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.