To you: All the best in 2014!

Here's wishing all you folks the very best in 2014,

the best of the creative arts 

and the best of life!

Thank you for reading and supporting InfiniteBody!

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Emerging arts leadership in Qatar

Sheikha al-Mayassa Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani of Qatar Museums
by Carol Vogel, The New York Times, December 26, 2013

Beyoncé and who defines feminism and Black feminism

Album Sparks Black Feminism Debate
The Huffington Post, December 17, 2013

The view from women photographers of the Islamic world

Islamic World Through Women’s Eyes

Mideast Photography at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

by Vicki Goldberg, The New York Times, December 26, 2013

Opera America announces grants for women composers

New Program to Support Operas by Women
by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times, December 26, 2013

Join the legendary Jane Goldberg for film and panel on tap

Tap dance expert extraordinaire
Jane Goldberg
(photos courtesy of Jane Goldberg)

STEPS ON BROADWAY ARTISTS TALK SERIES 

WITH JANE GOLDBERG

Saturday January 11 , 8pm (followed by a reception)

Steps on Broadway

2121 Broadway, 4th floor, Manhattan

(map/directions)

Steps Beyond continues its Artists Talk Series with a film by famed tapper Jane Goldberg, followed by a panel discussion. The film, By Word of Foot: Passing on the Tap Tradition, is a documentation of Goldberg's three tap festivals held in NYC venues in 1980, 1982 and 1985, paving the way for tap's continuity by bringing together tap masters and students.

The discussion that follows will feature panelists Goldberg, David Parker, Melinda Mousouris, Barbara Duffy, and Heather Cornell, discussing the teaching and passing on of the tap tradition.

Admission: $10 (Purchase online, at Steps' front desk or call 212-874-2410 x27.)

Remembering dancer Lisa Bufano, 40

Remembering Lisa Bufano, A Dancer Who Found Beauty In Amputation

by Andrea Shea and Peter Bufano, The Artery, WBUR, December 24, 2013

Eva's "Nice" List: Most memorable arts experiences of 2013

Eva Yaa Asantewaa's "Nice" List: 

Most memorable arts experiences of 2013

Unlike the dozens of "10 Best" lists you've probably been perusing, this list is not about sifting out a handful of elite art products but, rather, fondly remembering a whole range of personal experiences from the year in arts.

I welcome you to add some of your own treasured memories in the comments here and on InfiniteBody's Facebook page. And I wish you all a fabulous 2014, and thanks for your support of InfiniteBody!

*

***

*****

@The Great God Pan by Amy Herzog, directed by Carolyn Cantor at Playwrights Horizons. Ensemble: Keith Nobbs, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Goldberg, Becky Ann Baker, Peter Friedman, Erin Wilhelm and Joyce Van Patten. Scenic design: Mark Wendland. Closed January 13

@Jodi Melnick and Hristoula Harakas performing Melnick's Solo, (Re)Deluxe, Version at Focus Dance, The Joyce Theater, January 8 and 13

@Stephen Petronio Company at Focus Dance, The Joyce Theater, January 8 and 13

@Soloists Camille A. Brown in The Real Cool and Brian Brooks in I'm Going to Explode at Focus Dance, The Joyce Theater, January 9 and 13

Emily Johnson
(photo by Cameron Wittig)

@Emily Johnson/Catalyst in Niicugni, New York premiere at Baryshnikov Arts Center, January 9-12. Including performance by Johnson and Aretha Aoki; lighting by Heidi Eckwall; music by James Everest and musical performance by Bethany Lacktorin

Peggy Shaw in Ruff
(photo by Michael Conti)

@Peggy Shaw in Ruff at Dixon Place, January 10-19. Directed and co-written by Lois Weaver

@Enver Chakartash for costume design, Zack Tinkelman for lighting design, and Chris Giarmo for sound design and original music, Seagull (Thinking of You) by Half Straddle/Tina Satter at New Ohio Theatre for PS 122's COIL (January 9-26)

@Jeanine Durning in inging at Abrons Arts Center for American Realness festival, January 2-19

@Simona Maicanescu in Wallace Shawn's The Fever at La MaMa, January 24-February 4

