Getting Lost features storytelling from Zefrey Throwell (Whitney, MoMa), Hollis Witherspoon (Comedy Central, The PIT, WBAI), Elena Megalos (The Moth), Jenny Zhang (LMCC, Rookie Mag), Chris Stackhouse (Poet, Art in America), Benaifer Bhadha (Narativ), and Nathaniel Sullivan (Flux Factory, This Red Door).
Start The Car is a multimedia storytelling series featuring a diverse panel of writer/artist/performers at Galapagos Art Space in Dumbo, Brooklyn. The event brings together artists, writers, and performers that may utilize various creative multimedia to support an "alternative presentation" of a narrative structure. A rotating line-up of storytellers offer up diverse essays, non-fiction and fictionalized stories based around a loose theme and are encouraged to use sound, pictures, written and spoken word, video, music, images, collaboration and any other modes to creatively enhance the narrative.
Tickets are $8 in advance ($12 at the door) and can be purchased at ticketweb.com. Doors open at 7pm, and stories will begin at 8pm. This event is 21 and over; seasonal drink specials will be available for purchase.
Takehiro Ueyamaand his TAKE Dance troupe conclude their two-night season at Symphony Space this evening, featuring a world premiere (Dark Mourning), a reprise of Flight from 2010, and A Baited Soul, a new piece by Ueyama's mentor, Kazuko Hirabayashi.
Ueyama grounds his choreography in the reliable tradition of dramatic, expressive dance by way of his Martha Graham/Paul Taylor lineage. Dance fans inclined to formal dance theater will feel most at home with his methods.
Watching Flight--an ensemble piece inspired by the flocking of starlings, as in this video--I found myself most impressed by Ueyama's gutsiness in filling his stage, for an extremely long period of time, with the maneuvers of a bustling spread of thirteen performers. Gutsy because, as the hour grows late, these dancers do not disperse as one would expect; gutsy because that stage looks inadequate for a flock of this size and almost martial assertiveness--which is, actually, very starling-like. Unfortunately, that extreme length of time--how many bird-evoking gestures and motions can I have every dancer perform? and for how long? and can I get away with repeating some of them?--tires and discourages one's attention. Add to that a tendency to highlight the most obvious avian movements and having Ueyama's wandering/wondering surrogate (guest dancer Barry Wizoreck) draw the piece to its conclusion by returning to the stage to pull fistfuls of fluffy white feathers from his pants pockets, and Flight has severely undercut its dynamic energy with simplistic imagery.
Dark Mourning's nine sections bear much more subtlety and shapely lyricism in their imagery, evoking relationships among mourners and memories of lost loved ones. Here birds are relegated to early morning twitters in a soundscape resonant with church bells. Movement impressions are graceful, tortured or filled with abandon in ways that intimate character, experience and the significance that one person might have for another but still leave room for a variety of possible narratives. Look for especially engaged, lovely performances by Gina Ianni, Elise Drew and John Eirich. Similarly, in A Baited Soul, Jill Echo, the seductress with the red parasol,is the one to watch.
TAKE Dance takes off on its final Symphony Space flight at 7:30 tonight. Click here for program and ticket information.
Dance artist and filmmaker Gabri Christa wrote me this note about 2013 MacArthur Award winner, Kyle Abraham:
When I saw Kyle dance (in 2007), I was immediately smitten--and also because he looks like my family. Yes, I wanted to make a film with my dad, and Kyle looks so much like my dad when he was younger, it was a no-brainer. So we lived together and worked together in my home town, and he is also a wonderful person who deserves all the love he is getting. So here they are: my dad Marcel Stomp and my lil bro Kyle.
An older man looks at his younger self (Kyle Abraham) explore an old quarantine building for enslaved Africans. Quarantine is the first film in Gabri Christa's Another Building series, which features short narrative dance films that take place in and around historic buildings and sites connected to the Dutch History.
The quarantine building was in Curaçao and housed slaves who were too sick to be taken to the Americas.
For more information on the Another Building series, click here.
Choreographer Jin Ju Song-Begin tells us that the name of her year-old modern dance troupe, Da-On Dance, refers to the Korean words for "all good things are coming." The company presented the world premiere of her first evening-length piece, Thirst, last night as part of Danspace Project's DANCE:Access program, and it shows that those words might be good to bear in mind for a while.
Influenced by themes from Dante's Inferno, the hour-long work has fleeting moments of concentrated interest--massing, bee swarm sounds played live by composer Jerome Begin and cellist Loren Dempster; silhouetted dancers stepping into feeble pools of light of their own making; a chorus of self-flagellants who inject the piece with much-needed fire; and Song-Begin's own unforgiving slashes across space. The piece is at its best when revealing her to be its supercharged engine. Her dancers capably present the shapes and overall dynamics of movement but do not seem to be living it from the inside. The map of Hell is not hell itself. If I'm overly distracted by the looks of them--even down to hairstyles--I'm not in the dance with them. For Da-On Dance, only time will tell.
with Esmé Boyce, Giulia Carotenuto, David Gonsier, Breanna Gribble, Karen Harvey, KyounJoon Lee and Elliott Reiland
Original score by Jerome Begin performed with Loren Dempster
Da-On Dance continues its run at Danspace Project tonight and tomorrow night at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.
Triskelion Arts, the Williamsburg, Brooklyn center for dance announced its signing of a 10-year lease on a former body shop in Greenpoint at the corner of Calyer and Banker Streets. The organization will move during Summer 2014, but the build-out of the new location will begin next month. The current site of Triskelion’s operations at 118 N. 11th Street will continue to operate until June 2014. "All scheduled performances, rehearsals, and classes at the current location will not be affected," says Artistic Director Abby Bender. "Studio and theater rentals will continue as usual through May.
" The new facility is a freestanding, two-story construction that will boast two ground-floor performance spaces, four dance studios, increased audience capacity, higher ceilings, and wheelchair accessibility. This change opens new opportunities for visibility to up-and-coming artists and organizational autonomy in this unshared building. A $150,000 capital campaign will be launched in the coming weeks to raise funds for the project."
For more information on Triskelion's move and campaign, click here.
