Truckin' with Eric Fischl

Culture, Rolling Into Towns on Big Rigs
by Randy Kennedy, The New York Times, March 30, 2011

Great idea, really. But where's dance?

Iraqi refugee artists in Jordan

Iraqi Artists, Actors and Designers Try to Build New Lives in Jordan
by Rana F. Sweis, The New York Times, March 23, 2011

The future of NEA dance funding

Douglas Sonntag, Director of Dance and Performing Arts Division Team Leader at the National Endowment for the Arts, will speak on the future of dance funding from the NEA.

April 19, 7pm

Barnard College
(Diana Events Oval--lower level of The Diana Center)
3009 Broadway (on 117th Street, west side of Broadway), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Admission free, open to the public. Reservations are not required.

Discussion moderated by Paul Scolieri, Assistant Professor of Dance at Barnard College

For further information, email Mary Cochran or call 212-854-9769.

Scorched earth

You arrive at the Baryshnikov Arts Center and, if there’s a crowd, wait in a line that snakes through the lobby before you’re ushered into an elevator, twelve people at a time. When you reach the 6th floor, you can leave your coat on a rack before entering a very different kind of space created and inhabited by the Japanese-born dance/installation artists Eiko and Koma for the New York premiere of Naked: A Living Installation.

Step past a canvas wall decorated in black feathers and sand adhered to the fabric by sweet rice paste. Like a birder’s observation blind, it has some peep holes you can use to view the scene inside, but you will also find two entrances.

Your first impression on seeing the two nude performers reclining on a mound of scorched straw, feathers and sand, surrounded by a moat of brown earth might be that they look like chicks in a nest, not only pitiably vulnerable but actually dead with flesh resembling stone mounds or dried fish. Just a few feet away, audience observers stand, or sit on the floor or the few benches, in a respectful hush.

Clumps of what appears to be blackened seaweed dangle overhead and, in varying intensities, water drips from above from time to time. The space feels damp, smells of a post-fire forest or sand dune. A far, faint fog horn sounds. Lighting gets alternately stronger or weaker as time passes.

Watching carefully, you notice the bodies’ minute shifts, the way you might take note of the slightest shift of the leaf of a tiny plant on the forest floor as you pass close by. You might see Koma reaching for Eiko, his back muscle's micro-movements eventually carrying him close enough to make contact with Eiko who is very still, eyes sometimes closed, sometimes half-open and glazed.

It might be, in a moment of illumination, you suddenly realize that, with his feet resting against her ankles, and now his fingertips gently touching hers, their bodies form a circle.

Naked: A Living Installation--part of Carnegie Hall’s JapanNYC Festival and presented in partnership with Asia Society and Danspace Project--continues through April 9 in BAC’s Studio 6A, Tuesdays-Fridays 6pm-10pm and Saturdays 3pm-9pm. Admission is free, and you are invited to come any time during open hours and stay as long as you’d like. Reservations are encouraged: Click here. You can bring drawing and writing materials, but photography and videotaping are prohibited. Also, be sure to visit Studio 6B to view examples of Eiko and Koma's media work.

Information

Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)

Jacob's Pillow's online archives

Dance Along With Twyla and Other Online Nuggets
by Stephanie Goodman, The New York Times, March 29, 2011

In Summation, a benefit for Japan

Summation Dance Company invites you to a humanitarian benefit for Japan with all proceeds going to Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund.

Saturday, April 9, 8pm

Featuring a special performance of Keep Your Feathers Dry and a guest appearance by musician Kelli Scarr

NYU Tisch School of the Arts (5th Floor Theatre)
111 Second Avenue (between Bowery and 2nd Avenue), Manhattan
(directions)

For ticket information, click here.

Learn more about Summation Dance Company here.

Baryshnikov to auction painting

Baryshnikov Arts Center to Auction Off Favorite Painting of its Founder
by Carol Vogel, The New York Times, March 28, 2011

Matteo, 92

Matteo, Master of Spanish Dance Dies at 92
by Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times, March 29, 2011

When New York dance went Boom!

Dance critic Laura Jacobs takes a wide-ranging look back at New York's 1970 dance boom:

Dancing the Body Electric
by Laura Jacobs, City Journal, Winter 2011

LePage's folly

He Dreamed He Saw Kim Jong-il
Editorial, The New York Times, March 28, 2011

Roots and future at Hostos Center

Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture proudly announces its new music and dance program, The Young Roots Performance Series, designed to "showcase emerging artists experimenting with the artistic roots of Afro-Latino traditions to create new branches that reach into the future."

Check out Young Roots' first event: a collaborative exploration between dancer-choreographer Noemi Segarra and percussionist Henry Cole, "in which the artists loosely work on the edges of Cuban rumba and jazz improvisation." The audience will be seated on the stage!

Thursday-Friday, April 7-8 (7:30pm)

Also: Cultural Trolley preview, Wednesday, April 6 (6pm)

For further information about Young Roots and a conversation with Noemi Segarra, click here. 

Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture
450 Grand Concourse (at 149th Street), Bronx
(directions)

Elizabeth Taylor and the media

Elizabeth Taylor: Famous, but on Her Own Terms
by David Carr, The New York Times, March 27, 2011

Long live hula!

With the 19th Century arrival in Hawai'i of Christian missionaries from New England, hula--that living storehouse of language, genealogy, teaching, healing and prophecy--suffered a setback that would last for several decades. The Christians, with the acquiescence of converted ali’i (Hawai’ian chiefs), banned the practice of this complex ritual art and severely weakened its ancient and essential teacher-to-student lineages. Although some teaching and practice continued in secret, hula was not fully restored to the public arena until Hawai’i’s last king, the arts-friendly Kawika Kalakaua, first brought it back for a week-long celebration of his birthday.

