountered more snaking, more cooling of heels, more people who had absolutely no idea how far they’d have to travel to reach and to navigate the room we’d just left. But with little blue tickets tightly grasped in our hands and actual seat numbers printed on those tickets, our hearts felt light and blessed. We were going to make it. We would reach the inner sanctum.

Glancing around me, I was amazed at the variety of people who turn out to see Patti Smith, poet, rock star, acclaimed author of the memoir Just Kids (now in paperback from HarperCollins). Some of us have aged, for sure, but some of us look as if, even in our youth, we would never have had anything to do with rock music.

No matter. Smith’s embrace is gracious and all-encompassing. With that familiar, unbeatable combination of wry humor, self-awareness and refusal to take herself seriously, she would welcome and reward all.

92Y had deemed this girl from South Jersey worthy of their “Illustrious Women” series. But even without the memoir’s bestseller status and National Book Award, Smith would be illustrious. Happily, she started the evening off by putting things into perspective: We were gathered, she told us, in honor of her beloved sister Linda’s birthday and “the anniversary of the unsealing of King Tut’s tomb.”

She read several passages from Just Kids, told stories and effortless jokes, and sang. She looked down at a page, choking up at the memory of her first glimpse of artist-photographer Robert Mapplethorpe who would become her lover and lifelong friend. (Just Kids sings of their relationship and the flowering of their artistic talents and individual missions.) She painted the famously Buddhist Allen Ginsberg as a tough old bird who, when facing death, surprised his friends by refusing to let go. She made sure to repeatedly mention her buddy Judy Linn’s book of photographs from the era (due out in March). And she remembered the guidance of playwright Sam Shepard who bought her a homely, used guitar when she needed it most and nudged her in the direction of music when her poetry needed that, too.

Off-the-cuff moments, with a Patti-fied combination of daffiness and just-rightness, were in great supply. I loved her story of falling for and rooting for Hickory, the Scottish deerhound, the big winner at this year’s Westminster Dog Show. Smith said she spent some time psychically vibing the competition’s “classy Italian judge.”

“I have a good relationship with Italy," she said. "So I just tried to concentrate, send him messages. Well, my dog won!”

On the page or on the stage, Smith is a charming storyteller. Of course, the stage bears benefits, like vivid renditions of “In My Blakean Years” (for Mapplethorpe) or “Redondo Beach” (for her actress friend Maria Schneider, who recently died of cancer).

The stage also bears surprises. First, guitarist Lenny Kaye came out to accompany Smith on a few songs. (“We’ve just had our 40th anniversary of doing our first job together at St. Mark’s Church. I’m lucky to have him still!”). Then Smith followed up her Sam Shepard story by producing the man himself--imagine an audience irretrievably blown away--who lent his guitar and voice to the party with, among other things, a bracing version of that old bluegrass number, “In The Pines.” But, hell, watching Shepard crack up at Smith’s jokes might have been the best experience of the night.

The three friends were having so much fun with one another and with us that it was quite late when Smith finally remembered that 92Y staffers had collected written questions from the audience. (Oops!) A few Qs and a few As were dutifully batted around, but tales and music-making prevailed.

Smith finally told us her great “first meeting Allen Ginsberg at Horn & Hardart” story. Then, in conclusion, she paid joyful, mindful tribute to “our brothers and sisters all over the world who are using their voices and taking to the streets.”

I awakened to the cry 

that the people / have the power 

to redeem / the work of fools 

upon the meek / the graces shower 

it's decreed / the people rule 

The people have the power 

The people have the power 

The people have the power 

The people have the power 

“People Have The Power” from Dream of Life by Patti Smith and Fred “Sonic” Smith (Arista, 1988)

Patti Smith Web site

92Y Web site

Jerry Ames, 80

Jerry Ames, Tap Dancer and Choreographer, Dies at 80
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, February 16, 2011

Color them BAAD!

DYKES DRAW THE LINE: Workshop and Comix Mayhem

hosted by BAAD!

Sunday, March 20
Workshop at 4pm (free)
Panel at 6pm (free)

4pm - 5:30pm: Story Telling with Words and Pictures: A cartooning workshop by Jennifer Camper

For anyone inspired by comics, no experience necessary. Cartoonist Jennifer Camper leads participants through a series of games that explore how words and pictures work together to create narration. Explore new ways to stimulate drawing and writing.