@Trisha Brown Dance Company at Brooklyn Academy of Music, January 30-February 2. Special mention: Leah Morrison and Tamara Riewe

@The Foundry Theatre's Good Person of Szechwan at La MaMa, starring Taylor Mac. Also, performances by Lisa Kron and David Turner, February 1-24

@T.K. Blue, Craig Harris, James Carter, Al MacDowell and Denardo Coleman at A Celebration of the Life of Poet Jayne Cortez at The Great Hall at Cooper Union, February 6

@Sayonara and I, Worker by Oriza Hirata, Seinendan Theater Company and Osaka University Robot Theater Project at Japan Society, February 7-9. (Performances by Geminoid F and two Robovie R3 robots)

@Ronald K. Brown/Evidence season at The Joyce Theater, February 12-17; entire ensemble, special mention: Matthew Rushing (guest artist), Annique Roberts, Arcell Cabuag, Coral Dolphin, Otis Donovan Herring

Jennifer Monson in Live Dancing Archive
(photo by Ian Douglas)

@Jennifer Monson/iLAND's Live Dancing Archive at The Kitchen, February 14-23; Monson's performance; Joe Levasseur's lighting; Jeff Kolar's audio design

@Doug Varone and Dancers' Stripped/Dressed program at 92nd Street Y's Harkness Dance Featival, February 22-24. Special mention: Julia Burrer, Eddie Taketa and Colin Stillwell

@Commons Choir/Daria Faïn & Robert Kocik in E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E at New York Live Arts, February 28-March 1

@Saori Tsukada in Witness Relocation's Eterniday at La MaMa, April 4-21

@Bebe Miller Company in A History at Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts at LIU (April 12-13), performances by Angie Hauser and Darrell Jones

Dr. Oliver Sacks, at left, with Bill T. Jones
at New York Live Arts
(photo by Ian Douglas)

@Live Ideas: The Worlds of Oliver Sacks at New York Live Arts, April 17-21, including premiere of Out of Frame, choreographed and performed by Donna Uchizono with Uchizono's State of Heads (1999), performed by Rebecca Serrell Cyr, Levi Gonzalez and Hristoula Harakas

@jill sigman/thinkdance in last days/first field at The Invisible Dog, May 7-9, choreography and visual design by Jill Sigman, music by Kristin Norderval; costumes by kymkym

@Tom Gualtieri in That Play: A Solo Macbeth at Stage Left Studio, April 4-May 25

@Pam Tanowitz's world premiere of The Spectators at New York Live Arts, May 15-18; dancing by Andrew Champlin, Maggie Cloud, Dylan Crossman, Pierre Guilbault, Sarah Haarmann and Melissa Toogood. Music by Dan Siegler and Annie Gosfield. Music performance by The FLUX Quartet. Lighting by Davison Scandrett

@Katy Pyle and The Ballez Company in The Firebird, A Ballez at Danspace Project, May 15-28. Performances by Pyle, Jules Skloot, Cassie Mey, Effie Bowen, Zari Esaian, Ariel "Speedwagon" Federow, Leah Hafezi, Sam Greenleaf Miller, Francis Rabkin, Mary Read, Lindsay Reuter, Lollo Romanski, Silky Shoemaker, Sacha Yanow and Nyx Zierhut. Music performed by Queer Urban Orchestra. Video by Hedia Maron. Program notes by Cassie Peterson.

Tunisian vocalist-guitarist Emel Mathlouthi
(photo by Ghaith Ghoufa)

@Emel Mathlouthi, World Nomads Tunisia, FI:AF, May 22

@Darrell Jones, HOO-HAH (for your eyes only) at Danspace Project, May 23-25. Performed by Jones, Damon Green and J'Sun Howard. Sound design/DJ/mixing by Justin Mitchell (DJ Swaguerilla)

@Michelle Boulé choreography and performance in Wonder, commissioned by Issue Project Room at Gallim Dance Studio, Church of St. Luke and St. Matthew, Brooklyn, May 30-31

