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)