6pm-7:30pm: Dykes Draw the Line Slide Show, Discussion and Comix Mayhem with cartoonists Jennifer Camper, Diane DiMassa, Joan Hilty and Rica Takashima

Jennifer Camper's books include Rude Girls and Dangerous Women and subGURLZ, and she's the editor of two Juicy Mother comix anthologies. Diane DiMassa is the creator of the comic Hothead Paisan, Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist, the castrating classic cult cartoon heroine. Joan Hilty is the creator of the comic strip Bitter Girl and was a longtime editor at DC Comics. Rica Takashima is an international cartoonist, pop artist and performer who created the yuri manga series, Rica 'tte Kanji!?  

Click here to RSVP, indicating name of event, or call 718-842-5223.

Also, don't miss Arab QUEERvolution, also at BAAD!

Thursday, March 24 (8pm)
Admission: $15

As the Arab world is leading an evolution/revolution, three queer Arab artists bring compelling works that put their culture and identity front and center with Andrea Assaf, Nora Aboali and Amir Rabiyah. Also a photo presentation titled The Women of the Egyptian Revolution complied by Leil-Zahra Mortada.

BAAD! (Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance)

841 Barreto Street, 2nd Floor, The Bronx

(directions)

Belladonna*: "Body of Words"

When the spoken word and the dancing body smack up against each other, what these two vital forces can open up, for our experience and consideration, is not necessarily an easy space. The Belladonna* Collaborative, a feminist literary collective, created that dynamic, uneasy space last night at Dixon Place with Body of Words, a fascinating program of four developing works by Lauren Nicole Nixon, Rosamond S. King, Sally Silvers and Alexandra Beller's collaborative troupe.

It was an evening devoted to "performances without boundaries," as its manifesto proclaims, a gathering of "bodies that are both themselves and quoting." The program was curated by Emily Skillings, and Saifan Shmerer moderated the post-performance discussion.

The Beller troupe's finely-wrought, coolly-danced excerpts from other stories gave the most conventional pleasure as an invitation to feel the juicy and intelligent writing of bodies curving, jutting, twisting and springing as they absorb and interpret one another's movements. They seemed to both channel and complicate elusive stories revealed and concealed by the disjointed voice-over text.

Nixon's solo, fresh batch, opened with the charming poet/dancer approachinig the audience, proffering a tray of mini-cupcakes and whispering in each taker's ear. It is a Big Bang of taste (those cupcakes), sound, music (from Brenda Lee to Marvin Gaye and points in between), film clips of Angela Bassett getting vengefully evil in Waiting to Exhale and Nixon's own rambunctious self moving and talking. She is an irrepressible talker, and her piece takes off from her own sense of frustration about secrets, specifically the things family members refuse to say to one another. So much to take in--and Nixon just throws it out there and lets us work the puzzle of it.

King's Spectacle/SPECTACULAR offers a juxtaposition of voguing and minstrelsy, live performance and video, as well as a dead serious, deeply embodied, affecting performance of text that references race and racist objectification. Of the four works, hers is the one in which text and body seem firmly locked together and grounded in purpose and methodology. Spectacle/SPECTACULAR is, at once, satisfying and disturbing, mainly because she happens to be one hell of a performer.

FIX IT--with text and dancing by Sally Silvers (read by Corrine Fitzpatrick) and music by pianist Connie Crothers--makes no attempt to mediate the meeting of elements and make sense of it all. Silvers said it best in the post-performance discussion: "The word 'pinball' comes to mind. Different layers of possible meanings just pinball off each other." And so do the words, the music and her playful dancing.

In my experience, much of this evening demanded that I either hold my ground as viewer--deciding which competing element would get my attention--or simply surrender, in any given moment, to whatever was strongest. When things blended together--as they did in King's solo--I felt that I could settle down and catch my breath, even as I was horrified by what I was hearing. Happily, although sometimes feeling tugged this way or that, I never found myself withdrawing. All of these works will be worth tracking in the future, although I'm most interested in seeing what Nixon and King will do. 

Body of Work also put me in touch with the fact of my own hybridity as a writer in the world of dance, a writer whose understanding of the dance before me starts first in the body and the intuition, not the intellect.

Click here for information on Belladonna*, and here for Dixon Place and its upcoming programs.

