Recently, I told my Facebook friends that, finally, I was going to get a crack at Black Swan--thank you, Netflix--and would go in with an open mind and sloppy food. I decided against the sloppy food, and boy, am I glad. Had I really tried to eat during this flick, I couldn't have kept anything down.
Which is not to throw shade on Darren Aronofsky's psychological horror show. On the contrary, this vertiginous profile of a pathologically insecure, unraveling individual--not the entirety of ballerina-hood, mind you--is effectively disturbing. Its job is to make you queasy. If it doesn't, frankly, you're not paying attention.
Every frame over the top, Black Swan forces you to sit inside the head of young Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), with eyes forced open Clockwork Orange-style, and experience the outside world in the decidedly skewed, feverish way Nina sees it. Visually, it's a mind-blower, and its constrictions, hyperboles and stereotypes derive from Nina's inner visions. It's clear that, from start to finish, the audience never sees anything that exists out there in actuality. And that is the genius of Black Swan.
Which doesn't exactly make it easy to love. There's certainly no one to like and get behind in this movie--not the severely troubled lead, not her sexist ballet master (Vincent Cassel), not her overbearing mother (Barbara Hershey), not her immature and envious colleagues, not even her rather vacant ballet partner (Benjamin Millepied). And even if you go for pretzel logic and try to twist Nina's late-act Black Glama moment into a kickass feminist metamorphosis, there's the sticky little matter of the way things end for her.
I recently saw Wallace Shawn's Marie and Bruce (with excellent Marisa Tomei and Frank Whaley), and it's a strange thing, indeed, to spend quality time inside a rancid little world with characters that, from jump, make your skin crawl. Aronofsky takes the kind of risk Shawn took in his 1978 play. The risk works, here, if you accept what Aronofsky is doing, instead of hoping for a redeeming tale or a documentary about careers in ballet. Black Swan's setting is the world of ballet--just as the setting of a murder mystery might happen to be the world of publishing or Wall Street--but it is not about ballet and has nothing to say to ballet. Except perhaps that, like Aronofsky's The Wrestler, Black Swan draws from a milieu that exploits illusion and sells tickets.
With all of that pushed out of the way, how you respond to Black Swan will be determined by your tolerance for psychological melodrama taken past places Alfred Hitchcock might cross the street to avoid. Not for every taste. But now that I have finally seen it, I can understand why some people who have no investment in ballet call it a gutsy work of art.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Riverdancers test group mind over matter
Seemed Like A Good Idea at the Time
This American Life, April 24, 2011
Don't miss Act One: Luck of the Irish!
This American Life, April 24, 2011
Don't miss Act One: Luck of the Irish!
Friday, April 29, 2011
In the "Mix"
Karen Bernard's Performance Mix Festival 2011 continues mixing it up at Dixon Place through Sunday. Happy 25th Anniversary to both the fest and to DP for surviving in this tough town by throwing hearts, minds and doors open to adventure. Not quite knowing what to expect is considered something of a virtue at both DP and Le Mix, and last night's mashup--with work by Dawn Springer, Shree "Shyam" Das, Myra Bazell and Lindsay Browning, Kai Lossogott and Mduduzi Nyembe, and Isabel Lewis--proved to be no exception.
For me, there were two takeaways. Composer-musician Shree "Shyam" Das's Serenity to Madness, and Back--a coursing, ghost-ridden electronic piece maybe a bit too lengthy, ultimately, and too pretty for madness--might have been the evening's most captivating "dance," oddly enough, for the elaborate, precision hand movements he used to interact with his equipment. This sound wizard was rivaled only by the fascinating performance of Lindsay Browning in Molt (directed by Myra Bazell with Bazell-Browning choreography), hissing, trembling and, yes, molting out of her strapped-on tulle hoop skirt, rolling like tumbleweed and helplessly arcing into ecstasy and oblivion and, it would appear, liquefaction. The work uses a version of Johnny Mathis's 1957 tune "Wild is the Wind"--not the great Nina Simone cover, a song like a seal upon my soul, but welcome nonetheless.
Showtime: 7:30pm, tonight through Sunday. General information about the Mix's remaining and, as always, multifarious events can be found here.
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street (between Rivington and Delancey Streets), Manhattan
(directions)
For me, there were two takeaways. Composer-musician Shree "Shyam" Das's Serenity to Madness, and Back--a coursing, ghost-ridden electronic piece maybe a bit too lengthy, ultimately, and too pretty for madness--might have been the evening's most captivating "dance," oddly enough, for the elaborate, precision hand movements he used to interact with his equipment. This sound wizard was rivaled only by the fascinating performance of Lindsay Browning in Molt (directed by Myra Bazell with Bazell-Browning choreography), hissing, trembling and, yes, molting out of her strapped-on tulle hoop skirt, rolling like tumbleweed and helplessly arcing into ecstasy and oblivion and, it would appear, liquefaction. The work uses a version of Johnny Mathis's 1957 tune "Wild is the Wind"--not the great Nina Simone cover, a song like a seal upon my soul, but welcome nonetheless.
Showtime: 7:30pm, tonight through Sunday. General information about the Mix's remaining and, as always, multifarious events can be found here.
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street (between Rivington and Delancey Streets), Manhattan
(directions)
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Dance for autistic youth
Examining Dance Classes For Teens On The Autism Spectrum
by Lydia Hance, Dance Advantage, April 28, 2011
by Lydia Hance, Dance Advantage, April 28, 2011
Honoring unforgettable Gwen Verdon
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| Gwen Verdon (Photo courtesy of PhotoFest) |
I'm Not Lola: A Tribute to Gwen Verdon
HONORS THE QUINTESSENTIAL BROADWAY GYPSY
GWEN VERDON
GWEN VERDON
A video history and discussion of one of the most beloved Broadway dancers
Monday, May 23, 8 PM
St. Luke's Theater
308 West 46th Street (between 8th and 9th Avenues), Manhattan
Tickets: $40 ($65 for premium seats) $25 for members of Dancers Over 40
Reservations: Telecharge or 212-239-6200
Broadway veterans Lee Roy Reams and Harvey Evans head this tribute to Gwen Verdon. Paul Phillips, Verdon's stage manager, is flying up from Florida with some personal video clips. Those, combined with other well-known dancers and dances from that era, will be showcased.
GWEN VERDON (1925-2000) born Gwenyth Evelyn Verdon in Culver City, Ca., was one of Broadway's biggest stars during its golden era and beyond, and winner of four Tony Awards. As a toddler, Gwen had rickets, which left her legs so badly misshapen she spent her early days in orthopedic boots and rigid leg braces. Her mother put her 3-year old in dance classes and she went on to study ballet, tap, jazz, ballroom, flamenco, Balinese--and juggling! At age 11 she appeared in the 1936 movie The King Steps Out, and, after eloping with reporter James Henghan in 1942 began her career as assistant to Jack Cole and as a Broadway gypsy.
Her breakthrough came in 1953 when Michael Kidd cast her in a featured role in Can-Can, where her opening-night Garden of Eden performance was so well received that the audience screamed her name until the startled dancer was brought from her dressing room in her bathrobe to take a curtain call. Verdon received a pay raise and her first Tony Award for that triumphant performance. In 1955 she starred in Damn Yankees, and will forever be identified with her role as the vampish Lola, a role that won her second Tony and the lead in the movie version. Another Tony came when Verdon played Anna Christie in the 1957 musical New Girl in Town, followed by Redhead (1959--her fourth Tony). In 1966 Verdon appeared as Charity in Sweet Charity, another triumph directed by Bob Fosse, whom she had married in 1960.
Although eventually estranged, Verdon and Fosse continued to collaborate on projects such as Chicago (1975) in which she originated the role of murderess Roxie Hart. After that Verdon concentrated on film acting, appearing in many movies, including The Cotton Club, Cocoon, Cocoon: The Return, Alice, and Marvin's Room.