@Rebecca Lazier's Coming Together/Attica at The Invisible Dog Art Center, June 13-15. Music by Frederic Rzewski performed live by Newspeak and guests; dance by Asli Bulbul, Pierre Guilbault, Jennifer Lafferty, Rashaun Mitchell, Christopher Ralph and Silas Riener

Angélique Kidjo at River to River Festival
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

@Angélique Kidjo at Rockefeller Park, Battery Park City, River to River Festival, June 25

@Luke Murphy and Carlye Eckert in Murphy's Drenched at La MaMa, July 5-7; special mention: David Fishel's video installation and design

@Savion Glover's STePz at The Joyce Theater, June 18-July 6. Dancing by Glover, Marshall Davis Jr., Robyn Watson, Ayodele Casel and Sarah Savelli. Lighting design by The Drew DeCorleto

@Tap City 2013's Tap Internationals at Symphony Space, July 11. Special mention: Corey Hutchins, Claudia Rahardjanoto, Kazu Kumagai, Brenda Bufalino, Jaime Moran, Carson Murphy and Max Pollak's Rumba Tap ensemble

@Pedro Goucha Gomes, in his solo Amongst Millions, at Between the Seas Festival at Wild Project, July 23 and July 25

@Burr Johnson and Reid Bartelme in Johnson's Shimmering Islands at Abrons Arts Center as part of Festival TBD: Emergency Glitter, July 24, 25 and 27.

@Lea DeLaria and Maggie Cassella in The Loudest Show on Earth, part of Dixon Place's HOT! Festival, July 12-27

Rubén Blades at Lincoln Center Out of Doors
(photo by Daria Sneed)

@Rubén Blades at Lincoln Center Out of Doors, August 7

@Race Horse Company in Petit Mal at Summerstage, Marcus Garvey Park, August 20

@Susan McCully's Inexcusable Fantasies by Susan McCully; performances by McCully and Rachel Hirshorn, directed by Eve Muson, New York International Fringe Festival, August 18-25

@Basil Twist, Dogugaeshi, at Japan Society (music by Yumiko Tanaka), September 18-22

@Pavel Zustiak, Endangered Pieces, at Abrons Arts Center. Performances by Zustiak, Matthew Rogers and Jaro Vinarsky; lighting by Joe Levasseur; sound by Christian Frederickson and Bobby McElver, October 2-12

@Sarah Skaggs, The New Ecstatic, at Danspace Project (special mention for performance: Skaggs and Cori Kresge), October 3-5

@the 51st (dream) state by Sekou Sundiata, adapted for radio at The Jerome L. Greene Space (directed by Arthur Yorinks; performed by La Tanya Hall, Ronnell Bey, Audrey Martell, Bora Yoon, Samita Sinha; conducted by Richard Harper; musical director, Eddie Allen), October 10

@taisha paggett, a right-angled object who lost her faith in being upright, at Danspace Project, October 10-12

@Lisa Nelson and Steve Paxton, Night Stand at Dia: Chelsea, October 10-19

@Melanie Maar, Our Other at Danspace Project, October 17-19

@Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker/Rosas, En Atendant, BAM Next Wave Festival, BAM Gilman Opera House, October 19-20

@Zimmermann & de Perrot, Hans was Heiri, BAM Next Wave Festival at BAM Harvey Theater (entire performance ensemble), October 23-26

@Antonia Baehr, Laugh, Queer New York International Arts Festival, Abrons Arts Center, October 25

@James Brown: Get on the Good Foot, A Celebration in Dance at The Apollo Theater, created by Otis Sallid (various choreographers; special mention for performance: Ephrat Asherie, Aakash Odedra, Derick K. Grant), October 22, 25-26

Maura Donohue at Roulette
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

@Maura Donohue and Adam Cuthbert at Roulette, October 29. Members of Maura Donohue/inmixedcompany (David Capps, Peggy Cheng, Timothy Edwards and Gibert Reyes)

@Gregory Maqoma/Vuyani Dance Theatre at Kumble Theater/LIU Brooklyn, November 1-2. Music by Complete and Giuliano Modarelli with songs by Simphiwe Dana

@Maria Hassabi, PREMIERE at The Kitchen, November 6-9. Performances by Hassabi, Biba Bell, Andros Zins-Browne, Hristoula Harakas, Robert Steijn; lighting by Zack Tinkelman and Maria Hassabi; sound design by Alex Waterman

@bell hooks and Melissa Harris-Perry in conversation at The New School, November 8 (livestreaming; unfortunately, not there in person!)