Alexis Rockman’s watercolor drawings were the first stage in the development of the fantastical, imaginary world of Life of Pi, the 2012 Academy-Award winning feature film directed by Ang Lee. Lee sought out Rockman’s vision as an artist with a specific commitment to hand drawing to bring a human scale to the project, a sense of the material and the fortuitous that would come, for example, from the random bloom of watercolor pigment on paper. Though most artistic contributions to cinema are dependent on photo-realism or cartoon-like illustration, Rockman’s images are fluid, intimate, and dynamic in a way that only drawing can capture. The exhibition will provide The Drawing Center with a unique opportunity to explore the relationship between visual art—specifically drawing—and commercial filmmaking.
In conjunction with Alexis Rockman: Drawings from Life of Pi, Jean-Christophe Castelli, Associate Producer of Life of Pi; and Brett Littman, Executive Director of The Drawing Center; will join Alexis Rockman in conversation. Moderated by Pratt Institute’s Dean of the School of Art & Design, Leighton Pierce.
Sponsored by Pratt Institute’s Fine Arts, Film & Video and Digital Arts departments.
I've just finished Duncan Wall's The Ordinary Acrobat (Random House, 2013), which interweaves two engrossing narratives: the often elusive history of circus and this young American's sojourn to France to explore contemporary circus as an increasingly enamored student, scholar and advocate. (Wall currently serves as National Director of Circus Now, the American advocacy organization, and teaches circus history and criticism at the National Circus School of Montreal.) While some of Wall's swings between past and present, personal and historical, might dizzy a few readers, I hung on for the whole vicarious, mental ride, coming away with a thirst for seeing more contemporary/interdisciplinary--and even traditional--circus and turning my skills as an arts writer to this stimulating challenge. If you think you know everything that circus is and can be--Ringling Bros. over here; Cirque du Soleil over there--this book will give you a peek at unexpected possibilities and may inspire you to search out more. Good stories, good ideas, good company.
And on Thursday, October 24 (6pm), meet Duncan Wall at Brooklyn Academy of Music's Fisher Hillman Studio for a talk on the rise of contemporary circus and the state of the art today. This event is presented as part of BAM's Next Wave Festival in conjunction with the American premiere of Hans was Heiriby Swiss circus innovators, Zimmerman & de Perrot.
For complete information and tickets for Wall's talk, click here.
BAM Fisher Hillman Studio
321 Ashland Place, Brooklyn
(map/directions)
A story and slide show from this past summer about New York ballerina Gwynedd Vetter-Drusch's dance project in the butterfly research gardens at the University of Kansas for Monarch Watch
Between 1927 and 1933, the poet H.D. assisted with the publication of the avant-garde film magazine Close Up, which was edited by Bryher and Kenneth Macpherson. The three writers also lived together in a queer ménage à trois, collectively raising a child, making films, and editing their influential journal.
This lecture will present photographs, letters, and films from the group's rich (and sometimes risqué) archive. The trio's personal lives frequently appear in their public work: Bryher solicited essays for the magazine from her own psychoanalyst, and Macpherson directed two of the family's pet monkeys in the film Monkey's Moon. Close Up also shows the queer family's personal obsessions: their interest in the occult and Bauhaus architecture, their anti-censorship activism, and their interactions with diverse figures like G.W. Pabst, Paul Robeson, Sergei Eistenstein, Havelock Ellis, and Gertrude Stein.
But more significantly, images, words, and themes from the trio's private correspondence resurface in their public essays for Close Up, allowing us to give new, erotically-charged valences to many of the terms in appearing in the journal. Their private nicknames and "spirit animal" alter-egos, for instance, often appear as metaphors for cinema itself, suggesting that the authors imagined film as a chimeric animal body capable of many kinds of erotic encounters. Moreover, H.D. and Bryher's writings on psychoanalysis give us the opportunity to imagine an alternative form of psychoanalytic film theory, one based on queer and female visual pleasure. By placing H.D., Bryher, and Macpherson's essays in their proper context, we can read their work as offering a very queer account of cinematic modernism.
The lecture will be accompanied by a screening of Monkey's Moon (1929).
Mal Ahern is a third-year PhD student in the joint program in Film Studies and History of Art at Yale University. Her work has been published in The New Inquiry and Millennium Film Journal, and her essay “Riddles of the Sphinx and the Center of the Pan” is forthcoming in the 2014 Yale University Press book Panoramic Vistas.
FREE
Please note: seating is limited. First-come, first-served. Box office opens at 7pm.
An exhibition of work by eleven award-winning women photojournalists, curated by National Geographic Senior Photo Editor Elizabeth Krist.
“Women of Vision” features nearly 100 photographs, including moving depictions of far–flung cultures, compelling illustrations of conceptual topics such as memory and teenage brain chemistry, and arresting images of social issues like child marriage and 21st–century slavery. In addition to the photographs, visitors will have an opportunity to learn how National Geographic magazine (NGM) picture editors work closely with the photographers to select images and tell a story. Video vignettes will present first–person accounts that reveal the photographers’ individual styles, passions and approaches to their craft.
All the photographers featured in the exhibition will be at National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 10, joining journalist Ann Curry for a panel discussion on the power of photography and the many people and places represented in their assignment work. The event will be live–streamed on NationalGeographic.com. Curry also wrote the foreword to the exhibition’s companion book, “Women of Vision: National Geographic Photographers on Assignment,” along with National Geographic magazine Editor–in–Chief Chris Johns. The book will be available in the National Geographic Museum Store.
Visa Information for Immigrant Artists with George Akst
Are you an artist from another country? Ever wonder if you qualify for US Immigration’s so-called “Artist visa”? Are those visas only for visual or performing artists? Can you get a Green Card as an artist?
George S. Akst of Akst & Akst Immigration Law Firm will answer these and other questions at next month’s edition of BYOB in Brief: Visa Information for Immigrant Artists as part of QCA’s Build Your Own Business (BYOB) Workshop Series. Mr. Akst has over 35 years of experience in immigration law, including information on recent changes to immigration laws in New York City.