In 2000, at the age of 75, Gwen Verdon died in her sleep of a heart attack at the home of her daughter Nicole in Woodstock, VT. At 8pm that night all marquee lights on Broadway were dimmed in her memory.
Ratmansky commits to ABT
Alexei Ratmansky Gives ABT 10 More Years
by Stephanie Goodman, The New York Times, April 27, 2011
by Stephanie Goodman, The New York Times, April 27, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Phoebe Snow, 60
Singer-songwriter Phoebe Snow, 60, has died
by Leah Greenblatt, EW.com, April 26, 2011
Phoebe Snow, singer of 1970s hit 'Poetry Man,' dies at 60
by Keith Thursby, Los Angeles Times, April 26, 2011
by Leah Greenblatt, EW.com, April 26, 2011
Phoebe Snow, singer of 1970s hit 'Poetry Man,' dies at 60
by Keith Thursby, Los Angeles Times, April 26, 2011
Pizza, pizza...and A Gathering of the Tribes
On Tuesday, April 26--Save the Tribes Day--all seven Manhattan locations of Two Boots Pizza will be donating all proceeds of the day's pizza sales to A Gathering of the Tribes, and A Gathering of The Tribes will host an open mic fundraiser that evening at its threatened longtime home.
The Lower East Side arts institution, founded 20 years ago by poet, playwright and novelist Steve Cannon, is on the brink of losing its longtime home at 285 East 3rd Street, as the building is up for sale.
Culminating Save the Tribes Day, in connection with National Poetry Month, Tribes will host an open mic musical performance and poetry reading with special guests at 6pm. Admission is $5 (at the door).
Steve Cannon bought the building housing A Gathering of the Tribes in 1970 and sold it in 2004 to help finance the organization's programming. He has since paid rent to continue occupying the space, but recently found out that the building is being sold. So many of the artists, poets and musicians whose careers have been nurtured by Tribes--along with neighbors such as Two Boots--are rallying to help the organization keep its home. You can read more about the situation here in this New York Times article.
About A Gathering of the Tribes
A Gathering of the Tribes is an arts and cultural organization dedicated to excellence in the arts from a diverse perspective. Located on the Lower East Side of New York City, Tribes has been in existence since 1991. In that year, Steve Cannon, poet, playwright, novelist, and retired professor from the City University of New York, converted a portion of his apartment into an informal salon. Despite his loss of eyesight to glaucoma, he encouraged the exchange of alternative points of view traditionally overlooked by mainstream media. The ideas raised in the discussions served as inspiration to the pieces later published in A Gathering of the Tribes Magazine. In 1993, a further transformation of the space by Dora Espinoza, a Peruvian photographer, produced Tribes Gallery. Since then, Tribes has evolved into a performance venue and meeting place for artists and audiences to come together across all artistic disciplines, all levels of complexity, and all definitions of difference. In this
pan-disciplinary, multi-cultural environment, artists exchange ideas, create peer relationships and find mentorship. Through Tribes' publications, readers encounter a unique synthesis of literature, visual art, criticism and interviews with promising artists of all kinds. In an attempt to attract a wider audience for these artists, Tribes additionally organizes an annual outdoor event--The Charlie Parker Festival--to engage members of the community who have seldom, if ever, attended literary or artistic events.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Tap City 2011 scholarships
American Tap Dance Foundation scholarships are available to dancers ages 6-19 to attend Tap City 2011 for one of the following programs:
- Mini-Fest
- Youth Program
- Pre-Professional Program
- Adult Program
A scholarship application can be found here and is due by May 1st with the $35 registration fee. Scholarships cover the cost tuition only, not any additional fees or tickets associated with the program.
Please contact Courtney Runft, Youth Program Coordinator and Registrar, with any questions you may have regarding scholarships at crunft@atdf.org or by calling ATDF at 646-230-9564.ADTF celebrates Tap 25 -- 25 years
Tap City 2011
July 5-10
Click here for the schedule and more information.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
AUDIO PREVIEW: Jill Sigman
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| Above/below: Jill Sigman in Hut #5 (Photo: Lindsay Comstock) |
The Edges of Performance
A workshop led by Jill Sigman
Saturday-Sunday, June 4-5 (2-5pm)
Location: The Border
1 Grattan Street, Studio 221, Bushwick, Brooklyn
(Take L train to Morgan Avenue)
$15/workshop day
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| from Hut #5 (Photo: Lindsay Comstock) |
AUDIO PREVIEW
Dancer-choreographer Jill Sigman
talks about The Edges of Performance
Where do the edges of performance lie? Does performing rely on a state of mind, a mode of presentation, a kind of activity, an audience? We will investigate these edges beginning with fine-grained movement explorations that are fueled by the visual and aural fields around us. We will then let ourselves be guided by touch, task, and taste, and eventually arrive at explorations of such activities as planting cooking, or building. We will test out the borders of performing through these activities—performing for ourselves, each other, the space, and the street below.
It is encouraged to take both days of the workshop for a more complete investigation, but it is possible to take one day as a discrete experience.
This workshop is part of the ongoing series CLASSCLASSCLASS. It also coincides with Arts in Bushwick Open Studios.
For more information,
click here.
Jill Sigman asks questions through the medium of the body. Trained in classical ballet, modern dance, art history, and analytic philosophy, Sigman has been making dances and performance installations since the early 90s. In 1998, she founded her company jill sigman/thinkdance as a vehicle for her performance experiments. In the same year she received her Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University. Equally comfortable on a proscenium stage or crawling in the dirt armed with fluorescent waterguns, Sigman transforms deceptively simple actions into explorations of politics, gender, and society; her work currently exists at the intersection of dance, theater, and visual installation. Sigman’s dances have been produced by such New York City venues as Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, Dixon Place, PS 1 Contemporary Art Center, Dancing in the Streets, and the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center. Internationally, her work has been shown in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, and India. As a teacher, Sigman offers workshops nationally at colleges and universities; she has been a member of the dance faculty at Princeton University, a movement tutor at the Imaginary Academy in Groznjan, Croatia, a frequent guest teacher in Belgium, and a professor of aesthetics and performance theory at Brooklyn College and The New School. She has recently been teaching in Oslo, Norway, and is currently at work on a multi-site project about huts and sustainable living. See: www.thinkdance.org
Learn more about Jill Sigman in an interview with dancer-writer Siobhan Burke on her blog, phase.shift and on Performance Ritual, a new blog Burke shares with Isabella Bruno. Click here and here.
Roots + Rumba!
Cuba's fabulous Los Muñequitos de Matanzas
ROOTS + RUMBA WORKSHOP
presented in collaboration with
Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance,
MAPP International Productions
Friday, May 6 (12noon-2pm)
The Cornerstone Center
178 Bennett Avenue (at 189th Street), Manhattan
Take the A train to 190th Street.
Los Muñequitos de Matanzas offer the purest sounds and movements of their Afro-Cuban heritage, with live music, presented and explained in a very accessible and friendly way. They begin with Yoruba Orisha dances through all Rumba styles, bringing all the power and joy of their performance to energize workshop participants. This is a dance workshop but singers and drummers are welcome as well. All levels welcome. Please wear comfortable clothing to dance.
By performing Max Pollak's RumbaTap choreography in their shows over the last decade, Los Muñequitos have helped popularize this new element in Afro-Cuban folklore all over Cuba and worldwide.Workshop fee: $20 (no reservations necessary)
For more info, email rumbatap@gmail.com.
Don't miss Los Muñequitos de Matanzas LIVE at Symphony Space May 5-7 and The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College, SUNY May 8.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Dance counts. Let's document it.
Want to get involved in a Dance Workforce Census to document how New York City dance professionals (21-35 years of age) are surviving?
INTERESTED? To get involved with this initiative, please contact Julia Kelly, External Relations Manager, at jcommresearch@dancenyc.org. Click here for more information.