Today, hula’s rich traditions are honored and preserved by dedicated schools and ensembles such as San Francisco’s Halau o Keikiali’i. Under the direction of Kumu Kawika Keikiali’ihiwahiwa Alfiche, the company made its New York debut last evening at Symphony Space, presented by World Music Institute, in a program of mele hula (traditional “danced poetry” hula) and hula ‘auana (modern hula performed to Western stringed instruments). The charming, energetic Kawika proved to be a deft kumu (teacher) indeed for all of us New Yorkers, guiding us through the program and putting everything in historical, aesthetic and spiritual context. "Hula," he told us, "is the language of the heart and the heartbeat of the Hawai'ian people."

As a woman of African-Caribbean heritage, mindful of all that was stripped from African captives during slavery's reign of terror, I am moved by Kawika's teachings. Our people were also long denied our heartbeat, the drum. We know the power of this heartbeat and of its surrogates in speech, song, dance and alternative means of percussion. We identify with the determination of the native Hawai'ian people to reclaim the richness of the hula way of life that preceded Western encounter.

The mele hula section opens with a procession to the stage, re-imagined as the sacred forest of hula goddess Laka. Bearing tropical plants symbolizing the goddess's body, celebrants request permission to enter this realm; their voices must convey the depth of their sincerity. Women tie red skirts around their billowing white petticoats; men with long vines and feathery circlets, chant their longing. Dances in this section involve the smooth, seamless coordination of gestures, isolations, directions and levels of the body, unerringly delivered by Kawika's disciplined corps. Dances, accompanied by poetic chants and a calabash drum, recount goddess Pele's journey through Hawai'i's islands in search of the right place to store her fires; goddess Hi'iaka's creation the forest from a bed of lava; sacred ceremonies and prophetic rituals; and celebrations to honor ancestors, chiefs and royalty.

To my surprise, I loved Halau o Keikiali’i's sample of hula 'auana with its modern instrumentation (guitar and ukelele, an import from Portugal) and romantic songs every bit as much as their upholding of ancient tradition. Of course, we're really not talking about the kind of modern hula you might see in an old Hollywood movie. These graceful dances benefit from the Kawika's careful attention to technique and dignity and the company's fluent, legible dancing. Old or new, this proud ensemble does justice to it all.

This program was offered for one night only, but be sure to watch for other opportunities to see Halau o Keikiali’i and click here for more information about this impressive organization.

Learn more about World Music Institute's mission, resources and upcoming programs here.

John Scott's "Fall and Recover" at La MaMa

We don't imagine we are by ourselves. That is how the dance healed us. 

It allowed us to open ourselves and reach out for help.

--a cast member of John Scott's Fall and Recover

I'm just realizing now that John Scott's program notes list no credit for lighting design, which leads me to my only partly fanciful conclusion that Fall and Recover, the ensemble work he has finally been able to bring to La MaMa's stage, gets its splendid lights from the natural radiance of its cast of dancers. So let me begin with appreciation for the luminous contributions of 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 the exception of Connaughton and Doyle (longtime members of Scott's critically acclaimed Irish Modern Dance Theatre), these performers come to their work from disturbing backgrounds. Survivors of torture and wrenching loss in their homelands--Angola, Uganda, Eritrea and some pointedly unidentified countries, nine nations in all--they sought asylum in Ireland. As clients of Dublin's Centre for the Care of Survivors of Torture, they participated in Scott's movement workshops. Fall and Recover, with original music composed and performed live with sparkling wizardry by Rossa O'Snodaigh, eventually developed out of these sessions. Fall and Recover is an atypical and therefore heartening choice to be included in the New York offerings of Culture Ireland's US-wide Imagine Ireland fest.

This piece defies expectations, curving towards postmodernist abstract impression and suggestion, rather than literal declaration. In addition, the dancers underscore not past oppression and violence but resilient vitality, beauty and the humane exchange of support across differences of language and culture. Near the beginning, two women sit side by side as one calmly relates a story, possibly something of her experience, in an African language, periodically nodding and gesturing. Her silent companion--who is not African--nods when she does, careful to gesture in the same way as if to say, "You speak, but I might as well be speaking. We are very different but, nevertheless, we align."

While Scott's choreography pays detailed attention to individuality, at times highlighting the specific skills and contributions of each performer, it is the ensemble's moments of unity that most move me. One happens as members of the ensemble grasp hands and form a diagonal line, all of them speaking at once in their various tongues, as they advance, angle away or recede from us. The line looks massive, impenetrable; the force of the line also seems difficult, and one can imagine Scott being a bit overwhelmed by all of the assembled energy of a crowd of people with so much trauma that would not be, could not be, directly addressed. Scott reminds us of Doris Humprey's teaching that the moment between a fall and recovery--"the arc swept by a body moving between equilibrium and uncontrol"--contains power, contains the future.

Aside from gorgeous lighting and O'Snodaigh's imaginative variety of sounds, Fall and Recover benefits from an often fresh use of space and visual design. See this beautiful production at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre through April 9, Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30pm and Sundays at 2:30pm. (tickets)

Audio file: Leonard Lopate interviews choreographer John Scott and performers Nina and Kiribu on WNYC (15:41)

Ellen Stewart Theatre at La MaMa
66 East 4th Street (between Bowery and Second Avenue), Manhattan
(directions)

Doug Varone at The Joyce

Here's my Dance Magazine review of Doug Varone and Dancers at The Joyce Theater (March 15-20). Click here.

Kashu-juku Noh Theater at Japan Society

In light of the tragic, still-unfolding events in Japan, the explicit message from Japan Society last evening could not have been clearer: Please focus on the depth, breadth and endurance of our culture.

With sober, subdued elegance, Japan Society presented the New York debut of Kashu-juku Noh Theater, the Kyoto-based troupe now touring North America. These sold-out performances, continuing tonight and tomorrow at 7:30pm, are presented in conjunction with Carnegie Hall's JapanNYC Festival. A useful lecture, starting at 6:30 each evening and free to ticket-holders, traces the history and explores the aesthetics of noh and kyogen--elite, ritualistic theatrical forms rooted in Japan’s medieval warrior age, carefully tended by generations of masters, actors and musicians since the 14th Century. We are also treated to enticements to visit Kyoto.