Wednesday, October 9, 6-8pm
Queens Council on the Arts 37-11 35th Ave (entrance on 37th Street), Astoria M/R train to Steinway St or N/Q to 36th Ave
George Akst received his B.A. in Economics from Boston University in 1972. He attended The Hague Academy of International Law in the Netherlands in 1973 and received his J.D. from Fordham Law School in 1976 where he was a member of the Urban Law Journal. He was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1977 and is admitted to practice in the Federal District Court and US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He has been a Member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association since 1984, as well as the Consular Law Society. He is also on the referral list of the NYC Commission on the United Nations, Division of International Business. Mr. Akst is a former Adjunct Professor of Business and Real Estate Law, at both Long Island University and at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. He is also the Founder and President of the Real Estate Institute of Greater New York. Over the past 35 years, Mr. Akst has been a frequent speaker to business and community groups throughout the New York Metropolitan area on the issues of business and family immigration to the US
How would you like to see a mess of new dances made from scratch right before your eyes?
How about if I told you some of the makers would be Alexandra Beller, Donald Byrd, Gabri Christa, Mark Dendy, Ishmael Houston-Jones, RoseAnne Spradlin and Susan Rethorst?
And the dancers? How about a lineup that includes Benjamin Asriel, Pat Catterson, Maura Donahue, Alex Escalante, Marjani Forte, Patricia Hoffbauer, Sarah East Johnson, Jonathan Kinzel, Jodi Melnick, Luke Miller, Omagbemi Omagbitse, Antonio Ramos, Sarah Skaggs, Arturo Vidich, Edisa Weeks, Kathy Westwater and many, many more?
Then Sally Silvers has a lot of surprises in store for you--including a "Surprise Big Deal Guest" on Saturday night--at her Surprise Every Time, a two-day festival of "live choreography" at Roulette.
Saturday, September 28, 4:30pm and 8pm
Sunday, September 29, 3:30 pm and 7pm
Two sets per day, 3 half hour projects per set, with different choreographers & performers in each project. Come to one or come to all with special prices for more than one show.
Get complete information here, or visit the Facebook event page.
In Basil Twist's ingenious Dogugaeshi--now sold out in its new run at Japan Societythrough Sunday--painted images recede and shrink, or steadily press forward, growing in intensity, or playfully pop up from out of nowhere. This kaleidoscope of sliding doors, dancing panels, Shinto gateways, silhouettes of people and objects, and glowing candlelight creates a continuously altered environment, a theatrical experience that disorients and enchants.
Dogugaeshi's white fox
It's sort of a shaggy fox story--featuring, at times, a shaggy white fox puppet--with no recognizable narrative and little conventional action, just the almost neverending opening of painted portal after painted portal onto more portals, each awaiting its turn to be pulled aside. This series of revelations, this simple dance of decor--dogugaeshi means "set change"--leads you, step by step, to a final, quiet awareness of the mysterious, archetypal essence of theater.
Sliding panels and some elusive fox puppets from Dogugaeshi
Presented in a deliberately constrained space--hence the quick dispersal of tickets--Dogugaeshi flows like dream inside your head. It can be a sweet dream. (Have you met that loping, Trickster fox--familiar of the god Inari--with his gorgeous eyes?) Or, like very different types of dreams, it can be frustrating or even anxiety-provoking. My general memories suggest that, for the current production, Twist has made changes from 2007 version of Dogugaeshi, seen here at Japan Society.
Shamisen musician and singer Yumiko Tanaka in Dogugaeshi
For one thing, this new edition acknowledges and evokes northeastern Japan's 2011 earthquake and tsunami. In one section, the delicate decor's walls and panels flap and tremble; tattered panels fall from the little ceiling as Yumiko Tanaka's shamisen emits shrieks and grinding sounds. Our thoughts surely go to Japan's historic trauma, but like everything else in Dogugaeshi, what we see before us and hear from Tanaka's masterful singing and playing seem like externalizations of our own sensations and feelings, all of this experience and information looping forward and back between us and the little puppet stage.
Although you probably do not have a ticket for Dogugaeshi, you can catch up on the many other events planned for Japan Society's 2013-14 season--including a shamisen workshop with Yumiko Tanaka on Saturday, November 2 (1pm). Click here for Japan Society's general information and schedule.
For more information on Basil Twist's extraordinary work, click here.
The Royal Ballet's Edward Watson as Gregor Samsa in The Metamorphosis
Certain types of dance events, certain companies and certain choreographers bring out critics I never or rarely run into anywhere else around New York's diverse dance environment, and you know exactly what I mean. They land in flocks and, yes, the fall migrants are landing--with good reason--for The Royal Ballet's export of The Metamorphosis, a major coup for the new Joyce Theater season.
Choreographed by Arthur Pita and premiered in 2012, the award-winning production stars Royal principal Edward Watson as Franz Kafka's tormented Gregor Samsa. The regal Watson bends--I should say, contorts like crazy--to the task of transforming himself from a rigid, driven traveling salesman, stuck in a life of sterile routine, into a bug of indeterminate species drooling viscous brown liquid from its mouthparts and sliming the super-clean bedroom where his horrified family has confined him. (Simon Daw's massive and pristine white set design, lit by Guy Hoare, is already a nightmare just waiting to become something even worse.) Watson's grotesque physical performance as man-trapped-in-exoskeleton truly astonishes as much as it repels, and it is with no small relief that, for long stretches of the 90 minutes, we're given leave to gaze aside at a host of characters who make up Samsa's world.
Watson's duet with Nina Goldman (Samsa's mom)
Of these, Bettina Carpi (wonderful as the family's hearty, amusingly unflappable maid) and Corey Annand (Gregor's kid sister, Grete) have the most interesting roles. And it is the aspiring ballerina Grete's own monstrous transformation--from loving, if giddy, child to angry, rock-hearted adult, largely shown through the development of her ballet technique--that helps Pita suggest a long passage of time.
I read somewhere that Watson thinks composer Frank Moon's live performance tops his own, and--at great risk of being unfair to the amazing Watson--I must admit that thought did cross my mind at least once. Moon, stationed below one corner of the stage, serves as another good landing place for one's troubled gaze. At times, I'd watch him leaning into the mic to deliver atmospheric vocals over his recorded and live playing. His brilliant score--featuring guitar, oud, violin, tam-tam and voice--combines precision and madness, a monstrous beauty.