The aim is to count every individual 21-35 years of age who works in any capacity to support professional dance in New York City, including but not limited to:
agents
choreographers/creative artists
consultants
critics
dance therapists
designers
educators
managers and all administrators
performing artists
physical therapists
production staff
publicists
technicians
The Committee's intention is to generate conversation among the communities and individuals that participate and to publish results that will serve as a tool for informed decision-making, on the part of peers, colleagues and employers, and all advocates for dance.
INTERESTED? To get involved with this initiative, please contact Julia Kelly, External Relations Manager, at jcommresearch@dancenyc.org. Click here for more information.
Friday, April 22, 2011
NJPAC's Out, Loud and Proud V
New Jersey Performing Arts Center
presents Out, Loud and Proud V
curated and hosted by Pandora Scooter
with Brave Soul Collective and Alix Olson
Saturday, May 7 (7:30pm)
Ticketing
Directions
presents Out, Loud and Proud V
curated and hosted by Pandora Scooter
with Brave Soul Collective and Alix Olson
Saturday, May 7 (7:30pm)
Gay, straight, queer, lesbian, bisexual, transgender—how do you identify? As part of this season’s Alternate Routes GLBT Festival, New Jersey’s own Pandora Scooter returns to riff, rhyme, rant and act as host to some of the spoken word scene’s most provocative new artists—a daring collective of wordsmiths who collectively represent all orientations. Be there when these cutting-edge voices convene to express their personal views on one of life’s hottest topics: sexuality. This year's performers include the three-person Brave Soul Collective and spoken word artist Alix Olson.Details
Ticketing
Directions
Feel free to move!
Balance Arts Center invites you to a conference:
Freedom to Move 2011: Dance and the Alexander Technique
Pearl Studios, New York City
Registration still open. Click here for complete details.
Balance Arts Center on Facebook
Freedom to Move 2011: Dance and the Alexander Technique
Movement freedom, ease, and coordination can be enhanced and taught through concepts and principles of Alexander Technique. The conference provides experiences and exploration of many ways the Alexander Technique can be applied to dance – from tango to composition to research to performance.May 20-22
Pearl Studios, New York City
Registration still open. Click here for complete details.
Balance Arts Center on Facebook
Thursday, April 21, 2011
A "Raven" landing at La MaMa
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| Yara Arts Group presents Raven |
Virlana Tkacz, her enchanting Yara Arts Group and artists from Ukraine have teamed up for a new production--Raven--presented at La MaMa. Inspired by the poetry of Oleh Lysheha, who was awarded the PEN Poetry Translation Prize for his work, Raven concludes its run this coming Sunday. Performances are at 7:30pm, tonight through Saturday, with a Sunday matinee at 2:30pm.
Raven speaks to our desire to explore unknowable boundaries. Sharply delineated details from everyday life transform to reveal the true nature of reality. Birds, trees and fruit bear messages for the careful observer. The forest protects the secrets of the invisible path. Yara's production uses music, movement, song and voice to explore the images of the poem, which is spoken both in the original and in its English translation by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps.Ticket information
La MaMa (First Floor Theatre)
74 East 4th Street (between Bowery and Second Avenue), Manhattan
(directions)
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
La MaMa loves Japan
On Monday, April 25 (7:30pm), La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club will present A Prayer For Japan, to benefit relief efforts in Japan.
Click here for complete program details.
Free admission.
Reservations not required.
In the La MaMa tradition, the hat will be passed to help support Japan’s relief efforts. All donations from the evening will go to Make The Heaven, a Japanese NGO in Japan working with the Japan Me group, a non-profit organization that is providing ongoing relief for victims in the area of Ishinomaki. Japan Me transports supplies to the disaster area and delivers these needed supplies directly to victims. In addition, the group places victims with volunteers across the country; and transports aid workers to the affected areas for rescue missions.La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East 4th Street, 2nd Floor (between Bowery and Second Avenue), Manhattan
(directions)
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Belarus Free Theatre returns to New York
Belarus Free Theatre (BFT)--unable to safely return to Belarus, Decidedly UnFree--continues its sojourn around America. La MaMa and The Public Theater have brought the company back to La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre where it exemplifies the artistic and political courage that Stewart welcomed and championed for decades. In a time of widespread social upheaval in many lands, the travails of China’s detained provocateur Ai Weiwei and the exiled Belarusians remind us of the critical, if dangerous, role artists play in speaking truth to power.
Last evening, BFT presented one of its three repertory pieces, Zone of Silence, at La MaMa, directed by Vladimir Shcherban and created by Schcherban with BFT founders Natalia Koliada and Nikolai Khalezin. The piece runs for 2-1/2 hours with one intermission. Spoken in Russian and Belarusian, much of the sense of it is hobbled by the projection of English supertitles too high over the heads of the actors during the first two chapters, making it hard for English-speakers to both watch the bodies of the talented performers and follow their essential narratives. Interestingly, the supertitles for “Chapter 3. Numbers” rest across a lower level of the white backdrop. Thank goodness, because you really shouldn’t miss a word.
“Chapter 1. Childhood Legends” opens with one actor erasing a jumble of troubling images (Nazi swastika, armored tank and more) from a chalkboard mounted on the backdrop. The stories that follow, though, reflect the inability to erase the trauma of experiencing brutality--authoritarian indoctrination, emotional abuse, separation from an imprisoned parent. BFT’s performers bring us these nightmarish situations in satiric-archetypal forms with dark intensity. The aggressor, the conformist, the victim and the rebel are all embodied in physical theater that owes much to a child’s love of costumes, props, play-acting and impersonation.
“Chapter 2. Diverse” forms a collage of personalities and stories of everyday Belarusians--a nation of people apparently diverse enough to include at least one Black gay man, a guy we later see gazing out at us from a video clip as if to prove his existence. On stage, though, the incredible Pavel Gorodnitski portrays this fellow with an outsized, crackling energy that--I swear--bridges the physical gap between the actor and those confounded supertitles. When Gorodnitski leans into his impersonation, you somehow also take in the written words (and, what’s more, you really want to). But how? He’s not even that tall! What an illusion!
These first two chapters provide a fair introduction to a troupe that, in its homeland under the regime of strongman Alexander Lukashenko, must perform in a kind of theatrical Underground Railroad. But “Chapter 3. Numbers” rips the gloves off. BFT and its now better integrated supertitles tell all.
Did you know that the Nazis wiped out one-third of the Belarusian population? Or that 72% of Belarusians find it difficult to define the word ‘democracy,’ that the average salary is $350 per month, and that every 4th Belarusian suffers a mental disorder? This chapter--the most physically-oriented of this physical theater triplet--opens with Gorodnitski, Oleg Sidorchik and Denis Tarasenko dressed in what might be their best, if misshapen and rumpled, suits and equipped with homely washboard, accordion and spoons to make a little folk music. Set against imagery of perky folkdancing (Marina Yurevich) and ecstatic, glowing pregnancy (Yana Rusakevich), which complete our stereotypes of Eastern Europe, are the alarming stories that unfiltered numbers tell--about the prevalence of miscarriage, divorce, the rapid dwindling of the population, the litany of the disappeared. All forbidden truths, spoken outright by citizens who now dare not try to return to their loved ones at home.
However, BFT chooses to leave us with a different and profoundly moving impression. The backdrop fills with name after name of celebrities, artists, esteemed scientists and others, some well-known, others more obscure, who share Belarusian origin or heritage: Marc Chagall, Kirk Douglas, Ralph Lauren, Harrison Ford, Larry King, Menachem Begin and many, many more.
Last night, when the actors took their bows, they looked as if they’d run a marathon, physically spent and emotionally raw. One could imagine questions hanging in the air: When can we go home? When will we go home to freedom and dignity?
Belarus Free Theatre at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre now through May 15. For complete program information and ticketing, click here.
