David Thomson (l) with Ryan Kelly in BLEED (photo by Ian Douglas) |
In the close quarters of BAM Fisher's Fishman Space, audiences enjoy an impressive, affecting view into BLEED--the new piece from Tere O'Connor Dance for BAM's Next Wave Festival. Seating is by general admission. So, if you go tonight for the final performance, arrive early so that you can sit up front and take pleasure in watching some of New York's smartest performers at work. O'Connor's eleven dancing adepts include Tess Dworman, devynn emory, Natalie Green, Michael Ingle, Ryan Kelly, Oisín Monaghan, Cynthia Oliver, Heather Olson, Mary Read, Silas Riener and David Thomson, each of these a veteran of one or another disparate works--Secret Mary, poem and Sister--folded into one another and distilled for the making of this piece.
While that's the creation story behind BLEED, it does not explain BLEED, nor does BLEED seem to call for explicit analysis. For me, it is an hour of pure experience--awareness of being floated into and through a work of art so that its components, made and performed with exacting craft, suddenly magnify, opening themselves to exploration and marvel and amusement. Ideally, we should always be moved to see art in this way. Ideally--as I have come to anticipate from O'Connor--art should always reward this way of seeing.
James Baker--a Bessie winner and frequent O'Connor collaborator--composed the musical enchantments, performed along with cellist Chris Gross and vocalist Julia Read. Lighting is by Michael O'Connor and costumes by Walter Dundervill.
BLEED's concludes this evening with a 7:30pm performance. If tickets remain, you can get them here.
2 comments:
It's really wonderful. The minute it ended, I just wanted to sit through it again. Apparently there's a waiting list and everyone on it gets in...worth making the trip in the snow.
I hope it's true, Elizabeth, that everyone gets in--a wonderful parallel to the roominess of the work itself. Yes, worth the trip!
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