The Metamorphosis runs through September 29 at The Joyce Theater. Click here for a complete schedule of shows and ticketing information.
Last night, Brad Bradley brought his revamped cabaret show, B Squared--a hit from July's queer-tastic Hot Festival--back to Dixon Place for one night only. A survey of songs in the key of gay, B Squared clicks together items that, on paper, might not appear to be a workable collage. But they reflect the many facets of Bradley--a Broadway pro all the more winning for his generous, humble air.
There's an ode to a Barbie collection ("the only girl I could bear to see nude...fuck G.I. Joe: he gives me ennui"), a tweed-capped, Irish-accented ditty called "My Drunken Irish Dad," big ol' belters belted just the way Broadway likes 'em, and no small measure of twinkly-eyed sass, unabashed poignancy and unexpected toughness. I especially like the smart, tough edge within someone who is clearly a very sweet guy.
Joshua Zecher-Ross
Genial music director Joshua Zecher-Ross takes his place at the piano--it's decorated with a 5"-tall toy candelabra and a madcap collection of caps and hats--showing off his ability to not only play and sing with charm but also turn Bradley into his...um...straight man. "Josh, were you ever in the closet?" Bradley innocently inquires. The pianist waits a beat, replying, "I was in the womb...."
Karla Shook
Sidekicks Karla Shook (a powerhouse--watch out, Bette Midler!) and Joe Casey (Bradley's "Eskimo brother" and partner in a sexy-comic song-and-dance number) round out B Squared's joyful cast.
Joe Casey
Dixon Place has long served as an incubator of talent and new work. In this case, the talent has been cooking for a while, and the developments look good. Let's see more.
For more on the Dixon Place fall season, click here.
Join WWAM (Women Writers & Artists Matrix) for its Fall 2013 weekend retreat at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York -- Friday, November 1 through Sunday, November 3.
Workshops include:
Unpacking The Pandora's Box of Social Media - Suzi Banks Baum
What Takes Your Breath Away: Breathing in the Holy, Breathing Out Art - Leiah Bowden
Writing & Traveling Light: Holding On & Letting Go - Jan Lawry
The Art of Sacred Artifacts: Bookmaking Master Class - Sarah Shepley
Bookmaking: Simple Splendor - Sarah Shepley
Poetry: Mining The Source, Finding the Words - Barbara Louise Ungar
For complete information on activities, click here.
Women Writers & Artists Matrix is an association of kindred creative women dedicated to shifting the paradigm through words and images. Our aim is meet the needs of women who are artists or writers, and those who are endowed with both skills. Co-founded in 2010 by an artist and an author our organization affirms creativity as a vital, empowering and necessary aspect of women's lives. We are also committed to fostering community connections, sponsoring art exhibits, public readings and interactive projects.
A memorial for dancer Lynn Marie Ruse will be held on Saturday, September 21, 2013, 4-6m at Judson Memorial Church , 55 Washington Square South, off Washington Square Park, Manhattan (map/directions)
Qurrat Ann Kadwani
(bottom photo by Bolti Studios)
"60 minutes..13 characters..1 actress."
That's it. That's how the program notes sum up They Call Me Q!, a monologue about growing up in the Bronx as a child of a family from India, performed by award-winning playwright/actress Qurrat Ann Kadwani. I'd add "an hour well spent with a wicked smart and genuinely funny performer."
Directed by Obaid Kadwani and Claudia Gaspar, the piece manages to charm audiences and critics wherever it goes--from Chicago's Fringe fest to Maui's to Montreal's--and it did well here in New York in the Fringe edition just recently closed. As a result, Kadwani garnered a slot in the FringeNYC Encore series, and you can see her this afternoon at 1pm in the second and final performance of this production.
As a child of an immigrant family (Barbados), I must say Kadwani's anecdotes tickled me, partly because they're truly amusing and wonderfully delivered, but also because, even despite a wide difference in our ages, there may be almost no difference between some of the things her mother told her, what I heard from my folks out in Queens and what my Jewish wife recalls from her family life in the Bronx. This astounded me and reinforced my love of this city as I know it.
See They Call Me Q!, today at 1pm, at Baruch Performing Arts Center, 55 Lexington Avenue (entrance on East 25th Street between Lexington and 3rd Avenues). For program information and tickets, click here.
Dear DNA Community,Today we have reached an agreement with our landlord, Fram Realty, that allows DNA to remain at its current location through mid-October, after which DNA has agreed to leave 280 Broadway. However, Fram Realty has agreed, in good faith, to continue to listen to any viable proposals DNA presents to it. Our agreement is being documented and submitted to the Bankruptcy Court for approval.Classes and rentals will be running through October 13.Know that we continue to work on a solution to support the DNA teachers, students, artist, audiences, etc.; but as of yet, we have not been able to secure a partner or find another solution that would allow us to meet DNA's business responsibilities and remain at 280 Broadway.The DNA Community is more than a 280 Broadway space; it exists regardless of where we work, dance, teach, create, and perform. For our part, we will help keep the lines of communication open between teachers, students, artists, and community supporters while looking for ways to keep our programs alive. In the meantime, please come take class and rehearse!With great respect and awe,Catherine A. PeilaExecutive/Artistic Director
For InfiniteBody's earlier post on the DNA situation, click here.
Defining Myself for Myself: Women of Color Make Documentary
Saturday, October 12, 3pm am-4:30pm
Long Island University, Brooklyn (DeKalb & Flatbush Aves)
Room: LLC 116, Selena Gallery
Women of color offer an original perspective and point of view, documenting films that are not just the recording of reality. They are purposeful in their storytelling intent. Their stories define women of color by women of color. Our discussion explores the uniqueness that is the female documentarian of color. What are the particular perspectives of our storytellers which impact their films and make them so unique? How can we ensure that we can continue to define ourselves in the face of forces that seek to tell us who we are?
GUESTS:
Shantrelle P. Lewis, producer/director of the forthcoming film Black Pete, Zwarte Piet: The Documentary
Dr. Marta Vega, director When the Spirits Dance Mambo
Christine Turner, director of Homegoings and Rubber Soles.