La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East 4th Street (between Second Avenue and The Bowery), Manhattan
(directions)
 |
| L-r: Oleg Sidorchik, Yana Rusakevich, Pavel Gorodnitski and Marina Yurevich in Zone of Silence. (Photo: Joan Marcus) |
Last evening, BFT presented one of its three repertory pieces, Zone of Silence, at La MaMa, directed by Vladimir Shcherban and created by Schcherban with BFT founders Natalia Koliada and Nikolai Khalezin. The piece runs for 2-1/2 hours with one intermission. Spoken in Russian and Belarusian, much of the sense of it is hobbled by the projection of English supertitles too high over the heads of the actors during the first two chapters, making it hard for English-speakers to both watch the bodies of the talented performers and follow their essential narratives. Interestingly, the supertitles for “Chapter 3. Numbers” rest across a lower level of the white backdrop. Thank goodness, because you really shouldn’t miss a word.
“Chapter 1. Childhood Legends” opens with one actor erasing a jumble of troubling images (Nazi swastika, armored tank and more) from a chalkboard mounted on the backdrop. The stories that follow, though, reflect the inability to erase the trauma of experiencing brutality--authoritarian indoctrination, emotional abuse, separation from an imprisoned parent. BFT’s performers bring us these nightmarish situations in satiric-archetypal forms with dark intensity. The aggressor, the conformist, the victim and the rebel are all embodied in physical theater that owes much to a child’s love of costumes, props, play-acting and impersonation.
 |
| Yana Rusakevich in Zone of Silence (Photo: Joan Marcus) |
These first two chapters provide a fair introduction to a troupe that, in its homeland under the regime of strongman Alexander Lukashenko, must perform in a kind of theatrical Underground Railroad. But “Chapter 3. Numbers” rips the gloves off. BFT and its now better integrated supertitles tell all.
Did you know that the Nazis wiped out one-third of the Belarusian population? Or that 72% of Belarusians find it difficult to define the word ‘democracy,’ that the average salary is $350 per month, and that every 4th Belarusian suffers a mental disorder? This chapter--the most physically-oriented of this physical theater triplet--opens with Gorodnitski, Oleg Sidorchik and Denis Tarasenko dressed in what might be their best, if misshapen and rumpled, suits and equipped with homely washboard, accordion and spoons to make a little folk music. Set against imagery of perky folkdancing (Marina Yurevich) and ecstatic, glowing pregnancy (Yana Rusakevich), which complete our stereotypes of Eastern Europe, are the alarming stories that unfiltered numbers tell--about the prevalence of miscarriage, divorce, the rapid dwindling of the population, the litany of the disappeared. All forbidden truths, spoken outright by citizens who now dare not try to return to their loved ones at home.
However, BFT chooses to leave us with a different and profoundly moving impression. The backdrop fills with name after name of celebrities, artists, esteemed scientists and others, some well-known, others more obscure, who share Belarusian origin or heritage: Marc Chagall, Kirk Douglas, Ralph Lauren, Harrison Ford, Larry King, Menachem Begin and many, many more.
Last night, when the actors took their bows, they looked as if they’d run a marathon, physically spent and emotionally raw. One could imagine questions hanging in the air: When can we go home? When will we go home to freedom and dignity?
Belarus Free Theatre at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre now through May 15. For complete program information and ticketing, click here.
La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East 4th Street (between Second Avenue and The Bowery), Manhattan
(directions)
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Traditional non-Western art: Left in the past?
Under Threat: The Shock of the Old
Non-Western Art History Bypasses the Ancient
by Holland Cotter, The New York Times, April 14, 2011
Non-Western Art History Bypasses the Ancient
by Holland Cotter, The New York Times, April 14, 2011
Garry Reigenborn, 58
Garry Reigenborn, Dancer and Educator, Dies at 58
by Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times, April 17, 2011
by Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times, April 17, 2011
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Uptown Friday and Saturday nights!
Harlem Stage welcomes you to
The Fats Waller Dance Party
with Jason Moran and Meshell Ndegeocello
Friday, May 13 (9pm and 11pm)
Saturday, May 14 (9pm and 11pm)
Jason Moran and Meshell Ndegeocello transform Harlem Stage into a dance party, as they awaken the spirit of Fats Waller and re-create the dance floor of Harlem’s long-gone jazz shrine, Small’s Paradise. Backed by a seven-piece band, Moran’s musical genius shapes the party through lively compositions and arrangements, while Ndegeocello uses her masterful skills to rework Waller’s applauded tunes. Join us as this dynamic duo take us back to the good ol’ days when Fats got the joint jumpin’ with late night jams. The Fats Waller Dance Party is part of the inaugural Harlem Jazz Shrines Festival.Get tickets here or call 212-281-9240, ext. 19 or 20
at Harlem Stage Gatehouse
150 Convent Avenue (at West 135th Street), Manhattan
(directions)
AUDIO PREVIEWS: Marya Warshaw and Levi Gonzalez
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|
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Levi Gonzalez (Photo: Alex Escalante) |
AUDIO PREVIEWS
Founder and Artistic Director Marya Warshaw
talks about Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX)
Click (6:20)
Dancer-choreographer Levi Gonzalez
talks about BAX and his new work
Click (5:28)
intimacy
A Solo Dance by Levi Gonzalez
April 29-May 1
(Friday-Saturday, 8pm and Sunday, 6pm)
In his solo, intimacy, Levi Gonzalez attempts to bring the practice of making into the moment of live performance. In constructing material for this work, he prioritizes instinct over concept, cultivating sensitivity to what resonates with him on a visceral level. By exploring the idiosyncrasies of his own interests in movement and performance, he builds a structure that exposes his own personal relationship to the form. Often framing the action with language, he establishes a directness with the spectator that resists metaphor, while still leaving space for the engagement of the imagination. Ultimately the work examines the intimacy of the relationship between performer and audience, and how we navigate this shared experience. The solo is being developed in collaboration with dramaturg Susan Mar Landau.
Join BAX in celebration of 20 years
of arts and artists in progress!
Thursday, May 5, 7:30pm
Prospect Park Picnic House
Prospect Park West at 5th Street, Brooklyn
performances by
LAVA
Famous Accordion Orchestra
Mike Albo
Faye Driscoll
BAXco Youth Dance Company
(performing choreography by Nami Yamamoto)
Drew Petersen
and more...
BAX Arts and Artists in Progress Awards
Awardees have revealed and transformed our creative world. By instigating and enduring change they have deepened the definition of their field and paved the way for others.
The PASSING IT ON AWARD creates a complete cycle where a panel of peers chooses the awardees and the awardees choose someone who demonstrates some of the same qualities that they, themselves, were chosen for.awards presented by Marya Warshaw, Founder and Executive Director, BAX
artist award: Gus Solomons jr, choreographer and co-founder, PARADIGM passing it on to Malcolm Jason Low
arts educator award: Terry Greiss, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Irondale Ensemble Project passing it on to Leese Walker
arts manager award: Leslie Strongwater, Associate Artistic Director, Dixon Place passing it on to Andy Horwitz
honorary award: Long-standing theater/dance partnership between the Brooklyn New School (BNS) and BAX, with José Joaquín García as lead teaching artist
All program, directions and ticket information online here
Westerby troupe at University Settlement
Last night, Matthew Westerby's company and five-work program at University Settlement's Speyer Hall appeared well-bred if fundamentally conventional in aesthetics and reach. Unfortunately, the warm, stuffy space--filled to capacity with audience and one crying babe--did not help matters.