@Toshi Reagon and Juliette Jones, Naked Soul acoustic concert at The Rubin Museum for Art, November 8

@Will Rawls and Chris Kuklis, The Planet-Eaters at The Chocolate Factory, November 13-16. Lighting by Madeline Best and costumes by Saša Kovacevic

@Amy Miller in Dividing Line by Gina Gibney, Gibney Dance at Florence Gould Hall, November 14-16

@Rhythmic Circus, Feet Don't Fail Me Now! at The New Victory Theater, November 14-December 1

@Bush Moukarzel, Souvenir at Abrons Arts Center, writing and performance, November 14-23

Jenny Seastone Stern in Our Planet at Japan Society
(photo by Julie Lemberger)

@Our Planet, Japan Society, November 20-December 8. Yukio Shiba (text), Alec Duffy (direction), Scenic design: Mimi Lien, Costumes: Becky Lasky, Lighting design: Jiyoun Chang, Music composition and sound design: Tei Blow, Motion graphics: Nobuyuki Hanabusa. Performances by Jenny Seastone Stern and Julian Rozzell, Jr.

@Anna Schon in Moses(es) by Reggie Wilson, Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group at BAM Harvey, December 4-7

@Camille A. Brown, Mr. TOL E. RAncE at Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts, December 6-7. Special mention: Scott Patterson (piano) and entire cast

@Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca at The Joyce Theater, December 3-15. Special mention: Martin Santangelo (choreography); Soledad Barrio (dance), Antonio Jimenez (dance), Manuel Gago (vocalist), Carmina Cortes (vocalist); Salva de Maria, Eugenio Iglesias and Hamed Traore (guitarists)

@Cori Olinghouse, Ghost lines at Danspace Project, December 12-14. Special mention: Michelle Dorrance reconstruction and performance of 1931 Hal Le Roy solo; film by Shona Masarin and Olinghouse

@Tere O'Connor Dance, Bleed, BAM Fisher, Next Wave Festival, December 11-14. O'Connor for choreography. Dance by Tess Dworman, devynn emory, Natalie Green, Michael Ingle, Ryan Kelly, Oisin Monaghan, Cynthia Oliver, Heather Olson, Mary Read, Silas Riener and David Thomson. Music by James Baker, performed by Baker (vocals, instruments); Chris Gross (cello) and Julia Read (voice)

@Cirque Éloize, Cirkopolis, NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, December 18-January 5. Jeannot Painchaud and co-director/ choreographer Dave St-Pierre, Robert Massicotte (sets/video), Alexis Laurence (video), Nicolas Descoteaux (lighting) and Stefan Boucher (music). Performed by Maude Arseneault, Angelica Bongiovonni, Dominique Bouchard, Mikael Bruyere-L’Abbe, Ashley Carr, Samuel Charlton, Myriam Deraiche, Lauren Herley, Reuben Hosler, Ugo Laffolay, Yann LeBlanc, Frederic Lemieux-Cormier and Francois Saussus

@Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, New York City Center, December 4-January 5. Special mention: performers Antonio Douthit-Boyd, Alicia Graf Mack, Jamar Roberts, Linda Celeste Sims and Michael Francis McBride, guest artist Matthew Rushing

--Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: Works by McGregor, Jones and Barton

AADT in Bill T. Jones's D-Man in the Waters (Part 1).
(photo by Paul Kolnik)

The Dance Enthusiast has just published my review of the Ailey troupe's program of new productions--featuring company premieres of works by Wayne McGregor and Bill T. Jones and a world premiere by Aszure Barton. Read it here!