Moderator: Leslie Fields-Cruz, VP of Operations & Director of Programming, National Black Programming Consortium.
Tickets: $7. For information call: 212-865-2982 or 718-488-1624.
Have you heard about La MaMa's new 10@$10 program?
Ten $10 tickets will be available to every performance on a first-come, first-served basis. La MaMa wants to make it possible for anyone to see live shows for less than the price of a movie ticket. Specifically, La MaMa aims to ensure artists can see each other’s work, and to foster young audiences experiencing daring performances.
Read about 10@$10 here, and check out the 2013-14 season lineup here.
It was so much fun to facilitate my writing workshop--"Points of Entry"--for editor Christine Jowers (top photo, third from right) and her lively, talented writers from The Dance Enthusiast. I am serving as a Master Writer in Residence for TDE through May 2014 and, in addition to tonight's workshop, will be contributing several articles or reviews in coming months.
Eva Yaa Asantewaa (right) with TDE writers photo by Christine Jowers
Thank you very much for this opportunity, Christine. And thanks to New York Live Arts for hosting us.
Now, everyone, make sure you write and publish those fantastic reviews we talked about!
A special update for all of you who enjoyed my interview with dance artist Jessica Chen:
J CHEN PROJECT has secured space for a one-night-only performance at the Salvatore Capezio Theater at Peridance, Saturday, September 21, 8:30PM. The address is 126 East 13th Street, between 3rd and 4th Avenues, Manhattan (map/directions).
Nancy Reynolds interviews Edward Villella
(George Balanchine Foundation video archives)
The New York Dance and Performance Awards (The Bessies) announced another award in advance of its October 7 awards ceremony. Dance historian Nancy Reynolds has received the 2013 award for Outstanding Service to the Field of Dance.
Nancy Reynolds, former New York City Ballet dancer, will be honored for profoundly altering and enriching the field of dance preservation and archival research. Reynolds currently serves as Director of Research at the George Balanchine Foundation, where she manages the Balanchine video archives, giving new life to his works by filming former ballet stars coaching Balanchine’s work on current dancers—an invaluable resource for educational institutions. This groundbreaking project, started in 1994, is a masterful conservation for future generations of dancers, often recreating dances that have been lost. To date more than 50 sessions have been filmed – accessible at more than seventy libraries around the world, including the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Reynolds has simultaneously published authoritative dance history books such as No Fixed Points, a nine-hundred page history of Western dance in the twentieth century, and Repertory in Review, a history of City Ballet’s repertory from 1935–1976. She edited Lincoln Kirstein’s book Movement and Metaphor and contributed to the International Encyclopedia of Dance. She directed research for Choreography by George Balanchine: A Catalogue of Works. Each of her books is considered an essential addition to any serious dance lover’s library.
The 2013 Bessies will be presented on Monday, October 7 (8pm) at Harlem's historic Apollo Theater.
For a list of the 2013 Bessies nominees and winners, click here.
For program and ticket information for the awards ceremony, click here.
Following a well-respected career with the Martha Graham Dance Ensemble and Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, Edgar Cortes set out to develop his own projects in modern dance. Later this month, Edgar Cortes Dance Theater, formed in 2009, will present its latest ensemble production at The Riverside Theatre. SOL-I-DÓ pays tribute to the choreographer's homeland, inspired by remembered imagery, legends and music.
Scenes from SOL-I-DÓ Cortes with Amelie Benard; and Benard below (photos by Paul A. Machado)
"The show is not about the history of Portugal but what my country means to me," he says. "Different vignettes that remind me of what's getting a little bit lost--a wonderful, rich variety of traditional folk dances," such as the corridinho, an energetic, rotating circle dance from the Algarve, the southernmost region of Portugal.
Cortes, born in the southern municipality of Santiago do Cacém, resonates with people who live by the sea. He also loves the south's green landscape, its fields of poppies and sunflowers, all reflected in SOL-I-DÓ's design.
"SOL-I-DÓ is a play on words. It's part of a very popular song that everybody in Portugal knows when they're growing up. I'm not even sure if it's a real word or made up. The words go, 'They were both on the corner, playing the accordion and dancing the solido.' Solido is not really a dance but, in Portuguese, it rhymes with the rest of the words. It sounds very playful.
"Well, in America, not a lot of people know the song; it doesn't have the same effect. But what I did was divide the word. The way I'm writing it out--SOL-I-DÓ--gives it other meanings: Sol means sun. I--the "I" in the middle--means and [in Portuguese]. Dó is another word for pity or sorrow.
"That's a perfect way to describe my country: sunny and bright but also a lot of sorrow--which is kind of the way I feel, being away from home."
Without a doubt, Cortes had to include fado, the signature Portuguese music of sorrow and nostalgia.
"You think Portugal, and you have to think fado and sardines and codfish and Port wine. I have a dance about sardines as well! And, there's definitely comedy...a little."
For this former Trock, there must always be a little comedy.
Here's something about Cortes that I remember posting here, in June of last year, from a 2010 episode of Here's the Thing TV.
Adult Ballez is a dance class to explore the historically gendered and Imperialist movements of Ballet, and to radically re-imagine those potentially oppressive tools into a physicalized site of play, freedom, strength, and liberation. We will shift the focus away from athletic virtuosity and towards the virtuosity of genderqueer embodiment, and seek active engagement with classmates (aka cruising), as opposed to the typically endless shame spirals of self-loathing based upon an unattainable ideal! We'll play with ballet's traditionally gendered form, learning and practicing the steps of both ballerinas and danseurs. We'll warm-up at the barre, practice codified postures and movements, and then move into center to turn, jump and learn short movement phrases. We'll learn techniques for, and practice, partnering that is not based on size, but rather on weight-sharing, listening, and cooperation, all with the accompaniment of oft-embarassing music by queer icons.
Jeremy Crutchley in Sacred Elephant(photo by Rob Keith)
Fine-boned and mercurial, the British/South African actor Jeremy Crutchley has the litheness of a dancer. His masterful orientation to space makes you think there's much, much more of it than, in reality, La MaMa's First Floor Theater has to offer. His performance of Sacred Elephant--a stage adaptation of a poem by Heathcote Williams about these often exploited and endangered animals--dances as much as it vocally interprets an equally masterful, intense torrent of language, a blend of scientific observation, spiritual resonance and polemics.