Kashu-juku, under founder-director Katayama Shingo, has brought us three samples of the tradition:

An excerpt from Yashima: Here Umewaka Naoyoshi performs a famous mai-bayashi (a stripped-down solo in which musicians and chanters accompany a principal actor/dancer who performs mask-less and in a simple costume). A warrior’s ghost remembers a furious battle at sea: “I feel as if I am returning to that time again...the moon shines...light reflecting off the swords...the metallic helmets like stars in the sky...” As if drawing an abstract diagram on the floor, Umewaka advances and retreats, thrusts and withdraws, retracts a trembling gold/green fan and, kneeling, folds it. In an eerie kind of homeopathy, the violence of the ancient events, as replayed in his memory, is distilled to these simple, refined and, yes, ghostly actions set against the harshness of exceptionally spare drum beats, piercing flute notes and vocal whoops.

Boshibari (Tied to a Pole): A fine example of a kyogen, or comic dance, often performed as an interlude between noh acts. If noh represents the rarefied world of gods and aristocracy, the homelier kyogen gets down and dirty into the everyday world. In this piece, a master (Shimada Hiromi) attempts to prevent his servants from stealing his sake by tying them up--one standing with wrists lashed to a long pole; the other kneeling, with his hands restrained behind his back. It’s “a bothersome fix,” as the servants say. However, these two guys--Shigeyama Ippei and Shigeyama Doji--quickly figure out a clever and, yes, increasingly drunken workaround. This becomes quite a rocky dance and, with its outcome, one of the funniest parts of a sweetly amusing performance.

Aoi No Ue (Lady Aoi) draws from the legendary Tale of Genji and deals with Prince Genji’s jealous, vengeful mistress, Lady Rokujo (Katayama Shingo), possessing the being of her rival, the pregnant Lady Aoi (here represented, brilliantly, by a robe ritualistically folded and placed near the edge of the stage). As in the previous pieces, a monitor set to one side of the broad stage renders the Japanese dialogue in English. I was grateful for the translation, although I disliked having to glance away from the action. During Aoi no Ue, I missed most of the dialogue simply because its intense, pregnant stillness mesmerized me--as did the ultimately crucial rasp of prayer beads--and I could rarely avert my eyes.

Kashu-juku Noh Theater is sold out, but it’s worth taking a shot at the waiting list, beginning at 6:30pm at the box office.

Japan Society
333 East 47th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)

Lift every voice!

New York City Labor Chorus Adds Strength to Message
by Clyde Haberman, The New York Times, March 24, 2011

Tell me again: Who's in charge?

A New Choreographer for 'Spider-Man'
by Patrick D. Healy, The New York Times, March 24, 2011

Lanford Wilson, 73

Lanford Wilson, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright, Dies at 73
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, March 24, 2011

Elizabeth Taylor, 79

Hollywood Legend Elizabeth Taylor Dies 
WNYC, March 23, 2011

Elizabeth Taylor, Lifelong Screen Star, Dies at 79
by Mel Gussow, The New York Times, March 23, 2011

Trisha Brown: The air is full of pictures

The air is full of pictures no matter where you reach in.

(Jack Gilbert, "The Difficult Beauty" from The Dance Most of All)

I was reading The Dance Most of All, Jack Gilbert's book of poems, during intermission at Dance Theater Workshop's presentation of the Trisha Brown Dance Company. I came across the line above and thought, "Wow, that's really true. That's exactly how I experience Brown's spacious world." And we reach in, again and again, because it is such a joy to do so.

Particularly true of Foray Forêt (1990) with the subtly Near East opulence of its Rauschenberg costumes, the tantalizing near/far wanderings of its offstage/outdoors marching band, and its generous abundance of movement. Particularly true of the easy-flowing yet precisely connected and rendered macro- and micro-movements danced by Brown's tribe with their yielding knees and wafting arms and the assured and articulate, if arcane, hieroglyphics of it all.

The invisible, peripatetic band--conductor Tom Goodkind's TriBattery Pops, a volunteer crew of Tribeca and Battery Park residents--plays a repertoire stretching from "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" to jazz. The strange effect of "following" them with our ears alone as they move outside our vision creates a sense of a wider space in which Brown and the dancers make their work. It's a distinctly American and diverse environment, one with complicated history encoded in the very things that are meant to entertain us or rally us. At first, Brown's serene dancers seem to inhabit a rarified enclave, but then you realize that they're co-existing with the world implied by the music, not contradicting it, and maybe it is gently informing what they're doing. After all, Brown is an American shaped, as we all are, by popular culture and circumstances. Although nothing is crudely underscored, you begin to see places where music and movement fondly caress each other.

In the midst of all of this heady material, please be sure to keep an eye on Elena Demyanenko. The way she places her feet, cocks her head, draws and expels her breath are all of a piece, a deep, connected way of dancing the incredibly complex coordinates that looks like a way of addressing the incredibly complex demands of life--burning within, alert, intuitive and wise.

More power to Neal Beasley for taking on a legendary, iconic Brown solo--Watermotor (1978). Perhaps it's a matter of physical difference--he is compact--but his explosive attack turns Watermotor into a very different dance (which might be just fine with Brown). I found it hard to see the movement slip through his body the way it slipped through hers. I saw the periphery of the rapid movement instead of the play of the rapids. I saw the end result of the force, a virtuosic, if considerably less interesting, performance.

For M.G.: The Movie (1991)--with its audacious stillness, even more audacious repetition (check out that nearly endless opening sequence), cheesy theatrical special effects and stilted movement aesthetics--seems to be anything but a dance critic favorite. However, the key to it, I think, might be Time--both literally giving it time to work on you and, after you've seen how it shapes up, thinking back over how Brown fractures and distorts time throughout. I can't claim that I feel drawn to this work, but I do think Brown's doing something here around time that's intriguing.

Hard to believe that this season marks this company's debut at Dance Theater Workshop. Trisha Brown Dance Company. Dance Theater Workshop. All I'm sayin'.

