Brian Brooks’ loco motion

Aaron Walter and Brian Brooks in Motor 
(Photo by Christopher Duggan)

Yes, Brian Brooks Moving Company is a perpetual motion machine, surely evidenced by the miraculous ensemble spectacle Motor (2010) but also the manic Brooks solo I’m Going to Explode (2007) and shiny new model of the moment, Descent.

Yes to spectacle. Yes to the glamour of discipline and endurance. Yes to Motor’s starburst cables radiating from deep back in the Joyce Theater stage and high over the heads of audience below, taut strings you want to reach up and strum. Yes to the light rays traveling those lines and to the slippery fleetness and heroism of bodies--Brooks himself, Hollis Bartlett, Meghan Frederick, Jeff Kent Jacobs, Jo-anne Lee, Danielle McIntosh and Aaron Walter.

Yes to the sexiness of the machine. Yes to the human machine. Yes to the surging flow, the ebb, the undertow. Yes to obsession. Yes to agitation. Yes to stepping out of oneself, cracking the armor, going nuts.

Yes to virtuosity with edge. Yes to splintered visions, to unexpected, serious musicality.

Yes, even, to working images half to death. Yes to chewing gum 'til the flavor fades. Yes...perhaps...to the strangeness of dropping a piece without a fancy send-off. (Wait... Did Descent just end? What? That's it?)

Yes, finally, to sometimes saying no and no and no...if only for a moment.

Gotham Dance Festival presents Brian Brooks Moving Company again on Friday (8pm) and Sunday (7:30pm). Click here for details, and be sure to check out the festival's complete--and interesting--lineup of programming through June 12.

Schedule and ticketing

The Joyce Theater
8th Avenue and 19th Street, Manhattan
(directions)