From its first inviting words and the first mad glance of the actor's red-rimmed eyes, you're roped into an experience you cannot escape: a wondrous encounter with beings of great power, intelligence, unexpected sensitivity and altruism followed by a reminder of the selfish destructiveness of that insecure "piece of work" Hamlet called "the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!"
photo by Rob Keith
Directed by Geoffrey Hyland, who adapted the Williams poem with Crutchley, this all-giving, 75-minute monologue never fails to engage and trouble the mind, senses or conscience.
Sacred Elephant runs through September 22, Wednesday-Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 3pm. Call 212-868-4444 or visit Smarttix.
For more information, visit the play's Web site here.
La MaMa(First Floor Theater)
74 East 4th Street (between Bowery and 2nd Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)
Miraculously clear. Chiming. Deep and capacious. Cuban-born Roberto Fonseca's vital compositions and piano work speak the languages of the Latin world, West Africa, the Maghreb, jazz, funk and electronica. Check this out on his collection Yo (Concord Jazz), now in US release. Particularly scrumptious: the sweet, kora-influenced "Bibisa"--in both its original and remixed forms--and the North African-influenced "Chabani" and "Gnawa Stop." And hear Fonseca and his band live, later this month, in New York!
[SPECIAL UPDATE: Please note that J CHEN PROJECT has secured space for one-night only at Salvatore Capezio Theater at Peridance, Saturday, September 21, 8:30PM. The address is 126 East 13th Street, between 3rd and 4th Avenues. Tickets: http://jchenproject.ticketleap.com/neverwasbroken]
In August 2012, dance artist Jessica Chen of J CHEN PROJECT and Kevin Mills, her boyfriend, drove away from a friend's California wedding, heading for the reception, when a stretch limo sped into their path. As Mills avoided a crash, his evasive action flipped their open convertible three times. Chen suffered extensive wounds and fractures. Airlifted to a hospital, the dancer underwent eight hours of surgery and, for two weeks, was kept in a medically-induced coma. She recovered far sooner than expected with her doctors crediting her dance background for this rapid healing.
"They had no other explanation," she says. "And for me, being able to express myself creatively through this experience has really helped me fully heal, both physically and emotionally."
Preparing an ensemble work for this fall season--Never was Broken: a dance through life and death and life--the resilient, determined Chen now reflects on this trauma, its aftermath and the renewed focus of her work.
Jessica Chen (photo by Paul Dimalanta)
Yaa Asantewaa: The car accident in which you were severely injured–and which inspired your new dance piece--happened just a little over a year ago. How has your life changed since you made your remarkable recovery?
Chen: Anyone looking at my life from the outside, would say it all looks the same. I live in New York. I run my own dance company. I’m working, rehearsing and preparing for a new production. But for me personally, there has been a major shift. My priorities are very clear about what is important. In the past, it may have been hard for me to let go of the small things or find humor in a time of despair or be brave enough to face the truth.
During my recovery, I had a lot of time to reflect on my life and the decisions I’ve made thus far. I asked myself to answer honestly if this path I’ve chosen, in the arts, was the right path for me. Sometimes in life we make decisions to prove to ourselves we can do something or we make the wrong decision but have too much face to admit it. So, I was prepared to let dance go if my answer was either of those. But my answer became a realization of the importance the role of dance has played for me in my life. Whenever anything significant ever happened to me, I created a dance. It gives me an avenue to express myself and share my story.
Dance has been a major factor in my recovery, both physically and emotionally. Movement is the best way I know how to understand the world. For instance, a few days after I woke up from the coma, two doctors came in to check on me. They wanted to see if I would be in pain if I tried to sit up. They suggested I turn on my side, put my feet down, then push my body up and I responded as if I was learning new choreography. I said, “Okay, so it’s three moves? What beat is this on? Is it, ba bum ba-bum ba-bum?”
Chen, post-recovery, rehearsing Climb. Is All We Know,
a solo choreographed for her by Nicole Smith
(photos by Vanessa Gonzalez-Bunster)
Yaa Asantewaa: If anyone thought you would not dance again, you proved them wrong several months after that accident and your surgeries. Talk a little about the evolution of your dancing, post-recovery, and to what extent do you intend to continue to dance and make work for yourself or that includes yourself. Do you appear in Never Was Broken?
Throughout my recovery I had amazing medical care. From my initial surgeries all the way through rehab, I had professionals who really invested in me. My physical therapist in California is one I need to thank for pushing me. He is flying to New York City for the September show.
When I started rehab, I was still using a wheel chair and learning how to use my crutches while wearing a huge boot on my right leg for protection. On the day after Thanksgiving, I went in for my physical therapy appointment and my physical therapist said to me, “You’re still wearing that boot? Take it off… ok now walk over there.” I said to him, “Walk? Over there? Okay, how do I do that?” Because in PT they teach you how to do all the exercises before you have to do it. And sometimes they even demonstrate. In that moment my physical therapist said to me, “You just walk.”
Yes, I am dancing in Never was Broken. I am performing a duet I choreographed in 2009 and a new solo my dear friend is choreographing on me. I have taken myself out of ensemble pieces, because it just too hard to see where the piece needs to go when you’re in it. But I said very early on that I am not ready to retire from dance. So, I imagine as my company grows I will be commissioning other artists to set work on my company that I would dance in. I will also continue to make solos and duets for myself.
It was scary when I started dancing again, just like when I had to take my first steps without crutches and without my boot. The thought of moving past your comfort zone is always very scary, but when you do, you welcome new opportunities. So sometimes when you have that scary feeling, it’s safe to say you are really pushing yourself to grow.
Yaa Asantewaa: Has anything changed in the process of how you make work, or your style or aesthetics?
Chen: I didn’t start creating Never was Broken in the studio or in rehearsal. It all started from a dream, a vision in my head. At that point, I was still learning how to walk properly, so I was not able to dance yet. I would imagine the dances in my head and write down my thoughts. I also learned how to paint, so I would use painting to get my creative juices flowing. So when I got to the studio for the first time I had a very clear idea of what I was looking for.