See Trisha Brown Dance Company tonight through Saturday at 7:30pm (program and ticket information)

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

Writes of Spring

FIRE & INK, INC

invites you to

WRITES OF SPRING

A Benefit for Fire & Ink 

featuring

STACEYANN CHIN and CARL HANCOCK RUX

Saturday, April 30, 7-11pm

Food, festivities, music and readings, hosted by Steven G. Fullwood and Reginald Harris

$25 per person (All proceeds benefit Fire & Ink, Inc.)

For location information and to purchase advance tickets, click here.

Unapologetically Caribbean and Black, Asian and lesbian, woman and New Yorker, Staceyann Chin is the author of the memoir, The Other Side of Paradise. Award-winning poet, playwright, novelist, essayist and recording artist, Carl Hancock Rux is the author of Asphalt and Pagan Operetta.

Fire & Ink, Inc. is devoted to increasing the understanding, visibility and awareness of the works for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender writers of African descent and heritage.

For additional information, please email Steven G Fullwood or Reginald Harris.

Daphne Rubin-Vega takes Center Stage

Daphne Rubin-Vega’s solo show, FUQ’s: Frequently Unanswered Questions, is a rock and roll infused odyssey about the bonds of a family separated not just by the Gulf of the Caribbean but an even wider gulf–unspoken love and longing–and the loneliness of being the last one standing. (More here)

Tonight and Thursday, 8pm

Women Center Stage
presented by Culture Project
at The Living Theatre
21 Clinton Street (at East Houston), Manhattan
(directions)
866-811-4111 (ticketing)

That's debatable!

The Field and the Abrons Arts Center invite you to

 

ERPA (Economic Revitalization for Performing Artists)

Next Gen Debate Series

Using a structured debate format with a moderator, participants will be divided into teams to debate some of the issues pin-pointed in the roundtables. Join The Field and host, Abrons Art Center, for the first of a series of fiery and critical discussions in the performing arts community.

Hypermedia Marketing: Alienating or Inviting?

Monday, April 11, 7pm

Twitter, Facebook, blogs, websites, apps etc.: What do these do to an already tense and widening generational gap? How can one stay afloat and keep tabs on every stream? How do you decide what level of engagement is right for you? Is this an opportunity or an obstacle for the performing arts community? This debate will investigate the myriad ways this “flood of material” is (mis)used, consumed and disseminated.

Debaters include Brian McCormick, Mathew Heggem, SarahAO Rosner, Wendy Perron and Eva Yaa Asantewaa!

"Starving Artist" vs. Entrepreneur: Is the language we use around the arts helping or hurting?

Tuesday, May 17, 7pm

Using a structured debate format with a moderator, participants will be divided into teams to debate and discuss the following issues. Do you pay yourself a living wage to make your work? Do you value your work as something that needs to happen? Does “non-profit” equal art-as-charity, a luxury commodity, a non-necessity? Does it support entrepreneurship? How does this language help art-makers to be seen, fundraise and be recognized as important and critical?

Debaters include Morgan von Prelle Pecelli, Jean Ann Douglass, Catherine Peila and Shalonda Ingram!

ERPA: Next Gen Debate Series
Abrons Art Center (Underground Theater)
466 Grand Street (at Pitt Street), Manhattan
(directions)

Preserving African culture in Georgia

Holding on to Gullah Culture
by Erica R. Hendry, Smithsonian Magazine, March 2011

Artists boycott Abu Dhabi Guggenheim

Artists Boycott Abu Dhabi Guggenheim Over Migrant Workers' Rights
by Julia Furlan, WNYC Culture, March 19, 2011

Never too late...

A Critic, Returns to His Music Roots
by Tom Moon, The New York Times, March 19, 2011

A touch of Morocco at the Met

History's Hands: Metropolitan Museum’s Moroccan Courtyard Takes Shape
by Randall Kennedy, The New York Times, March 17, 2011

What a difference...

...a dancer makes.

I'm thinking of Katherine Crockett, that tall drink of water, brightening my evening as she defined the prophetic Chorus in Martha Graham's Cave of the Heart. She works that broad-striped fabric of her costume, unfolds it like a condor's wings and radiantly projects over what seems a vast distance in space and time with dire, desperate gestures that, for all their silence, "sound" to me like trumpets. I saw her, I heard her. There was no one and nothing like her on stage, then or later. Everything else seemed carefully managed and remote--even Bulareyaung Pagarlava's brand-new Chasing, a work that sets out to prove that Graham standard bearers can cut loose and frisk around. (Martha Graham Dance Company at The Rose Theater, now through Sunday. Click here for information and tickets.)

Souleymane Badolo (photo: Julie Lemberger for 92Y)

Speaking of difference, curating is something new and different for the great Jawole Willa Jo Zollar of Urban Bush Women fame. With her lineup for 92Y, running this weekend, she's offering a chance to watch distinctive performers like Souleymane Badolo, Lacina Coulibaly (his Burkina Faso compatriot), Maria Bauman, Samantha Speis and surprise guest Christal Brown bring ideas and space to gleaming life. The program includes works by Badolo and Bauman and two works inspired by Zollar's "Blind Date" invitation in which she matches pairs of dance artists for a last-minute creative relationship, just hours before the actual performance. If you, as a dance fan, look for the cohesion and depth that long-term creative process allows, this sort of thing is certainly a gamble, but the intelligence and power of these select artists reward Zollar's risk and your time. Having a chance to see a program with so much Badolo and Badolo choreography in it made me notice his uncanny relationship to performance space, the way he habitually dwells in or treads its periphery, rarely occupying its center or sending his dancers there. If memory serves me, I've seen this sort of thing in much of his work. Now I'm eager to find out why. (Jawole Willa Jo Zollar Curates, 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival, now through Sunday. Click here for information and tickets.)