Yusef Lateef, 93 [UPDATE]

Yusef Lateef, legendary Detroit jazz man, dies at age 93: 'An enormous spirit'

by Mark Stryker, Detroit Free Press, December 24, 2013

Yusef Lateef, Innovative Jazz Saxophonist and Flutist, Dies at 93
by Peter Keepnews, The New York Times, December 24, 2013

Ethiopian cabby gets back to his music

Ethiopian Funkster, Back After Long Break
Hailu Mergia Performs in Brooklyn

by Jon Pareles, The New York Times, December 20, 2013

Dance world, Harlem to say goodbye to Marie Brooks, December 28

Marie Brooks Home Going

Abyssinian Baptist Church

132 Odell Clark Place (West 138th Street), Manhattan

(map/directions)

(212) 862-7474

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Final Viewing 10am–11am
Service 11am-1pm

Marie Brooks Pan-Caribbean Dance Company
performing a tribute to Katherine Dunham

Praise song and Manna House Award for Marie Brooks (2011)

Winter Solstice: Have a joyous season of light!

Here comes the sun, and I say 

It's all right...

Abundant blessings to you and yours in
this season of returning light.

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

"Go forth where?" An artist challenges Levi's

In this 2011 video, citizen-artist LaToya Ruby Frazier uses her power as an artist to throw serious questions (and shade) at jeans manufacturer Levi's.

What is the responsibility of an artist to her community? In this film, artist and activist LaToya Ruby Frazier discusses the economic and environmental decline of her hometown—Braddock, Pennsylvania—the city that the clothing company Levi's used as inspiration and backdrop for a major advertising campaign in 2010. Having photographed in Braddock since she was sixteen years old, LaToya's black-and-white images of her family and their surroundings present a stark contrast to the campaign images of "urban pioneers" and slogans such as "everybody's work is equally important." In a performance developed in collaboration with the artist Liz Magic Laser, LaToya carries out a choreographed series of movements on the sidewalk in front of the temporary Levi's Photo Workshop in SoHo. Wearing a costume of ordinary Levi's clothes, the artist's repetitive and relentless motion ultimately destroys the jeans she's wearing. 

LaToya Ruby Frazier (b. 1982, Braddock, Pennsylvania, USA) lives and works in New Brunswick, New Jersey and New York, New York.

Fred Benjamin, 69 [New York Times obituary]

Fred Benjamin, Teacher of Jazz Dance, Dies at 69

by Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times, December 19, 2013

Cirque Éloize's "Cirkopolis" rises at Skirball

Members of Cirque Éloize
perform a banquine act in Cirkopolis
photo (c)2012 Productions Neuvart/Valérie Remise

Right before the curtain rises on Montreal's Cirque Éloize--now at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts through January 5--discordant music starts grinding and growling. Houselights flash; the curtain swirls with blobs of light, and whatever lies behind that veil could be radioactive. A startled audience gives up its first flurry of applause. And when that curtain lifts, watch out!

Cirkopolis, featuring a gifted, versatile troupe from Montreal, is what Fritz Lang (of Metropolis fame) might whip up from a big heap of contemporary circus acts, a dollop of music-theater choreography and a dash of Magritte. Instead of Lang, though, we have Cirque Éloize's Jeannot Painchaud and co-director/ choreographer Dave St-Pierre mischief-making with Robert Massicotte (sets/video), Alexis Laurence (video), Nicolas Descoteaux (lighting) and Stefan Boucher (music), just to name a few of the numerous co-conspirators responsible for this spectacle. Together, they have constructed an impressive, if also menacing, vision of urban life with views of towering, zooming architecture, a mass of mechanical gears that endlessly churn, and business men and women as soulless in their workaday existence as their yard-high stacks of paperwork. But that's not all.

Somewhere beneath this city of driving energy lies a more magical, more seductive one, no less driven. A city of expressive freedom, of romance, where men and women of cultivated power and skill display not only physical daring but also sensitivity and whimsy. In other words, a city of circus.