"The New Black" is now

The New Black Fest--guest curated by Judy Tate and Godfrey Simmons in association with 651 Arts--presents The American Slavery Project, a monthly series of readings and post-reading conversations in recognition of the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War. The series focuses on Black playwrights whose work deals with slavery and/or the Civil War in a bold and refreshing way.

The purpose behind the American Slavery Project is to initiate new conversations around theater’s role in counteracting the increasing revisionism in our political/social discourse about the Civil War and slavery. More importantly, the American Slavery Project aims to promote a new generation of African-American voices who are telling the diverse and rich stories from an era that most adversely affected us. The series runs from mid-March through Juneteenth.

Schedule of 2011 Events

Monday, March 7 (7pm)

Fast Blood by Judy Tate

Monday, April 4 (7pm)

Sweet Maladies by Zakiyyah Alexander 

Monday, May 2 (7pm)

Living in the Wind by Michael Bradford

Monday, June 6 (7pm)

Voices from Harpers Ferry by Dominic Taylor

Wednesday, June 15 (7pm)

Safe House by Keith Josef Adkins

All tickets are free with a reservation. For full program, schedule of readings and location information, click here.

For reservations, click here.

For general information, contact info@thenewblackfest.org

More on Queen Sara Mearns

Sara Mearns, Swan Queen

by Marie Mutsuki Mockett, Marie Mutsuki Mockett, February 12, 2011

AAADT review in Dance Magazine

My review of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater City Center season (December 1, 2010-January 2, 2011) is in the March issue of DanceMagazine (p. 58-59), available now.

As she sees it: Plank on Martins' "Swan Lake"

Sara Mearns Was Gorgeous in Swan Lake, But Overall Production Was Lacking

by Tonya Plank, Tonya Plank, February 14, 2011

Dancingwordwordingdance

Slow-dancing the Poem: Body of Words @ Dixon Place
by DJ McDonald, Culturebot, February 13, 2011

Happy Valentine's Day!

Glitter Valentine, East Village
(c)2011, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Never stop

‎@KatrinaNation (Katrina vandenHeuvel) tweeted:

Never stop telling stories or singing that song. Never know what they will lead to--and what they inspire...

The RAW and the cooked

Dance New Amsterdam's current RAW Directions show is the fruit of a program offering commissions, mentorship, marketing support, free rehearsal space and other advantages to emerging-to-mid-career dancemakers. The payoff for audiences--at least, those in the crowd who are not devoted loved ones or loyal colleagues of participating artists--might be the discovery of someone or something wonderful despite the usual low signal-to-noise ratio of these types of omnibus presentations. 

The prime reason to see RAW Directions tonight--your last chance--is South Korea-born dancer-choreographer Eunhee Lee, partnered by Marcos Duran in a duet called Oops.

Eunhee Lee and Marcos Duran in Oops
(photo by Terese Loeb Kreuzer)

Lee created this often impossibly silly piece about making mistakes in relationships, but she makes no missteps as a performer. A dancer of soft, surreal drama, she emits an aura of quiet authority. You know that moment: You're on a subway platform, your skin feels a teeny-tiny shift in the air, you see faint, nearly imperceptible brightening along the farthest stretch of tracks. Your train's on the way, and that's the experience of watching Lee dance. She is, simply, great--and instructive--to watch.

Also participating in RAW Directions: Motley Dance (Elisabeth Motley's I Just Want to See You Underwater--with a gorgeous, viscerally-disturbing film by Victoria Masters and expert lighting by Amanda K. Ringger); Shani Nwando Ikerioha Collins Achille a.k.a. SNIC/SNIC-A/Eternal Works (in an excerpt from Swing Us Sky Rain(bow)); Jordan Fuchs/Jordan Fuchs Company (Strange Planet); and Scott Lyons/Scott Lyons & Company (The View)

Tonight at 8pm. See program information here and tickets here.

Dance New Amsterdam

280 Broadway, 2nd Floor, Manhattan

Enter on Chambers Street

(directions)

Getting "Butterflies"

Repertorio Español presents En El Tiempo de las Mariposas ("In the Time of Butterflies") by Caridad Svich and Julia Álvarez, now through April 8.

Based on Julia Álvarez’s popular novel, this is the story of the courageous Mirabal sisters (Patria, Minerva y María Teresa) from the Dominican Republic. The sisters inspired resistance cells throughout the country against the dictatorial regime of Gen. Rafael Leónidas Trujillo. The ‘butterflies’, their secret code name, were brutally murdered by the regime in 1960.