Westerby goes for casual elegance and buoyant musicality, but A Watershed Moment, a 2009 ensemble piece, looked merely cluttered in the shallow confines. In Stricken (2008), set to a slurpy, gargling soundscape, the most striking images were of several dancers unhappily scraping something off their skin--the fog billowing from the fog machine? Hell Hath No Fury sounds like a perfectly fine title, except that the genial dancing in this piece, clearly made to entertain, renders it inexplicable. And the newest work, Court, shows that Westerby values order and pattern and the hint of drama, but you go away humming the costumes--velvet vests on the men, eggplant-colored bustiers on the women, Elizabethan collars (the stiff ruffly historical kind, not the pet protectors).
If you do go tonight to the second and final performance of this season, look for the quietly, classically beautiful Alessandra Larson (in anything) and in a brief Stricken duet with Dylan Baker. These two sharp dancers seem to be on the verge of taking Westerby's movement out of the realm of something-to-do and into the realm of something-to-live. There's a difference. These performers show a certain capability for more. You watch them and wait for them to go there.
Matthew Westerby Company, tonight at 8pm
Ticket information
Speyer Hall at University Settlement
184 Eldridge Street (near Rivington Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)
Westerby goes for casual elegance and buoyant musicality, but A Watershed Moment, a 2009 ensemble piece, looked merely cluttered in the shallow confines. In Stricken (2008), set to a slurpy, gargling soundscape, the most striking images were of several dancers unhappily scraping something off their skin--the fog billowing from the fog machine? Hell Hath No Fury sounds like a perfectly fine title, except that the genial dancing in this piece, clearly made to entertain, renders it inexplicable. And the newest work, Court, shows that Westerby values order and pattern and the hint of drama, but you go away humming the costumes--velvet vests on the men, eggplant-colored bustiers on the women, Elizabethan collars (the stiff ruffly historical kind, not the pet protectors).
If you do go tonight to the second and final performance of this season, look for the quietly, classically beautiful Alessandra Larson (in anything) and in a brief Stricken duet with Dylan Baker. These two sharp dancers seem to be on the verge of taking Westerby's movement out of the realm of something-to-do and into the realm of something-to-live. There's a difference. These performers show a certain capability for more. You watch them and wait for them to go there.
Matthew Westerby Company, tonight at 8pm
Ticket information
Speyer Hall at University Settlement
184 Eldridge Street (near Rivington Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)
The Dancers Tarot
Check out Moti Zemelman's great Kickstarter project, which brings together dance, photography and Tarot. As you might imagine, it certainly makes all the sense in The World to me! :-)
The Dancers Tarot by Moti Mark Zemelman
Thanks to Facebook friend Francine Blackwell for drawing my attention to this project!
The Dancers Tarot by Moti Mark Zemelman
Thanks to Facebook friend Francine Blackwell for drawing my attention to this project!
Friday, April 15, 2011
The right to marry
Harlem Stage and Human Rights Campaign welcome you to the world premiere of Marriage Equality: Byron Rushing and the Fight for Fairness, a documentary short film directed by Thomas Allen Harris, on Tuesday, April 26 at Aaron Davis Hall.
Tuesday, April 26, 7:30pm
Reception to follow
Aaron Davis Hall
135th Street at Convent Avenue, Manhattan
(directions)
For ticket information, click here or call 212-281-9240, ext. 19 or 20.
The film compares the civil rights struggles of Black and LGBT communities. A community forum on the topic featuring a slate of rights advocates, political activists and religious leaders follows the screening.
Panelists include Alphonso David, New York State Division of Human Rights advisor, Rev. Irene Monroe from the Pacific School of Religion, Cathy Marino-Thomas, board president of Marriage Equality New York, Massachusetts-based pastor Rev. Eugene Rivers who is president of the National Ten Point Leadership Foundation, and Human Rights Campaign board member David Wilson. Jonathan Capehart, editorial writer for The Washington Post and contributor to MSNBC, will moderate.
The film centers on Massachusetts State Rep. Byron Rushing (D), a Civil Rights veteran who, in the past decade, took the campaign for same-sex marriage into communities of color in his home state. In doing so, he challenged religious leaders and defined equal marriage as a civil rights issue on par with the Black social justice movements of the 1950s and 1960s.MARRIAGE EQUALITY: Byron Rushing and the Fight for Fairness
Tuesday, April 26, 7:30pm
Reception to follow
Aaron Davis Hall
135th Street at Convent Avenue, Manhattan
(directions)
For ticket information, click here or call 212-281-9240, ext. 19 or 20.
Sit-In for Ai Weiwei
Arts Group Calls for Worldwide Sit-In for Ai Weiwei
by Kate Taylor, The New York Times, April 14, 2011
by Kate Taylor, The New York Times, April 14, 2011
Artistic couch surfing
The Serial Sleepover Artist
by Penelope Green, The New York Times, April 13, 2011
With a nice cameo appearance by The Kitchen's Rashida Bumbray!
by Penelope Green, The New York Times, April 13, 2011
With a nice cameo appearance by The Kitchen's Rashida Bumbray!
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Kushner and Eustis on politics and theater
The Public Forum: Tony Kushner and Oskar Eustis in Conversation at the Public Theater
A Discussion of Politics and Theater in America
Hosted by Cynthia Nixon
Sunday, May 8 at 8PM
Details here
Directions and other visitor info here
A Discussion of Politics and Theater in America
Hosted by Cynthia Nixon
Sunday, May 8 at 8PM
Details here
Directions and other visitor info here
Some bright news on the arts funding front
Performing Arts Alliance: Coalition of Performing Arts Advocates--Final FY11 Budget Released
And another "Thank you!" goes out to DTW dance writing student Meagan Bruskewicz for contributing this news on the role and results of strong advocacy during the recent Congressional fight over arts funding.
And another "Thank you!" goes out to DTW dance writing student Meagan Bruskewicz for contributing this news on the role and results of strong advocacy during the recent Congressional fight over arts funding.
Kevin Spacey speaks out for the arts
Kevin Spacey on Crucial Impact of the Arts
Kevin Spacey interviewed about arts funding on msnbc
I'm very grateful to my dance writing student, Amy Ruggiero, for alerting me to these terrific video clips.
Kevin Spacey interviewed about arts funding on msnbc
I'm very grateful to my dance writing student, Amy Ruggiero, for alerting me to these terrific video clips.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
How certain geniuses work. As for others...
I look at this with real interest, but then I think, once again: "Does dance exist? Or is it a figment of my imagination?"
No dance artists are represented here. An auto designer, a chef...but no choreographer. What do you think of that?
How Genius Works - The Culture Report
The Atlantic, April 13, 2011
No dance artists are represented here. An auto designer, a chef...but no choreographer. What do you think of that?
How Genius Works - The Culture Report
The Atlantic, April 13, 2011
Barnard Dances at Miller
Barnard College Department of Dance, under chair and artistic director Mary Cochran, has commissioned new works by renowned choreographers Kyle Abraham, Faye Driscoll, Jill Johnson and Jon Kinzel for its student performers.
Barnard Dances at Miller
Friday, April 29, 7pm
Saturday, April 30, 2pm and 7pm
For more information, click here.
Tickets: $20; $12 with Columbia University ID
To purchase, call 212-854-7799
Miller Theater
2960 Broadway (at 116th Street), Manhattan
(map)
Barnard Dances at Miller
Friday, April 29, 7pm
Saturday, April 30, 2pm and 7pm
For more information, click here.
Tickets: $20; $12 with Columbia University ID
To purchase, call 212-854-7799
Miller Theater
2960 Broadway (at 116th Street), Manhattan
(map)
Grammy revision plan draws protest
Grammy Awards Executive Defends Cuts in Categories
by Larry Rohter, The New York Times, April 12, 2011
by Larry Rohter, The New York Times, April 12, 2011
Town hall meet for dance artists tonight
The Dance/NYC Junior Committee invites all dance artists to
Navigating the Terrain: Obstacles and Solutions for Today’s Dance Artists in New York.
Wednesday, April 13
6:30-8:30pm
Con Edison
Edison Room, 19th Floor
4 Irving Place, Manhattan
(near Union Square: directions)
Navigating the Terrain: Obstacles and Solutions for Today’s Dance Artists in New York.