Japan Society's Concert for Japan

CONCERT FOR JAPAN

Saturday, April 9 (11am to 11pm)

at Japan Society

Japan Society presents a 12 hour concert benefiting organizations that directly help people affected by the earthquake and tsunamis that struck Japan. With dozens of music acts and performances throughout the day, confirmed performers for the 6-8 pm gala block, organized by John Zorn, include Philip Glass; Hal Willner; Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson and Zorn; Ryuichi Sakamoto; and Bill Laswell and gigi band.

Special activities will be available for all ages, from making paper cranes and washi lanterns for good luck, to basic Japanese language classes, to unlimited access to Bye Bye Kitty!!!.

100% of the admission sales from this event will go to the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund.

Food and drink will be available for purchase.

Japan Society
333 East 47th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)

UBW: Breaks, Beats & Battles

On Wednesday, March 16, dance your way from the 80's to now with Urban Bush Women company members Bennalldra Williams and Marjani Forté!

7pm / $15 at door; $12 for students w/ valid ID; $10 with advance RSVP: Click here to RSVP

UBW dancers Forté and Williams lead Breaks, Beats & Battles, a fun participatory examination of history through the lens of African American social dances from the 80’s and 90’s. No experience needed. Come ready to boogie!

Refreshments? ALWAYS!

Location: The Great Room - A.R.T. NY building
138 South Oxford Street, 2nd Floor
(between Hanson Place and Atlantic Avenue)
Brooklyn

Directions: 1 block from C train to Lafayette
2 blocks from G train to Fulton St.
4 blocks from B/D/M/N/Q/R/2/3/4/5 to Atlantic Station

Information: Call 718-398-4537 or click here.

Being Bushified! is Urban Bush Women’s monthly culture and community series that introduces you to the UBW way and brings you into our community through dance, workshops, conversations and films that show what a great impact dance has on health and wellness, education, communities, individuals and innovation.

One man's trash...

George Emilio Sanchez performs

Buried Up To My Neck While Thinking Outside The Box

Okay, so why is this guy buried up to his neck in garbage? Find out at Club La MaMa, March 25-27.

Writer/performer George Emilio Sanchez describes Buried Up To My Neck While Thinking Outside the Box as "a motionless monologue inspired a little by Beckett's Happy Days minus the spouse." The piece "spans the scope of fictional memoir to philosophical questions that ponder the meaning of happiness in a democratic society."

Friday and Saturday, 10pm
Sunday 5:30pm

Club La MaMa
47A East 4th Street (between Bowery and Second Avenue)
Second Floor
(directions)

Click here for details and ticketing.

Color me...itchy

LA-based itch is at it again. Hot off the email, here's their latest call for submissions!

*****

Calling all writers, dreamers, bunnies, drifters and drawers...

Please find below the call for submissions to itch #13. We hope that you will share something with us. The submission deadline is April 15th.

Feel free to send questions to us (submit@itchjournal.org)

in love,
team itch

*****

For 2011, the Year of the Rabbit, we present
itch #13 -- The Magic Rabbit: a coloring book of expulsions for embracing radical vibrations


You underdog you... Ahem,"rabbit". You never really wanted to fight. You taught us to expel murkiness and fear, and in exchange embrace the bizarre and irreconcilable things that we love, that give life to our living.

Your hidden teachings taught us to take to our curiosity. That living by our own wits can be an act of protest in and of itself... To approach living and art-making the same way we did our favorite coloring book: draw big bold outlines around the things that matter and turn it all polychromatic.

Besides, we never stopped loving coloring books. They provided us the important exercise of recognizing grossly oversimplified (for better or worse) visions of the world and the opportunity to place our colorful mess within it. Crayons were our first lesson in a type of intervention that was about dreaming up a world we wanted to see and inserting the details that mattered.

How did you color?

In this year of the rabbit and itch's 5th anniversary, we offer up an invitation to talk about celebrations, new modes of protest and approaches to making a mark in the world. Let's bring back the soft, meandering clarity of our childhood minds as a force for re-conceiving the past, present and future. Dream us up a fable, a drawing, or share your research, first-hand experiences or future fantasies.


Some rabbits/suggestions we've pulled out of the hat:

how do you mark space to honor your capacity to occupy, do, love, create and act as you desire?

In what (magic rabbit) ways do you wander across templates, borders, language, policy, etc?

What frames do you create, recreate, or otherwise make visible the world you want to live in?

How do you personalize/magical-ize/colorize your surroundings?

How do you mess with the codes of art-making, living, socializing, political action, etc?

What does play mean? How do you maintain play in your life?

What irreconcilable things can't you live without?

Lover but not a fighter? Discuss.

What's making you happy these days?

Alternative modes of competition...

What acts do you expel in the quest for magic?


Also: Coloring book illustration portfolio contest
draw, steal, dream up an image that you'd like to have colored in.

Let’s make a mess together.

Submission deadline: April 15th, 2011

 
Send submissions, questions and provocations as attached, uncompressed word files or pdfs to submit@itchjournal.org
 
No pre-published submissions, please.

Please include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and your mailing address with your submission.

itch is an evolving art project in the form of a journal that aspires to serve the community of dancers and other artists of the Los Angeles area and beyond. Practice participation in the developing LA dance culture: insert your thoughts, your body, your voice. help itch grow should you be enhanced by it...

submit volunteer donate distribute subscribe participate!

NDNF fest presents "Pariah"

Here's one more must-see film from the Film Society of Lincoln Center's upcoming New Directors/New Films Festival, 40th Anniversary edition:

Pariah (US, 2011)

Written and directed by Dee Rees

86 min.
a Focus Features release

Oh, my, oh, my. 

Dee Rees's semiautobiographical Pariah is a fine, fine work of art. The story of young Black teenager's coming out as a lesbian in Fort Greene, Brooklyn has nearly everything going for it--a remarkably brisk pace, Rees's sharp ear for dialogue and true affection for her characters, the immediate and lasting appeal of her actors. About the only turnoff is the occasional, queasy-making hyperactivity of Bradford Young's camera but, thankfully, there's not a whole lot of shaking and swerving going on. For the most part, Young's eye is stable and stellar, with an aesthetic of light and color that makes this film delectable.