Presented in Spanish (live simultaneous English translation available)

Video and digital animation by Alex Koch
Soundscape and original music by Jane Shaw
Lighting and costume design by Robert Federico

Click here for more information and tickets.

Repertorio Español

138 East 27th Street (between Lexington and Third Avenues), Manhattan

Box Office: 212-225-9920

(directions)

David White appointment at The Yard

David R. White (executive director and producer of Dance Theater Workshop, 1975-2003) has been appointed consulting artistic director at The Yard.

The Yard Welcomes David White

Tribute to Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi

A Tribute to Iranian Filmmaker Jafar Panahi

February 25-March 11

Asia Society and Museum
725 Park Avenue (at 70th Street), Manhattan

(directions and other visitor information)

Get free tickets online.

This film series highlights the global artistic and social significance of the work of filmmaker Jafar Panahi. Even before he made international headlines for his recent affiliation with the Green Movement in Iran, Panahi was celebrated as one of the most influential cinematic voices. He has received international recognition for his work, garnering the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion, the Berlin Film Festival's Silver Bear, and the Cannes Film Festival's Camera d'Or awards.

Panahi is known for his realistic and unflinching portrayal of contemporary Iranian life, treating his subjects, often women and people living on the margins of society, with deep humanism. Using non-professional actors to play characters very much like themselves, his films evoke a social urgency. Panahi was recently sentenced to a six-year prison term and a 20-year ban on filmmaking for his association with the Green Movement. The sentence is being appealed.

All films are in Persian with English subtitles.

For complete program, schedule details and free tickets, click here.

Cuban arts to grace New York

A Cuban Arts Festival Is Announced for New York
by Larry Rohter, The New York Times, February 8, 2011

Eva's Grabbag.1

Let's be frank: In New York, there's so much to do, see, hear, read, think AND write about that it's impossible to keep up with it all. (As you folks post your events on Facebook and email your press releases, just imagine my hands thrown up in a mixture of overwhelm and surrender.) So, every now and then, I'm just going to toss out some quick recommendations for InfiniteBody readers to consider and hope you'll step forward and take it from there.

I think I'll just call this Eva's Grabbag!

Eva's Grabbag.1

Dance critic Jennifer Homans (The New Republic) gave a fascinating talk and Q&A about her critically-acclaimed, Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet, at 92Y Tribeca this afternoon. After listening to Homans trace the intricate, mutually transformative connections between classical ballet and the societies that birthed and nurtured it, I'm ready to take the complete journey with her. I enjoyed her clear, lively analysis, her embodied perspective as a former ballerina and her obvious passion for her subject. "Dancing--ballet, in particular--was one of the most powerful experiences of my life," she told us, and this sounds like a valuable and powerful book. (Random House, 2010)

Coming up at Joe's Pub--Sandra Bernhard and Justin Vivian Bond in Arts & Crafts:

"...country cousins whose lives have led them in very different directions. One went from being a rock chick to born again motherhood in the Midwest and the other from small town gay to urban art world sophisticate. When the two meet up again at a family wedding they set of on a journey rediscovering their authentic selves and learning that ideology doesn't mean much when stacked up against art love and really good acid." March 7, 7:30 and 9pm. Get info and tickets.

Salsa, baby! Lehman Center for the Performing Arts presents its 30th Anniversary Gala Concert with the legendary Ruben Blades ("El Poeta") and Gilberto Santa Rosa ("El Caballero de la Salsa") performing together for the first time! Saturday, February 26, 8pm. Get info and tickets.

American Tap Dance Foundation presents TAP TALKS / TAP FILMS on Sunday, February 20, 1:30pm: Juanita Pitts: Race, Gender and the Female Hoofer (video and history). Presentation by Margaret Morrison. Free for registered ATDC students. $5 general admission. American Tap Dance Center, 154 Christopher Street, Manhattan. Get info or call 646-230-9564.

More grabbags to come soon! Everybody have a fabulous evening!

Losses for Rio samba schools in fire

Fire in Rio Dims Carnaval Performers’ Hopes

by Alexei Barrionuevo, The New York Times, February 7, 2011

Women in film, women in leadership

Athena Film Festival

feature films, documentaries and shorts in celebration of women and leadership

Thursday-Sunday, February 10-13

Barnard College and The Miller Theatre
(directions)

For complete information, a schedule and to purchase tickets, click here.