Wednesday, April 13
6:30-8:30pm
Con Edison
Edison Room, 19th Floor
4 Irving Place, Manhattan
(near Union Square: directions)
In an effort to address concerns and offer solutions for today's dance artists living and creating in New York City, Sarah Maxfield facilitates a Town Hall coordinated by the Dance/NYC Junior Committee. Specifically geared towards choreographers and dancers, this Town Hall will function as a series of discussions to address issues surrounding the
development of a sustainable lifestyle as a dance artist in our current climate.
Topics to plan for, among many others are: making work and developing it beyond a single performance; cultivating a long-term practice of research; addressing the changes in funding models and priorities; maturing as an artist; how existing and emerging spaces can effectively support communities and artists; and shifting between opportunities to create, develop, show and tour work.
This is a forum to gather and voice shared concerns, using the group knowledge and experience as a resource to identify obstacles and discuss solutions that address collective issues. This discussion will focus on the choreographic and performance aspects of navigating the terrain, but all self-identified dance community participants are strongly encouraged to attend.
This event will continue at Forum (127 4th Ave, between 12th and 13th Street) for more conversation and networking.
For more info and to register, please click here.
The Dance/NYC Junior Committee (known formerly as the Youth Advisory Committee) is a New York-based community of contemporaries working as dance artists, educators and administrators. We serve as a liaison for our demographic (ages 19-30) in the wider dance community, provide a forum for dialogue among a diversity of perspectives in our field, foster professional development in our constituency, and generate ideas that will serve our common goals and those of Dance/NYC.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Ortiz traces disco's evolution
Reading Dance critic/blogger Lori Ortiz--who has written for Gay City News, The Village Voice and other publications--has a new book on disco and club dances such as flagging and fanning, ball walking, vogue and dance-skating.
For more details and purchase information, click here.
To preview and purchase Disco Dance on Amazon.com, click here.
This book sheds light on the fascinating untold story behind what is collectively and disputably called "disco dancing," and the incredible effect that the phenomenon had on America—in New York City and beyond.Published by ABC-CLIO/Greenwood as part of its series, The American Dance Floor, Disco Dance provides "a contemporary perspective on a largely forgotten era, with oral histories that may otherwise have been lost forever."
Disco is a dance and musical style that still influences these art forms today. Many think that disco "died" completely after the 1970s drew to a close, but in actuality people continued dancing in the clubs after the very word "disco" became an anathema.
For more details and purchase information, click here.
To preview and purchase Disco Dance on Amazon.com, click here.
Look now: GIMP Project in Nebraska
A well-produced video feature on choreographer Heidi Latsky introducing her GIMP Project to a Nebraska community
NETNebraska Media: Nebraska Stories: Life as a Dance #205
NETNebraska Media: Nebraska Stories: Life as a Dance #205
Son Lux rises
First Listen: Son Lux, 'We Are Rising'
by Robin Hilton, NPR Music, April 10, 2011
The Final Day For Sun Lux's Album-In-A-Month Project
by Ryan Lott, All Songs Considered Blog, NPR Music, February 28, 2011
by Robin Hilton, NPR Music, April 10, 2011
The Final Day For Sun Lux's Album-In-A-Month Project
by Ryan Lott, All Songs Considered Blog, NPR Music, February 28, 2011
WMI's Robert Browning to retire
Robert Browning to Leave His World Music Institute
by Ben Sisario, The New York Times, April 10, 2011
by Ben Sisario, The New York Times, April 10, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
War dance
In ‘Into Sunlight,’ Horrors of War, Depicted in Dance
by Karin Lipson, The New York Times, April 8, 2011
by Karin Lipson, The New York Times, April 8, 2011
Dancing "Ghetto Klown"
Because when people really move, and they’re really in themselves, it’s like shamanism, and they’re overtaken by something. I find that so beautiful and so raw. That really speaks to me. -- John Leguizamo
John Leguizamo in ‘Ghetto Klown’ on Broadway
by Julie Bloom, The New York Times, April 8, 2011
Judd Jones, 79
Thanks to Melvin Erroll Taylor for sending the following announcement through Facebook. Please note that the memorial service is today at 6pm.
***
Judd Jones, an actor, singer and dancer, died peacefully with friends at his bedside at his home in Manhattan on March 9. He was 79 years old. Born and raised in Montgomery, Alabama, Jones arrived in New York in 1954 with stars in his eyes and a tremendous desire to sing professionally.
His booming bass baritone voice had been nurtured in the U.S. Army. He was assigned to a USO and loved being on stage. “I knew that I could hold an audience,” he said. “So when I got out of the Army, I headed for New York City.”
He found a job in an acting studio and one of the first people he met was Chita Rivera, who told him, “If you want to make it on Broadway, you can't just sing. You have to learn to act and dance.”
Jones took her advice. He toured for five years as Chino in West Side Story. He performed in plays and musicals on Broadway, Off Broadway, in regional theater and with the Lincoln Center Repertory Company. He appeared in The Royal Hunt of the Sun, My One and Only, The Fantastics, Tambourines to Glory, Finian’s Rainbow, Kiss Me Kate, Two Gentlemen of Verona and King Lear, among many other productions.
His one-man shows celebrated the life and work of Paul Robeson and the great Vaudeville performer Bert Williams. Jones also taught, coached and mentored many young actors.
After a moving Black History Month reading from Martin B. Duberman’s slave chronicle “In White America,” a sobbing young girl apologized to the white-haired Jones for his years of suffering. “Oh, my dear, I’m not that old,” he said. “I am an actor and I have lived a wonderful life in New York City.”
Judd Jones is survived by his brother Edward Jones of Huntsville, Alabama. He is mourned by his many friends, neighbors and the far-flung clan of Joneses.
A memorial service led by Brian Stokes Mitchell and Keith David will be held on Sunday, April 10, at 6 pm in the Good Shepherd Faith Church at 152 West 66th Street in Manhattan. A reception will follow in Jones’s apartment at 140 West End Avenue at 66th Street.
Contributions may be made on Judd Jones’s behalf to the Actors Fund, the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Association of Tenants of Lincoln Towers.
Sidney Lumet, 86
Sidney Lumet, Director of ‘Serpico,’ Dies at 86
by Robert Berkvist, The New York Times, April 9, 2011
Director Sidney Lumet remembered by Hollywood stars
BBC Mobile, April 10, 2011
by Robert Berkvist, The New York Times, April 9, 2011
Director Sidney Lumet remembered by Hollywood stars
BBC Mobile, April 10, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Through the years with Janis Brenner
Janis Brenner’s 5 Decades II at Danspace Project not only bridges the gaps between generations of choreographers; it also makes a good case for bridging the divide between those who love dance and those who have yet to make that wonderful leap of faith.
It’s a pleasurable show with a skillful, highly watchable cast of dancers. Taking us from two Mary Wigman solos through to Brenner’s fresh-from-the-studio ensemble world premiere, this evening continuously underscores the old and perennial values of graceful imagery, expressiveness and human connection but with inventive quirks that give a Brenner piece its magnetic pull and memorability.
The staging of old-school Wigman solos--”Seraphic Song” and “Pastorale” from the 1929 Swinging Landscape--has the curious effect of reminding us that we’re seated in a religious sanctuary, particularly since Brenner initially uses the altar area, lit up like a Theosophist’s dream of austerely holy flames, to frame herself. The first piece--all deep, sculptural curves--goes by in a blink. The second, initiated by one hand emerging from her supine, satin-clad body like a tender spring shoot, blooms into a filigree of joyful, undulant gesture, exquisitely performed. Brenner learned these solos from her mentor, Annabelle Gamson, acclaimed for her interpretation of the works of Wigman and Isadora Duncan.