Aasha Davis, left, with Adepero Oduye
 (Photo: Focus Features)

Young budding writer Alike (pronounced Ah-LEE-kay), played by Adepero Oduye, is a work-in-progress, challenged to discover herself and take her place in the world while caught between far more experienced friends and a fearful, frustrated, controlling mother. Oduye has charm to burn and a sensitive fluidity in her acting that makes you care about her from the start. But you really come to care about everyone here. The excellent cast also includes Pernell Walker (as Alike's best pal, Laura), Kim Wayans (as the difficult mom), Charles Parnell (her interestingly complex detective dad), Aasha Davis (Bina, another friend) and Sahra Mellesse (Sharonda, Alike's younger sister).

We clamor for more high-quality projects for talented Black actors. Now here's a worthy project of that caliber, and--guess what?--it comes from a Black lesbian writer/director, telling a Black lesbian's exemplary story. Hooray!

See Pariah at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center on March 26 (8pm) or at the Museum of Modern Art on March 28 (9pm). For more information and ticketing, click here. And here's the film's official Web site.

Reading between worlds

My dance writer colleague Lori Ortiz is running a contest on her blog, ReadingDance. Visit, take a spin around and find out how you can win tickets to the Off-Broadway flamenco and drumming spectacle, Between Worlds.

Photographing Nijinsky

Nijinsky's Strange Photography Session with E.O. Hoppe
by Debra Levine, The Huffington Post, March 13, 2011

Black swan in Rome

When in Rome...
by Aesha Ash, The Black Swan Diaries, March 9, 2011

Holland Cotter on "Glenn Ligon: America"

Messages That Conduct an Electric Charge
by Holland Cotter, The New York Times, March 10, 2011

Glenn Adamson on "The Global Africa Project"

Tsunami Africa
by Glenn Adamson, Art in America, March 2011

1st NY Dominican film fest

First NY Dominican Film Festival Comes To Washington Heights
Janaya Williams, WNYC Culture, March 11, 2011

NDNF: Watch for these films

I'm recommending two interesting films to watch for in the Film Society of Lincoln Center's upcoming New Directors/New Films Festival, 40th Anniversary edition:

Six, Seven, Eight (Egypt, 2010)

Written and directed by Mohamed Diab

North American premiere

100 min.

Arabic with English subtitles

Inspired by actual events, this film interweaves the lives of three young Egyptian women of different class backgrounds and lifestyles, all victimized by sexual harrassment in a culture that privileges men and routinely overlooks these crimes. Diab's expert facility for narrative--applying both dramatic tension and humor--almost turns this fervent arc towards justice into a soap opera. But the straightforward accessibility of his storytelling in no way undercuts the impact of its message and the lasting impression delivered by lead actresses Boshra, Nelly Karim and Nahed El Sebai and by Maged El Kedwany, Diab's savvy detective.

See Six, Seven, Eight at the Museum of Modern Art on March 26 (3:30pm) or at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center on March 28 (9pm). For more information and ticketing, click here and here.

Black activist Angela Davis (photo by Story)

 The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (Sweden, 2011)

Written and directed by Göran Hugo Olsson

A Sundance Selects release

100 min.

Swedish filmmakers discovered a 30-year-old forgotten treasure trove of footage that documented the history and major leaders of the U.S. Black Power movement of the '60s and '70s. They mixed that up with commentary from artists, scholars and activists such as Harry Belafonte, Robin Kelly, Sonia Sanchez, Erykah Badu and Talib Kweli. At turns, provocatively questioning and surprisingly intimate, this film--as well as the political philosophies and strategies it examines--has decided resonance for us today. It's also an often beautiful and heart-wrenching work of art.

See The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 at the Museum of Modern Art on March 26 (9pm) or at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center on March 28 (6pm). For more information and ticketing, click here.

He's melting, melting...

Night of the Melting Buddha

To mark the closing of Grain of Emptiness, the Rubin Museum of Art has asked South Korean photographer Atta Kim to document the melting of a five-foot-tall ice sculpture of the Buddha. Visitors can participate in the work by collecting the melting water with the injunction that they use it to tend to new growth.

 

The melting begins on Friday, March 25 at 6pm during K2 Friday Night, and the museum will be open after hours so that it can be viewed through the night and into the weekend.

For more information on this event, click here.

Rubin Museum of Art

150 West 17th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues), Manhattan

(directions)

NYLA, for your viewing pleasure

New York Live Arts Community Welcome Session

Filmed February 19th, 2011. Co-Presented by Dance/NYC.

The leadership of New York Live Arts: Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and Dance Theater Workshop re-imagined, conduct a panel to discuss the decisions and visions behind New York Live Arts. Moderated by Michelle Coffey

Startin' somethin'

Judy Hussie-Taylor's Danspace Project is going all out, busting out the pleasure, the humor, the joy. No shame in this, my friends, because in godawful times--which is definitely where we find ourselves now--we need to hold on to what's best about us as humans, or what's the point?

Dancer-choreographers Michelle Dorrance and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards are sharing a show--curated, with wicked glee, by David Parker--that explodes St. Mark's Sanctuary with the excitement of tap dance. I cannot say for sure that tap dance has never shown up at Danspace Project but, certainly, it has never shown up there quite like this.

So, first reason to go, if you can get in: Parker and his artists are making dance history. Second reason: If you don't know these two women--and, if so, where the hell have you been?--it's time to catch up with them. They be slammin'. There's Sumbry-Edwards, a paragon of authority and earthy glamour, the woman who taught Michael Jackson to tap dance and pays tribute to him here with her Blood on the Dance Floor ensemble. The punk-geek Dorrance, with her stylistic penchant for all things goofy, off-kilter and marginal, brings a fresh explorer's vision to dance-making within an art form with closely held traditions, and she's got serious chops as a dancer, too.