Hawaiian music beyond Daniel Ho

Daniel Ho and Hawaiian Music at the Grammys
by Nate Chinen, The New York Times, February 4, 2011

Identifying makers of Native American art

At Denver Art Museum, American Indian Works as Art

by Judith H. Dobrzynski, The New York Times, February 3, 2011

"Oh, do not look at me that way!"

"Am I boring you?"

No, not for a minute, Victoria Libertore...that is, er, Countess Erzsébet Báthory! And even if you were, I would be too terrified to say so.


Victoria Libertore in Girl Meat(photo: Paula Lobo)



In her theatrical solo Girl Meat at Dance New Amsterdam, writer-performer Libertore assumes the persona of the notorious Blood Countess, the 16th Century Hungarian noblewoman and military hero's wife accused of the physical abuse, sexual torture and murder of hundreds of young women and girls. Libertore's program notes tell us that Báthory got away with, yes, murder--roughly 650 times, mind you--only when she confined her activities to the poor and to young women in her employ. When she developed a taste for the lovelies in the aristocracy--"whom she invited to her castle for etiquette training"--things no longer went so well for her and for her co-conspirators.



There are two other interesting details. The countess's ultimate punishment was to be confined to a few bricked-up rooms in her favorite castle, where she died in 1614 and, "until recent interest unearthed her story, Báthory's infamous name was largely obliterated from historical record." But, thanks to Libertore, who stalks the intimately narrow space between two rows of audience, Báthory has returned from obscurity, from banishment, an unholy creature dredged from the darkest regions of the collective unconscious.



She's a small woman, Libertore. But you don't sense that at the outset--and not merely because we first see her standing astride a metal throne, her eggplant-colored velvet gown puffed out around her legs. Libertore's a skillful actress, commanding attention at once and never relinquishing it for the following hour-plus. Slowly raising a hand mirror towards her face, she draws it past her head then cocks it back like a club and holds it there just long enough to leave the impression that she will bring it down hard on the first one of us who gets out of line. 

And suddenly a voice sings out a sleazy, corrupted version of "Thank Heavens for Little Girls."



Libertore/Báthory slides the mirror across her curdled face, and she introduces herself by telling us what she has been called but is not (werewolf, tigress, vampire) and what she is (clearly a woman who's frightened of aging, although she certainly doesn't say so in those terms). She has a musical, vaguely Eastern European accent and a tone more confiding and insinuating than, for a woman of her station, haughty. With one or another lethal-looking metal object in hand, she will drift around and prowl the space, gliding close to us, recounting her history, telling stories in a narrative voice that readily slides from romance novel to soft porn to snuff film with alarming facility. Aside from gentle chuckles, the audience is pin-drop silent, completely in the snare of this slick and compelling, power-mad woman.



I was first introduced to Libertore's work in 2008 when she presented another solo piece, My Journey of Decay, at Dixon Place. She's a smart, gifted performer, confident in voice, timing, and movement in space, an actress with the wiliness of a shaman in the underworld and the surefootedness of a goat on a thin ledge.



Direction by Rosalie Purvis. With costumes by Jeff Sturdivant; scenic and prop design by Jono Lukas; and lighting by Amanda K. Ringger



Last chance to see Girl Meat: today at 3pm! Hurry! Click here for information and a brief video. For tickets, click here.

Dance New Amsterdam

280 Broadway, 2nd Floor, Manhattan

Entrance on Chambers Street

(directions)

212-227-9856

Student designer wins Limón competition

Sheryl Liu (scenic design, UC Irvine) has been selected to create the new sets and costumes for the Limón Dance Company’s upcoming revival of Limón’s 1956 masterwork The Emperor Jones, scheduled to premiere April 29 in Culiacan, Mexico, birthplace of Limón, followed by a tour of Mexico and presentation during the Company’s June 7-12 New York season at the John Jay Theater.

The Competition was sponsored by the Limón Dance Company and the National Endowment for the Arts as part of American Masterpieces for the purpose of bringing a fresh point of view to this acknowledged dance classic, on the occasion of its first restaging by the Company in 25 years. An invitation was extended to a select group of visual arts institutions in Mexico, Canada, and across the US , who invited a small group of their most talented students to apply. The Company received applications from young designers around the country, including Tennessee, California, New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, and 10 finalists were chosen.