A duet from the 1976 Cleopatra by Murray Louis--Brenner danced in his troupe from 1977 to 1984--is silky, sensuous and New Agey in that ‘70s kind of way. The choreography puts features of modern dance and ballet into a blender and cheerfully whirs away then adds chunks of angular, faux-2D movement imagery out of Ancient Egyptian art. The result is something lightheartedly sexy, sweet, pretty and witty but not without substance, thanks to the clarity of Kyla Barkin as Cleopatra and Aaron Selissen as Marc Anthony.
Other pieces trace Brenner’s own creative history. The intriguing duet from Pieces of Trust (1987, 1989) stands out for the fully-invested performances of Christopher Ralph and Sumaya Jackson, whose bodies offer vivid portraits of distortion, questioning, anxiety and, ultimately, disconnection. (Esmé Boyce takes the Jackson role tonight.) There are the simple, well-organized moods and energies of heartSTRINGS, set to the soft rock standards arranged by John Reed for the Hampton String Quartet. This lovely work premiered at Danspace Project in 1998. And Brenner tops it all with The Mind-Stuff Variations, a clever movement-and-spoken word piece which really ought to be enjoyed without worrying overly much about how it was made and what all of this has to do with the theorizing of psychologist William James. At the core, I find a complex portrait of an artist struggling to define herself, to buffer and hold her center against external and internalized flak, and that's profoundly moving.
With dancing by Barkin, Boyce, Brenner, Jackson, Ralph, Selissen, Luke Murphy and Chen Zielinski.
With original music for The Mind-Stuff Variations by Jerome Begin and live performance by Begin, Elizabeth Derham and Lauren Kiyoshi Dempster
With lighting design by Mitchell Bogard
5 Decades II continues through tomorrow evening with performances at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.
Danspace Project
St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery
Second Avenue and 10th Street, Manhattan
(directions)
It’s a pleasurable show with a skillful, highly watchable cast of dancers. Taking us from two Mary Wigman solos through to Brenner’s fresh-from-the-studio ensemble world premiere, this evening continuously underscores the old and perennial values of graceful imagery, expressiveness and human connection but with inventive quirks that give a Brenner piece its magnetic pull and memorability.
The staging of old-school Wigman solos--”Seraphic Song” and “Pastorale” from the 1929 Swinging Landscape--has the curious effect of reminding us that we’re seated in a religious sanctuary, particularly since Brenner initially uses the altar area, lit up like a Theosophist’s dream of austerely holy flames, to frame herself. The first piece--all deep, sculptural curves--goes by in a blink. The second, initiated by one hand emerging from her supine, satin-clad body like a tender spring shoot, blooms into a filigree of joyful, undulant gesture, exquisitely performed. Brenner learned these solos from her mentor, Annabelle Gamson, acclaimed for her interpretation of the works of Wigman and Isadora Duncan.
A duet from the 1976 Cleopatra by Murray Louis--Brenner danced in his troupe from 1977 to 1984--is silky, sensuous and New Agey in that ‘70s kind of way. The choreography puts features of modern dance and ballet into a blender and cheerfully whirs away then adds chunks of angular, faux-2D movement imagery out of Ancient Egyptian art. The result is something lightheartedly sexy, sweet, pretty and witty but not without substance, thanks to the clarity of Kyla Barkin as Cleopatra and Aaron Selissen as Marc Anthony.
Other pieces trace Brenner’s own creative history. The intriguing duet from Pieces of Trust (1987, 1989) stands out for the fully-invested performances of Christopher Ralph and Sumaya Jackson, whose bodies offer vivid portraits of distortion, questioning, anxiety and, ultimately, disconnection. (Esmé Boyce takes the Jackson role tonight.) There are the simple, well-organized moods and energies of heartSTRINGS, set to the soft rock standards arranged by John Reed for the Hampton String Quartet. This lovely work premiered at Danspace Project in 1998. And Brenner tops it all with The Mind-Stuff Variations, a clever movement-and-spoken word piece which really ought to be enjoyed without worrying overly much about how it was made and what all of this has to do with the theorizing of psychologist William James. At the core, I find a complex portrait of an artist struggling to define herself, to buffer and hold her center against external and internalized flak, and that's profoundly moving.
With dancing by Barkin, Boyce, Brenner, Jackson, Ralph, Selissen, Luke Murphy and Chen Zielinski.
With original music for The Mind-Stuff Variations by Jerome Begin and live performance by Begin, Elizabeth Derham and Lauren Kiyoshi Dempster
With lighting design by Mitchell Bogard
5 Decades II continues through tomorrow evening with performances at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.
Danspace Project
St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery
Second Avenue and 10th Street, Manhattan
(directions)
NYCB's Edward Bigelow dies in accident
Edward Bigelow, Dancer With the New York City Ballet, Dies at 93
by Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times, April 7, 2011
by Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times, April 7, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Connecting voice and movement and others
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club presents
Peter Sciscioli (New York) / Ana Sofrenovic (Belgrade)
Work-in-progress showing of a cross-cultural collaboration
Sunday, April 10 (5:30pm)
Created and performed by Peter Sciscioli and Ana Sofrenovic
Moderated by Marýa Wethers, Program Manager of New York Live Arts (Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and Dance Theater Workshop Reimagined)
La MaMa
74A East 4th Street (between Bowery and Second Avenue), Manhattan
(directions)
Peter Sciscioli (New York) / Ana Sofrenovic (Belgrade)
Work-in-progress showing of a cross-cultural collaboration
Sunday, April 10 (5:30pm)
Created and performed by Peter Sciscioli and Ana Sofrenovic
Moderated by Marýa Wethers, Program Manager of New York Live Arts (Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and Dance Theater Workshop Reimagined)
For this one time showing, New York-based performer/choreographer Peter Sciscioli teams up with Serbian actress/vocalist Ana Sofrenovic to share in a new work begun via Skype in Summer 2010. Sciscioli and Sofrenovic met during Meredith Monk’s workshop at Carnegie Hall in 2006 and have been working with, as a departure point, their mutual interest in combining voice and movement within a theatrical and choreographic context. In our ever-expanding technological and global landscape, how do we experience unseen and often indescribable connections with others across space and time?To RSVP, please email your name and number of seats requested.
La MaMa
74A East 4th Street (between Bowery and Second Avenue), Manhattan
(directions)
Joffrey School benefit for Japan and New Zealand
The Joffrey Ballet School presents two performances of dance, music and film to benefit the victims of the earthquakes of Japan and New Zealand.
Saturday, April 16 (8pm)
Sunday, April 17 (7pm)
Suggested Donation: $10
Reservations/Information: the Joffrey Ballet School, 212-254-8520
The evenings will feature:
Charitable contributions will be evenly distributed between the Japan Society and the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal.
Joffrey Ballet School
434 Avenue of the Americas (at 9th Street), Manhattan
(directions)
Saturday, April 16 (8pm)
Sunday, April 17 (7pm)
Suggested Donation: $10
Reservations/Information: the Joffrey Ballet School, 212-254-8520
The evenings will feature:
- dancers from the Joffrey Ballet School Choreographic Workshop
- animation by Lev Polyakov
- new music by Allan Greene
- live music by Joshua Davis, PJ Robers, Juliana Boehm, Miho Nozawa and others
Charitable contributions will be evenly distributed between the Japan Society and the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal.
Joffrey Ballet School
434 Avenue of the Americas (at 9th Street), Manhattan
(directions)
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
May it RESONATE! with you
RESONATE! African America in Sound and Story launches its after-school arts programming today at 4pm with song/spoken word artists Chandra Rule and Somi at the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center.
Co-presented by Lincoln Center's Meet the Artist and New York University's Institute of African American Affairs, this series of four free events for high school and college students will also welcome the acclaimed singer/musician Toshi Reagon (April 13), dancer-choreographer Nora Chipaumire (April 20) and the And Lay Duo--two members of the Ethiopian funk/groove collective Debo Band (April 27).