In February 2013, we had our first workshop for Never was Broken. I worked with my dancers intensely for ten days to get all the ideas and thoughts out of my head and into their bodies. I was dancing more then but still limited, so I had them improvise a lot. I would set a structure, intention, direction for the improv and let my dancers do their magic. I filmed them and watched the footage. The idea of the workshop was not to create a product; it was simply to brainstorm and explore the ideas I had.
In May 2013, Broadway Dance Center generously sponsored a work-in-progress showing of Never was Broken. It was their way of welcoming me back to New York City and back to my artistic path. So when I started rehearsals with my dancers for that showing, we had less than a month to create a something to share with our audience. I told my dancers it was going to be a true work-in-progress, and so we should not stress too much about getting it perfect. It was a test run with our closest colleagues, friends and family. It was a beautiful evening, and that night I performed for the first time since the accident.
In general, I am much more specific when it comes to my work. I am interested in the small things that make a huge difference. If I paste a piece together and it’s not feeling right, I’m not afraid to take it apart and try again. That is what rehearsal is for. I’m not so set on getting it right the first time or even being brilliant all the time. I am also creating work that is truly meaningful to me. Yes, I care what the audience thinks, but I won’t let that dictate what I create. I trust myself more. And I believe if I create something that is truly meaningful to me, then it will be that powerful to others (and maybe not everyone, but that’s okay, too). It will be a work that I am proud to call my own.
Yaa Asantewaa: I was fascinated by the gentle sensuousness, literally the touch-oriented nature of your style–even in just the way your dancers warm up for rehearsing. What is the significance of interrelationship, touch and eye contact in your work?
Chen: For me, when I’m creating a piece and/or preparing for the show, I am looking at the piece itself as well as making sure my dancers are connected with each other. I believe that a performance is more powerful when there is a connection on stage. They are comfortable with each other, so when they do a lift or look at each other there is a level of intimacy. That relationship will get translated to the audience, and they will feel that connection as well.
The warm-up you walked into is how we start rehearsals. One dancer lays down and releases their muscles while their partner moves them across the floor. They have to trust their partner and their partner has to pay complete attention to them. Especially when we have an early rehearsal, it gives dancers a chance to really settle into the space and into each other. Also, it grounds them and gently wakes up their muscles.
Yaa Asantewaa: You’ve got a great ear for music. What elements draw you to particular pieces of music?
Chen: Thank you. That is a true compliment, because music is so important to me. I typically scour iTunes to search for music that is emotional and strong, but does not overpower the dance. I’ve also worked with several musicians, and I imagine I will do more of that in the future.
When I’m creating a show, I put together a soundtrack of music that I use during the creative process. I play this sound track as we are building the material. A lot of times it will inspire the movement and the arc of the piece. Once there’s an outline of the work, I look to find the music to match it. And sometimes, a lot of times, the music I end up using was not part of the original playlist.
Yaa Asantewaa: Your bio indicates that you are quite a world-traveler. How has that influenced your tastes and inclinations in the arts?
Chen: When I was nineteen, I sailed around the world through a program called Semester at Sea (SAS). We sailed from Vancouver due west and visited Japan, China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Tanzania, South Africa, Brazil, Venezuela and completed our voyage in Fort Lauderdale, where my dad flew to pick me up.
Being on the voyage gave me the courage to go after my dreams. On SAS, I learned that there was no time to waste, and you will never regret a decision that shifted your perspective. So when I graduated from college, I took a leap of faith and moved to NYC to pursue a career as a professional dancer and choreographer.
There’s so much of this world to see and learn from. And I want to use my art as a vehicle to explore and share different cultures, aesthetics and perspectives.
Yaa Asantewaa: I have seen rehearsals of two sections that your dancers are preparing for the premiere–one that looks like a spinoff of the See No Evil, etc. monkeys and another that seems to be an outgrowth of prayer, meditation and yoga practice. Both are gorgeous. From where did these particular ideas derive and how do they fit into the larger context of the piece?
Chen: This show is inspired by life, miracles and reflections. My life completely changed after the accident, only because my perspective shifted. The evening is titled Never was Broken because the idea of “being broken” is only one way of looking at a situation or a person.
I also understand that this shift can be very challenging for everyone, but I don’t believe people need a near-fatal accident to experience that shift. It is a choice--or, actually, a constant choice. Even for me now, it’s not like all moments are full of enlightenment. I have to continue to make this choice to see the bigger picture. It’s not always easy, that is for sure, but we’re all doing our best, and that’s all anyone can expect.
I want to take people on a journey, to see life from a different point of view. The show will ignite emotions that have been hibernating, giving permission for people to be honest, even brutally honest, to themselves, remember that life should not be taken too seriously and that humor can be part of the healing process.
Let Us Pray: My friends and family spent seventeen days in the waiting room of the ICU at Cottage Hospital. They have shared moving narratives with me of witnessing other families entering the same waiting room with similar stories of sudden and unexpected events pushing their loved ones to the brink of life and death. Everyone cried together. Everyone prayed together. Everyone knew how to pray, not through religious impulse or training; in fact, several of the people even claimed to be agnostic. They all prayed because it gave them faith and hope; faith and hope that their loved one would make it through this situation where no one had any control.
I believe this discussion about redefining prayer, so that it is accessible to all, irrespective of religion, spirituality or belief systems, is a burning issue for the times we are living in. It is important for us to find more ways to connect with each other and everyone needs faith. We are human after all, and that means there are many things out of our control, and sending a positive message out to the universe in hopes it gets answered is what our ancestors have used to reach beyond their limitations. The creative process for this piece naturally involved taking the dancers on their own journey to finding their own way to pray.
I asked dancers:
(1) Do you pray?
(2) What is a prayer?
(3) What does it look like to pray?
(4) What does it feel like when you pray?
(5) What do you pray for?
a showing of Chen's "No (evil)" trio at Broadway Dance Center
(photo by Chris Nicodemo)
NO (evil): Yes, this is a spin off of the See No Evil, etc. monkeys.