Cirque Éloize in the juggling pins scene of Cirkopolis
photos (c)2012 Productions Neuvart/Valérie Remise

Over the course of 80 minutes, Painchaud and St-Pierre offer no straightforward narrative but utilize "big number" stagings--like a wildy imaginative ensemble dance with juggling pins--as context and lightbox for circus acts like trapeze work, banquine, contortion and clowning. The pace is variable but mostly lively, with only Lauren Herley's scarily-good but overextended corde lisse (aerial rope act) dragging out longer than necessary. From the sheer poetry of Angelica Bongiovonni's intricate twirling with and within a life-like Cyr wheel--I believe she can fly!--to the more macho posturing of a male sextet slipping around inside the German wheel, Cirkopolis is a nearly overwhelming thrill. Make time for Cirque Éloize this season!

Performed by Maude Arseneault, Angelica Bongiovonni, Dominique Bouchard, Mikael Bruyere-L’Abbe, Ashley Carr, Samuel Charlton, Myriam Deraiche, Lauren Herley, Reuben Hosler, Ugo Laffolay, Yann LeBlanc, Frederic Lemieux-Cormier and Francois Saussus (alternating with Carr in the clown act)

Through January 5. For complete schedule details and tickets, click here.

Skirball Center for the Performing Arts

Kimmel Center for University Life

New York University (at Washington Square)

566 LaGuardia Place, Manhattan

(map/directions)

Paloma McGregor's Dancing While Black

I was most honored when dance artist Paloma McGregor invited me to participate as a storyteller in her recent event, Dancing While Black, hosted by New York University's Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, where McGregor is Artist in Residence. Among artists such as Nia Love and John Perpener and the amazing dance scholar Brenda Dixon Gottschild, invited guests and community told stories about the experience of being Black in the dance field--the good, the bad and, yes, the ugly--and banded together to share movement explorations of our journeys and understandings. The energy in the room was fantastic--warm, respectful, supportive and motivating.

To read a brief report on that special evening by Norma Porter Anthony, publisher and editor of Black Dance Magazine, click here.

And we're certainly not finished! Connect with McGregor's ongoing Dancing While Black project here.

Black dance scholars are invited to connect with Dr. Dixon Gottschild's Coalition for Diasporan Scholars Moving here.

Update: Announcing December 21 funeral for Fred Benjamin

UPDATE FROM CLARK CENTER NYC

FINAL RESTING CEREMONY FOR FRED BENJAMIN

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1pm

Fred Benjamin
(photo courtesy of Clark Center NYC)

JENKINS FUNERAL AND CHAPEL
1893 AMSTERDAM AVENUE
BETWEEN 153RD AND 154TH STREET
(ACROSS FROM TRINITY CEMETERY)

IF YOU'D LIKE TO SEND FLOWERS PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SEND THEM TO THE CHAPEL FOR A SATURDAY MORNING DELIVERY.

THIS WILL BE A BRIEF MOMENT TO SAY OUR FAREWELL AND SEND FRED FORWARD WITH OUR LOVE AND RESPECT.

A MEMORIAL SERVICE IS BEING PLANNED FOR EARLY 2014.

Fred Benjamin, 69 [UPDATE]

Fred Benjamin
(photo courtesy of Clark Center NYC)

Fred Benjamin, an African American dancer, choreographer, was born on September 8, 1944 in Boston, and began dancing at age four at Elma Lewis' School of Fine Arts in Roxbury.

He danced with the Talley Beatty Company from 1963 until 1966, when the company folded. Two years later, he started his own New York-based Fred Benjamin Dance Company, which existed, largely without arts funding, for 20 years. Like most African-American choreographers of the time, his work was compared to that of Alvin Ailey, but Benjamin modeled himself primarily after his idol, Beatty. The group movement in his modern ballet "Parallel Lines," the emphasis on entrances in a work such as "Our Thing," and many other works all echoed Beatty's influence. Benjamin added more ballet to Beatty's modern, energized style and helped popularize the genre known as "ballet-jazz".

Mr. Benjamin also worked extensively in theatrical dance. He has taught in the Netherlands, worked in summer stock, and danced with the June Taylor Dancers. On Broadway he worked with Gower Champion and Michael Bennett and performed in such hits as "Hello, Dolly!" and "Promises, Promises."