Each performance, celebrating the rich cultural diversity and innovative artistry of the African diaspora, will be followed by a discussion and Q & A moderated by Ethiopian singer Meklit Hadero, Artist-in-Residence of NYU's Institute of African American Affairs.
Free! Reservations not required.
Wednesdays, 4pm-5pm
David Rubinstein Atrium at Lincoln Center
Broadway between 62nd and 63rd Streets, Manhattan
(directions)
Co-presented by Lincoln Center's Meet the Artist and New York University's Institute of African American Affairs, this series of four free events for high school and college students will also welcome the acclaimed singer/musician Toshi Reagon (April 13), dancer-choreographer Nora Chipaumire (April 20) and the And Lay Duo--two members of the Ethiopian funk/groove collective Debo Band (April 27).
Each performance, celebrating the rich cultural diversity and innovative artistry of the African diaspora, will be followed by a discussion and Q & A moderated by Ethiopian singer Meklit Hadero, Artist-in-Residence of NYU's Institute of African American Affairs.
Free! Reservations not required.
Wednesdays, 4pm-5pm
David Rubinstein Atrium at Lincoln Center
Broadway between 62nd and 63rd Streets, Manhattan
(directions)
MOMA will host Euzhan Palcy retrospective
See the first US retrospective of the work of Martinique-born filmmaker Euzhan Palcy--the first Black woman to have her work produced by a major Hollywood studio--at the Museum of Modern Art, May 18-30.
For program details, click here.
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)
For program details, click here.
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)
Is China scared?
MIA: Ai Weiwei -- Is China scared of one of its most fearless artists?
by Alex Pasternack, Slate, April 4, 2011
by Alex Pasternack, Slate, April 4, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
"Atomic Samurai"
Jackie Sheeler's "Atomic Samurai"
A WordRock video about energy consumption & nuclear reactors. Inspired by the workers at Fukushima, who are knowingly forfeiting their lives in order to protect the lives of others. I bow to you all. --Jackie Sheeler
Monday, April 4, 2011
Ai Weiwei, Chinese dissident artist, detained
China Takes Dissident Artist Into Custody
by Andrew Jacobs, The New York Times, April 3, 2011
by Andrew Jacobs, The New York Times, April 3, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Reker's "People Get Ready"
Tonight’s your last chance to see People Get Ready, a performance named for Steven Reker’s tribe of indie musician/dancers, at The Kitchen. So listen up.
Musically, Reker’s mixtape certainly has appeal. What starts off with Reker’s very low-key singing and plinking guitar notes and the gang stomping out the rhythm like trained horses counting with their hooves quickly expands into this primal heartbeat--full-force, deliciously melodic, deeply layered rock. One drawback to totally loving it is, at least in this setting, the indecipherable lyrics. (”a Squandering,” sung very deliberately and clearly, is the exception.) It’s all quite danceable, although the group’s collective and often whimsical choreography and awkward, ineffectual way with video and props--usually manipulating unorthodox light sources--shows no evidence of confidence in the overall design.
But, dance-wise, People Get Ready has high points. The energetic Reker, a well-loved stalwart of “downtown” performance, provides some of that interest in Red Skeleton where he performs a kind of meditative, stop-motion hip hop while plastered against the back wall, a white hipster suspended against its charcoal bricks as if stuck by Velcro. And there’s that boyish smile. Microphone’s dance--a swinging-corded-microphones-like-lassos number choreographed by Reker and his drummer Luke Fasano--has strong, uncomplicated visual impact but wastes it by going on too long and abusing people's tolerance for grating noise. Side Saddle brings together the kickass women of the troupe--Jen Goma, Jessica Cook and Megan Byrne as Reker’s backup singers, perhaps deliberately arranged in line with him, not behind him, for chorus moves that, for the first time, happily align with the pumping, pounding, expansive waves of Reker’s music.
Other members of the troupe include musicians James Rickman and Eddie Crichton who, though generally integrated into the flow of things, mostly stick to making music on the sidelines.
People Get Ready concludes its run tonight at 8pm. For tickets, click here.
Sample songs by People Get Ready on Myspace.
Sample a 2009 performance of People Get Ready at The Kitchen.
The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street (between 10th and 11th Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)
Musically, Reker’s mixtape certainly has appeal. What starts off with Reker’s very low-key singing and plinking guitar notes and the gang stomping out the rhythm like trained horses counting with their hooves quickly expands into this primal heartbeat--full-force, deliciously melodic, deeply layered rock. One drawback to totally loving it is, at least in this setting, the indecipherable lyrics. (”a Squandering,” sung very deliberately and clearly, is the exception.) It’s all quite danceable, although the group’s collective and often whimsical choreography and awkward, ineffectual way with video and props--usually manipulating unorthodox light sources--shows no evidence of confidence in the overall design.
But, dance-wise, People Get Ready has high points. The energetic Reker, a well-loved stalwart of “downtown” performance, provides some of that interest in Red Skeleton where he performs a kind of meditative, stop-motion hip hop while plastered against the back wall, a white hipster suspended against its charcoal bricks as if stuck by Velcro. And there’s that boyish smile. Microphone’s dance--a swinging-corded-microphones-like-lassos number choreographed by Reker and his drummer Luke Fasano--has strong, uncomplicated visual impact but wastes it by going on too long and abusing people's tolerance for grating noise. Side Saddle brings together the kickass women of the troupe--Jen Goma, Jessica Cook and Megan Byrne as Reker’s backup singers, perhaps deliberately arranged in line with him, not behind him, for chorus moves that, for the first time, happily align with the pumping, pounding, expansive waves of Reker’s music.
Other members of the troupe include musicians James Rickman and Eddie Crichton who, though generally integrated into the flow of things, mostly stick to making music on the sidelines.
People Get Ready concludes its run tonight at 8pm. For tickets, click here.
Sample songs by People Get Ready on Myspace.
Sample a 2009 performance of People Get Ready at The Kitchen.
The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street (between 10th and 11th Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)
Friday, April 1, 2011
horribly good
oh, the horror of it. what madeline best and shawn irons and lauren petty and brian rogers have put together. called the horror the horror (I have plenty of energy to drive over there). if it drives you to abrons arts center tonight or tomorrow, i truly hope you get in. not too many seats there and what they have of them all up in the balcony, confined to its central section, so you get this awesome (a word i don't use reflexively) panoramic view down into the stage and across the first panels of walls to either side of the stage where video artists irons and petty splash their stunningly beautiful, alternately hypnotic and hallucinogenic imagery. rogers’s soundscape first lures you into a perfectly reasonable environment of road traffic and bird song then snares you the way a really nasty, grasping dream can do and, before you know it, you’re wondering if you’re hearing the passing roar of one of those 9/11 planes and later you’re recoiling from that mel gibson rant, you know, where he berates and threatens oksana and calls her everything but a child of god, only rogers has electronically manipulated this already scary thing to the extent that the madman’s pants and exclamations come out like the unearthly rasp of the beast outta hell. and then there’s best, who goes from being this slight, perfectly ordinary, pleasant-looking young woman drifting across the stage to this try-brid--simultaneously, a shadow, a live creature and a huge, lipsticked, thrashing head video-projected in this environment of creepy/violent sound and sight, transformed from second to second. all of this plus a heartstopping visitation from rachmaninoff. it's genius.
the horror the horror (I have plenty of energy to drive over there). See it tonight and tomorrow night at 8pm. Tickets.
Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street, Manhattan
(directions)
the horror the horror (I have plenty of energy to drive over there). See it tonight and tomorrow night at 8pm. Tickets.
Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street, Manhattan
(directions)
Old media still valuable to Oregon's dancers
Portland dancers hold fundraiser, prepare to publish newspaper
by Marty Hughley, The Oregonian, March 24, 2011
by Marty Hughley, The Oregonian, March 24, 2011