Sheryl Liu was selected by the panel of judges that consisted of Carla Maxwell, Artistic Director of the Limón Dance Company; Roxane D’Orleans Juste, Company Associate Artistic Director; lighting designer Carol Mullins, and Clay Taliaferro, who learned the work directly from José Limón, danced the leading role, and will reconstruct and direct the revival.

SHERYL LIU is a third year scenic design student at UCIrvine. Her assisting credits include working in Alexander Dodge’s studio during the summer of 2009 on projects at the Old Globe, the Lansburgh, and the Roundabout Theater Company. Last summer she assisted Christopher Acebo at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Her designs for Salome and La bohème have been selected to be part of EMERGE: 2011 at the Prague Quadrennial, the world’s top international stage design exhibition. Design credits at UCIrvine include The Wild Party, The Laramie Project, Little Women, Cyrano de Bergerac, Into the Woods, and The Crucible.

THE EMPEROR JONES
Premiered July 12, 1956 at the Empire State Festival, Ellenville, New York
Choreography: José Limón
Commissioned Score: Heitor Villa-Lobos
Reconstructed and Directed by Clay Taliaferro

In the classic Eugene O’Neill play, Jones, a fugitive from a chain gang, sets himself up as emperor of an island domain. He becomes a tyrant, and his mistreatment of his subjects causes them to rebel, hunt him down, and bring him to an ignominious end. The dance makes no attempt to adhere to the play’s sequence, but rather seeks to give it another dimension. The various episodes which concern Jones’ encounter with visions and hallucinations encompassing his own personal, and later, his racial memories, are juxtaposed within the necessarily brief duration of a dance.

For further information on the Limón Dance Company and its upcoming programs, click here.

Anna Schon: Spirit in the dance

Why I Dance

by Anna Schon, Dance Magazine, February 5, 2011

You've got CLASSCLASSCLASS!

Hang on, New York! Spring will come...eventually...and with it, CLASSCLASSCLASS!

Classes ($10) and workshops ($15) will run 14 weeks from March 7 - June 12.

Teachers include: Hilary Clark, Chase Granoff, Chris Peck, Elizabeth Ward, luciana achugar, Melanie Maar, Walter Dundervill, Ana Isabel Keilson, Irfana Jetha, Lindsay Clark, Diana Crum, Madeline Best, Colin Gee, Mariana Valencia, Elizabeth Giron, Justine Lynch, Beth Gill, SKINT, Will Rawls, Marjani Forte, Tatyana Tenenbaum and Jen Rosenblit.

For more information, click here or contact classclassclassdance@gmail.com.

CLASSCLASSCLASS nurtures a continued future of dance pedagogy in New York City by engaging and developing a new generation of dance and performance artists as they teach their craft, while simultaneously making the act of taking and teaching class affordable to all.

Movement Research is partnering with CLASSCLASSCLASS in order to enable a fertile space for newer teachers to experiment with their craft under the umbrella of an established organization. In this partnership, CLASSCLASSCLASS maintains its own mission, goals and modus operandi.

Job opening at Evidence, A Dance Company

Evidence, A Dance Company - Managing Director

Their favorite Elizabeth Bishop

ELIZABETH BISHOP AT 100

presented by Poetry Society of America

Tuesday, February 8, 7:00pm

Free admission

The Great Hall, Cooper Union
7 East 7th Street at 3rd Avenue, Manhattan

(directions)

Twenty contemporary poets read a favorite poem by Elizabeth Bishop in honor of her centenary year, framed by excerpts from the new volume of correspondence, Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker. Featuring Paul Muldoon, Alice Quinn, and Maria Tucci reading selections of letters by Elizabeth Bishop and her New Yorker editors, and the following poets reading: Elizabeth Alexander, John Ashbery, Frank Bidart, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Tina Chang, James Fenton, Jonathan Galassi, Kimiko Hahn, Richard Howard, Yusef Komunyakaa, David Lehman, Robert Polito, Katha Pollitt, Marie Ponsot, Vijay Seshadri, Tom Sleigh, Mark Strand, Tracy K. Smith and Jean Valentine.

Co-sponsored by the Academy of American Poets; Farrar, Straus & Giroux; the National Book Foundation; Poets House; and the Unterberg Poetry Center, 92nd Street Y.