I insist that you become acquainted with young dancers like Cartier Williams (a mighty bantam) and Caleb Teicher (oh, my...what grace, what ease, what potential stardom) as well as rangy, mile-high Ryan P. Casey and his wonderful partner Elena Steponaitis who dance Dorrance's rag duet in Dorrance's a petite suite.

Tickets are sold out, but there's a waiting list! Check it out here.

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

Save Daghdha

"On the 28th of February 2011 Daghdha Dance Company (Limerick, Ireland) has been informed of a 100% funding cut by the Arts Council of Ireland. We believe this cut to be unjust and call for this decision to be revoked."

Read more and sign the petition to help Daghdha: Save Daghdha Petition

Brukup Brooklyn

Revival in Brooklyn of Brukup, Afro-Caribbean Dance
by Cathay Che, The New York Times, March 8, 2011

Are we here?

This is where we are (or take arms against a sea of troubles), a new piece by K. J. Holmes, inhabits The Chocolate Factory in such an intimate way that I would blush if that were possible for me. It is less a multidisciplinary dance as a cluster of natural forces that ooze and rub and blow and explode around the raw architecture of the space. Being natural forces, they resist containment.

Your evening starts in the Choc’s narrow, stuffy waiting area as you stand, gazing up those familar metal steps into the building’s upstairs theater. A few madly-dressed dancers slither from the door and over the brick walls. Through the open door, you can see dramatic blue lighting and more dancing deep into the space. It looks wild, like something shaken a very, very long time ago and just now revealed.

Eventually, dancers lead everyone downstairs and scatter to all points, and seemingly, all crevasses in the semi-darkness as audience members take seats on folding chairs. The smell of pine fills the air; heaps of sad little Christmas trees and their chopped-off branches and slabs and curls of bark litter the space, a forest primeval animated by yodels, the shushing slip of feet across the floor, and the spare but resonant live music. A half-naked woman slowly swims across a wall. She becomes engulfed in and stained by a projection, trapped in a stained glass image, and later buried beneath pine branches as she and Holmes intone an indecipherable chant.

More occurs in this claustrophobic space, and then we’re pointed up the stairs and lined up in tightly spaced rows against a long wall. Here, as if we’ve climbed a mountain, the dominant feeling is one of acceleration, rushing air. Bodies, music, visual projections and spoken words, according to a program note, gathered from everywhere--from Socrates to Mother Goose, from Harold Pinter to Howard Zinn--whip up and spread throughout the space, sliced from their contexts. These elements sometimes split your focus around the room, or they collide.

There’s witchy beauty, and this ambitious production should be experienced. I must admit, though, that as the hour unfolded, I started to feel like a mother sitting with an exceedingly bright, curious child who’s excited to show me more and more and more and more precious, fascinating discoveries. It left me exhausted and dazed, certain of only one thing--sometimes all the words in the world are inadequate to explain where we are and why.

Performed by a strong cast including Holmes, Jodi Bender, Keith Biesack, Marin Sander-Holzman, Kathy Westwater, Devika Wickremesinghe

With musicians Doug MacKenzie, David Moss and Charlie Rauh; lighting and projection designer Tom Ontiveros; costume design catalyst Ella Veres. Recorded text by Julie Carr.

This is where we are (or take arms against a sea of troubles) continues through Saturday evening, 8pm. For tickets, click here.

The Chocolate Factory
5-49 49th Avenue, Long Island City
(map and directions)

In step with writer Ennis Smith

Ennis Smith

I'm enjoying this amazing, dynamic new multifaceted arts site created by one of my former Writing on Dance students, Ennis Smith. Be sure to check it out!

Rays of light

My body is a halfway house for a ray of light. -- Marc Bamuthi Joseph

Last evening, 651 Arts brought together the fabulous Ntozake Shange and Marc Bamuthi Joseph--"fabulous" modifies both of them, thank you--for a conversation that could have, should have gone on all night. From the outset--with Joseph explaining that his middle name means "of the trees" and Shange acknowledging that "trees carry spirits"--everyone could feel that these two charming, multi-talented, politically astute artists ride the same wavelength and have much to share. I'm still buoyed and buzzing from this one-time-only, one-of-a-kind, event, which took place before a full and fully mesmerized audience at the Mark Morris Dance Center as part of 651 Arts' Live & Outspoken series.

 

Joseph opened by offering excerpts from Word Becomes Flesh, a solo that takes the familiar concept of spoken word and pumps it up into super-embodied word--a steady roll of movement, narrative and allegorical characterization treating historical and societal realities. Later, as Shange interviewed him, Joseph cited the world-renowned Tap God. "The way Savion Glover hears rhythm and channels it through his body is the way I aspire to hear language and channel it through my body," he said. "The body is the primary mechanism for carrying a story and for the making of ritual." He certainly has come a long way from the nine-year-old who--auditioning for Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk--did not know how to dance. Unimaginable!

Like Joseph, we were all beguiled by the presence of the author of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. Shange, as interviewer, brought insightful questions and an effervescent spirit of generosity and wit. Imagine Shange--"she who walks like a lion"--wondering about the distinction between Ruby Keeler (of the hard-charging feet) and Ginger Rogers (of the light-skimming feet) and Joseph answering with a juicily word-embodied elucidation of the Afro-Haitian snake god, Damballah. Pure joy, pure joy. The two of them should really take this act on the road.

For Colored Girls deeply influenced the young Joseph, to be sure, and clearly directed his sense of compassion towards women and his commitment to playing a positive role as educator and activist. It would have been great to hear a little about his concern for environmental issues and eco-equity, described as "the radically democratic position that poor communities and communities of color are logistically and psychologically included in the new, clean and green economy." But if this interests you, keep watch for his upcoming performance project--red black and green: a blues. You can find out more about it at Life is Living.