I think in the Western society, we can understand that saying as turning a blind eye to what is seemingly evil. But in different interpretations, each of the monkeys has a special gift. The See No Evil monkey has a special eye. That is his gift and the way he can contribute to the world. He sees no evil, because he sees potential or possibility or a lesson to be learned. It is also a gift to give someone else the gift of sight, meaning another way of looking at a situation, another way of hearing the message and another way of expressing yourself.
Yaa Asantewaa: Your dancers suit your style very well. How did you assemble this troupe, and how long have you been working together?
Chen: There are seven dancers in this cast. Three of them have danced for me since June 2011, one since last August (who I hired just days before the accident, but stayed devoted to the company even without a director), and three are new from our June 2013 audition.
The dancers go through a pretty hard audition process. They learn phrase work, improvise and fill out a questionnaire. During call backs, they partner with other auditioners, because I want to see how they work with others. I invite a small group of people from call backs to open rehearsals to take them even further into my process. And after a week of open rehearsals I meet with them individually to tell them if I can give them a contract--or not. The last step is the hardest one for me, because I usually get attached to the dancers, and I want to hire everyone. If you’ve made it to open rehearsals, you are automatically part of the J CHEN family, but due to budget constraints, I can’t hire everyone.
When I look for a dancer, I am looking for many things. I am very clear about those qualities when I walk into an audition. They must have a high level of technique. They also have to be professional, dependable and with a stable background. We are a “no drama” company, and I will not tolerate any of that. I also look to see if they have an individual voice as well as an open mind.
I ask a lot from my dancers, we work very hard in rehearsals and, often, they inspired me. They are all individual, but we all get along and have fun together, too. We’re constantly going out to happy hours and celebrating birthdays together. I always like to say, J CHEN PROJECT is a dance company as well as a community of artists.
Yaa Asantewaa: Your company is one of the troupes affected by the recent bankrupcy crisis at Dance New Amsterdam--the downtown dance school and presenter. Do you have new plans for housing your season in another venue?*
Chen: Upon hearing the news, we immediately reached out to leaders, mentors, colleagues and friends of the dance community for advice and assistance in finding an alternative venue. And during our time of duress, we received an immense amount of love and support to help us find different options and a possible new home for our show.
On Thursday, August 29, less than three weeks to our premiere, J CHEN PROJECT company members showed up for rehearsal, discussed the situation and decided that we would continue to rehearse towards our premiere. We hung in there because we knew our hard work would pay off, and we had faith everything would work itself out. As a company, we officially took on the mantra, The Show Must Go On.
Throughout this process, DNA managed to raise their goal of $50K, which was a huge thing for them. The next step will be on Tuesday, when DNA will appear in front bankruptcy court to present a viable long-term business plan to reorganize and emerge from bankruptcy. It is my understanding that if the court accepts their plan, then DNA will remain open until the end of the year.
We are waiting to get updates from DNA as well as pursuing other venues with the help of many in the dance community. We have several options on the table right now, and the dancers are taking the news like champions. So we are pushing on multiple fronts to ensure that Never was Broken goes up as planned on September 20 and 21.* The Show Must Go On!
Yaa Asantewaa: What is one unexpected thing that people should know about you?
Chen: My boyfriend built a special stuffed animal just for me seven years ago. I never had one growing up, and he felt that everyone needed to have a stuffed animal. It has been with me through a lot and has become a very close friend. I had him with me in the hospital and now, when I travel, I carry him in my bag. He gives me security and warmth. Also, when I’m feeling angry and riled up, he will soften me up and give me room to breathe through whatever I’m going through.
Yaa Asantewaa: What is the absolutely most important thing that people should know about you?
Chen: I am a fighter, and I am a rebel. And just to illustrate that, after being in a coma for almost two weeks, I beckoned my boyfriend to come close to me. He was expecting a romantic statement or an embrace. Instead I whispered in his ear, “Get me the hell out of here!” Over the few days after that, I proceeded to try to escape from the hospital. I don’t remember any of this, so I had to ask my friends and family to share stories.
I told my visitors that I was on lockdown, but I didn’t understand why because I only tried to break out once. I kept telling people that I had places to be and things to do, so I couldn’t be lying around all day. They ended up strapping me down on the bed and activating an alarm on my bed.
That experience taught me how to stay still, but it also revealed how much I like to break the rules.
***
*For the latest information on J CHEN PROJECT's Fall season, planned for September 20-21, see the company's Web site. Dance New Amsterdam updates can be found here.
***
BIO
Jessica Chen is the Founder and Artistic Director of J CHEN PROJECT. Her work has been commissioned worldwide, including the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. Chen has been featured on SinoVision TV as well as numerous publications including World Journal, The Gazette, Wiles Magazine, Clinton Chronicle and Nosotoros.
She was honored as Keynote Speaker at Cornell University for her work in empowering Asian American women to become leaders in their community in 2011. Her work has been selected to appear in various festivals including 2012 Women in Dance Series, Yangtze Repertory Theatre, 6th Annual Asian-American Cultural Festival in Long Island, 2011 Women’s Hall of Fame Event in San Diego, 2010 Amnesty International Arts Festival in Washington D.C., and its full-length productions at venues including Dixon Place have consistently yielded sold-out performances.
Chen will premiere her new work, Never Was Broken: a dance through life and death and life, at Dance New Amsterdam (NYC) as well as Center Stage Theater (CA) this fall.
Chen grew up in California with an evolving curiosity of different cultures all over the world, given her own Chinese-American heritage. She has traveled to nearly thirty countries across Asia, Europe, the America’s and Africa teaching, performing and speaking as well as learning and exploring local dances and traditions. She holds a B.A. in Global Studies from the University of California Santa Barbara and was granted the University Service Award through a nomination from the Vice Chancellor.
J CHEN PROJECT strives to be an artistic force by crossing boundaries and connecting with people around the world through expressive and emotional dance works. The company is fully dedicated to fostering dialogue and bringing social consciousness to issues facing humanity today. Believing in the power of words, sound and imagery, the company engages in dynamic collaborations with poets, recording artists, fashion designers, photographers and filmmakers.
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