House of Olinghouse

Absolutely no advance tickets remain for Cori Olinghouse's voix de ville, but don't hesitate to get on the waiting list! You'd be mad to miss a chance to see this show, part of PLATFORM 2011: Body Madness, at Danspace Project.

Before I go further, let's get another layer of titling out of the way: DP ED Judy Hussie-Taylor--wearing her curator's hat this time--has labeled her chosen PLATFORM sequence "Part 1--Absurdity & Wit." All of this sounds impossibly clunky to my ears, but it really doesn't matter what Hussie-Taylor or her fellow PLATFORM curators call this or anything else. They have turned New York's contemporary dance scene upside down by radically expanding the nature of work we usually envision in the sanctuary of St. Mark's.

The lush jewel box of voix de ville ("voices of the city") contains three gems. Olinghouse's opener--The Animal Suite: Experiments in Vaudeville and Shapeshifting--deserves a more relaxed title. But its actual execution is pure, lapidarian grace. It lifts the audience away from time and into a fanciful world where vaudeville, eccentric, postmodern and house dance overlap, where gender identity ebbs and flows, and where fairytale birds and bears may coexist in peaceable spirit. The five-member cast is perfect--especially exquisite Olinghouse and Neal Beasley, whose Keatonesque-Chaplinesque dancing is a tasty joy.

(I think you'll enjoy this conversation between Olinghouse and MIT professor, writer and performer Thomas DeFrantz: Click here.)

The eccentrically-costumed Kota Yamazaki dances Itsuko san--part-Butoh, part-drag-from-hell, part fever dream--as splashes and splotches of music whimsically flare up and depart. His locomotion gets him from here to there but never through a straight path or with deliberate steps, and the dance just slips away, evaporates at the end. Quite right.

Elements of Vogue--created and performed by the truly legendary Archie Burnett (Olinghouse's master teacher) and Javier Ninja of the House of Ninja--ends the evening with a real house dance bang. Ninja is comically robotic and fussy to Burnett's sexy earthiness, but they both move with astonishing conviction and power.

Try to see voix de ville at Danspace Project tonight or tomorrow at 8pm. More information here and ticketing info here.

Danspace Project
St. Mark's Church
Second Avenue and 10th Street, Manhattan

Diasporan visions of Harlem's new photographers

Harlem Views/Diasporan Visions: The New Harlem Renaissance Photographers

An Interview with Curator Mary Yearwood

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

New York Public Library
515 Malcolm X Boulevard, Harlem
(map and directions)


Exhibition Hours: Monday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Sunday.

For exhibition information, call (212) 491-2200.

No admission fee; contributions and memberships are welcome.

Pomare's legacy celebrated in Harlem

The Eleo Pomare Dance Company presents

Eleo Pomare: The Man, The Artist, The Maker of Artists

an exhibit honoring the legacy of Eleo Pomare, 1937-2008

Opening Friday, February 11 (5-9pm)

Lorraine Monroe Leadership Institute

361 West 125th Street, 2nd Floor, Harlem

(between St. Nicholas and Morningside Avenues)

A, C, B, or D train to the 125th Street

212-531-0515

The Pomare Exhibit will feature artifacts from Mr. Pomare’s career, original paintings and poetry by Mr. Pomare, and photographs of Pomare dancers by artist, David Fullard. The Pomare Exhibit will be curated by Andi Owens, Director of the Genesis II Museum of International Black Culture on Strivers Row in Harlem.

 A brief program featuring a video of Dyane Harvey performing Pomare’s classic Roots (1972) will begin at about 7pm.

Please RSVP by Tuesday, February 8: Judith Mutunga, 212-531-0515 or jmutunga@lmli.org

Because Pomare’s choreographic works spanned the 50s through 2008 and captured key elements of American history including events, heroes, anti-heroes, and life, we are encouraging school groups of all ages to visit the exhibit and learn about the Pomare legacy. The exhibit will be open for school groups from 11am through 4:30pm Monday through Thursday, February 14-17. To arrange for your school group to attend, contact Judith Mutunga, 212-531-0515 or jmutunga@lmli.org.

The Eleo Pomare Dance Company is grateful to Dr. Lorraine Monroe, premier educator and founder of the Lorraine Monroe Leadership Institute for providing housing for this exhibit, which will be presented this spring in an expanded form at the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga Springs, New York.