To keep pace with 651 Arts, click here. Next up: poet-activist Amiri Baraka interviews actor-director Stephen Henderson, April 5, 7pm. (Information and ticketing)

The Brick launches Iranian theater fest

Iranian Theater Festival at the Brick
by Larry Rohter, The New York Times, March 2, 2011

Speaking our truths: American Slavery Project

Here's a note of appreciation for The New Black Fest's American Slavery Project and last evening's presentation--a reading of Judy Tate's play Fast Blood--at CAP 21 with support from 651 Arts. Directed by Melissa Maxwell, this play deals with a perilous, potentially transformative moment in the lives of Black slaves and white slaveholders in the American South of 1845. Tate is blessed with a compelling eight-member cast--in particular, Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr., Messeret Stroman, Shane Taylor and William C. Sullivan--insightful and powerful performers all.

The American Slavery Project initiates "new conversations around theater’s role in counteracting the increasing revisionism in our political/social discourse about the Civil War and slavery" and "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."

Look for future presentations in this series of free readings and discussions. For program information click here. To make reservations, click here.

Stop the world! I wanna dance!

dance anywhere®

What if the world stopped to dance?

Friday, March 18, 2011

6 continents, 27 countries, 316 cities

dance anywhere® is a global public art event taking place on Friday, March 18, 2011 at noon PST (3pm in NYC; 8pm in Paris or Rome). 

Created by San Francisco Bay Area based artist Beth Fein in 2005, dance anywhere® has turned into a world wide dance party with thousands of participants across the United States and as far away as Namibia, Australia and Shanghai.

Where will you be?

at work? taking a lunch break? in class? running an errand? in line at the bank? the library? the grocery store? walking the dog in the park?… do something different! change your routine … Tap your foot, move a little, bob your head…with your friends, family or colleagues or strangers on the street - wherever you will be - join thousands everywhere around the world
Please join us this year and help spread the word about this inspiring event!

For full details about this event, visit us on our website.

Event info on Facebook

dance anywhere's Facebook page

Follow us on Twitter: @danceanywhere
This is a FREE event! You can login to the website and create your profile to promote yourself or your dance company's dance anywhere® event.

Throwing away that program? Think again!

Of Programs and Archives
by Camille LeFevre, Mélange, March 6, 2011

Chicago arts, you've got a mayor!

Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel on the arts: Dance, gritty theater and a shift towards neighborhoods
by Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune, March 4, 2011

Struggling Brooklyn church shelters artists

Artists Find Accommodating Landlord: A Struggling Brooklyn Parish
by Tim Sohn, The New York Times, March 6, 2011

But where will the tribes gather?

Place in East Village Where Emotions Became Poetry Is for Sale
by Colin Moynihan, The New York Times, March 6, 2011

Tribute to Odetta

Performances @ the Schomburg presents

Women’s Jazz Festival:
In Tribute to Odetta: This Little Light Of Mine
with Bernice Johnson Reagon, Lizz Wright and Toshi Reagon

Monday, March 28, 7pm

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
New York Public Library
515 Malcolm X Boulevard, Manhattan
(directions)

As both a woman and musician Odetta was a pioneer. There were others who had introduced African American songs and singing to the concert stage before she began her work. However, Odetta plowed a new road of expression and information as she wove together her distinctively powerful voice, her understanding of the classical approach, and a masterfully curated gathering of songs from a wide breath of American history and experience. Her repertoire included work songs, prison songs, freedom songs of the Civil Rights movement, blues, spirituals, and great American ballads. She could not be held to a category and her signature delivery of conviction and focus could reveal each song as a living poem, continuously unfolding in perspective and meaning.

 For information and ticketing, click here.

Circus in extremis

Circa--featuring acrobatic dancers based in Brisbane, Australia--presents hyper-edgy New Circus stripped to abstraction. Forget fanciful story lines. Forget expensive, dazzling sets and shimmering costumes. Lighting effects aggressively sculpt the stage; harsh, blaring music comes on like a tsunami. But other than that, Circa is all about gravity and quirky movement--catnip for pure dance-lovers, genuinely mind-blowing. Why, it looks ten times as dangerous as Spider-Man at a fraction of the cost!

Artistic director Yaron Lifschitz's 80-minute production, now having its US premiere at Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, twists and splays and pulls and pushes and propels the bodies of seven outlandishly skillful men and women to punishing extremes. It often makes them look desperately manic and self-destructive or at least absurd. Anything to force our hearts into our mouths. And the strategy works: Skirball's audience gasped and shrieked and chuckled and rose in ovation.

I felt somewhat more ambivalent. On the one hand, Circa's overall weirdness, the tension they create, their hip hop attitude and their frequent elements of surprise can't be topped. Circus really is kind of strange, and these performers absolutely rule by being as strange--and as strained--as they want to be.

The performers incorporates within their own behavior suggestions of what traditional circus usually offers--"animal acts," "clown acts," maybe even "freak side shows" distilled to their most abstract dynamics and rolled out in way that makes them effective both as circus and as dance. One diverting solo evolves from an audience-interactive finger-snap-along to a display of how to be funny with just your hands or your dangling feet. Pluck the gorgeously crafted and interpreted choreography from its context, and it could be a brilliant, award-worthy dance in and of itself. Similarly, aerial ribbon dance and terrestrial multiple hula hoop numbers strengthen the impression of these performers as supremely focused with a measure of grace to go along with their guts.

But I cared less for watching women frequently tossed and flung about like rag dolls or stuffed sacks. While the male performers--a couple of them quite buff--sometimes allow themselves to look ridiculous, the women take the brunt most of the time. A little more imagination--and respect--please. Okay, well, there is that one long segment in which a woman wearing glittering cherry-red stilletos--at last, a dazzling costume detail!--climbs all over one guy's bare skin. Sweet revenge, perhaps.

Last two performances: tonight at 8pm and tomorrow at 3pm. Information and tickets

Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
566 LaGuardia Place (at Washington Square South), Manhattan
(directions)

High honor to Jacob's Pillow dance fest

Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival Receives National Medal of Arts
by Debra Levine, The Huffington Post, March 4, 2011

Reminder: DTW Writing on Dance application deadline

Here's a quick reminder that the deadline for applying for my Writing on Dance series at Dance Theater Workshop is Friday, March 18! Details below.

photo by Deborah Feller

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 18

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