He introduced many inner-city youth to dance via the Harlem Cultural Council's annual Dancemobile series, but his greatest gift may have been teaching at his own Fred Benjamin Dance Center; New York's Clark Center for the Performing Arts; Steps; Alvin Ailey American Dance Center and as an international guest lecturer at many colleges, universities and private dance studios."

by Julinda Lewis-Williams with Bruce Hawkins

Clark Center NYC

UPDATE FROM CLARK CENTER NYC

FINAL RESTING CEREMONY FOR FRED BENJAMIN

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21

JENKINS FUNERAL AND CHAPEL
1893 AMSTERDAM AVENUE
BETWEEN 153RD AND 154TH STREET (ACROSS FROM TRINITY CEMETERY)

THE CEREMONY WILL BEGIN AT 1PM.

IF YOU'D LIKE TO SEND FLOWERS PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SEND THEM TO THE CHAPEL FOR A SATURDAY MORNING DELIVERY.

WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE SHORTNESS OF NOTICE.

THIS WILL BE A BRIEF MOMENT TO SAY OUR FAREWELL AND SEND FRED FORWARD WITH OUR LOVE AND RESPECT.

A MEMORIAL SERVICE IS BEING PLANNED FOR EARLY 2014.

Ray Price, 87

Ray Price, Country Singer, Dies at 87

by Bill Friskics-Warren, The New York Times, December 16, 2013

InfiniteBody preview: New project due from Bessie-winning Emily Johnson

Emily Johnson
(photo by Cameron Wittig)

In this video, Emily Johnson--Minneapolis-based Bessie Award winner and 2013 Creative Capital grantee--looks ahead to her intriguing new project, Shore, set to premiere in June 2014. Shore is a work about "gathering to create connections" and warmly invites participants to forge community in numerous ways.

from Creative Capital on Vimeo

Shore is a multi-day performance/installation of dance, volunteerism, feasting and storytelling. It is a place audiences choose to visit once or many times, as participants or observers. The project develops in each venue over an extended period of time, requiring conversation and collaboration among organizations. Shore begins with a feast, followed by a night of curated storytelling. During the day, participants propose and carry out volunteer activities needed in their home communities. Staged performances that move from outdoors to the stage take place at night.

Learn more about Shore here.

Catalyst, Dances by Emily Johnson Web site

Explore videos from other Creative Capital artists here.

Don Mitchell, 70

Don Mitchell, a Co-Star on TV’s ‘Ironside,’ Dies
by Daniel E. Slotnik, The New York Times, December 13, 2013

Joan Fontaine, 96

Joan Fontaine, Who Won an Oscar for Hitchcock’s ‘Suspicion,’ Dies at 96

by Anita Gates, The New York Times, December 15, 2013

Joan Fontaine, star of 'Suspicion' and 'Rebecca,' dies at 96

by Claudia Luther, Los Angeles Times, December 16, 2013

Peter O'Toole, 81 [UPDATE]

Peter O’Toole, Star of ‘Lawrence of Arabia,’ Is Dead at 81
by Benedict Nightingale, The New York Times, December 15, 2013

Peter O'Toole, star of Lawrence of Arabia, dies aged 81
by Robert Booth, The Guardian, December 15, 2013

Tere O'Connor premieres "BLEED" at BAM Next Wave Festival

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. 

BAM Fisher (Fishman Space)
321 Ashland Place, Brooklyn
(map/directions)

El Museo del Barrio names new Executive Director

Jorge Daniel Veneciano to Lead El Museo del Barrio

The New York Times, December 13, 2013

This weekend: Cori Olinghouse's "Ghost lines"

Cori Olinghouse in Ghost lines
(photo by Andy Jordan)

Film is a ghostly art--the old silents, perhaps, the ghostliest of all, though all movies preserve traces of long-departed starlight. Cori Olinghouse's Ghost lines, a film/dance production running now at Danspace Project, raises the ectoplasm of entertainers like Buster Keaton, Snake Hips Tucker, the British eccentric comic Max Wall, all known for matchless physical signatures. It also draws from the extravagance of more contemporary clowns, specialty dancers and anime characters.

The hour-long piece is a phantasmagoric shadow play in two parts. The first fifteen minutes present a luminous, masterful film collaboration by Shona Masarin and Olinghouse where the choreographer performs a silent film-style act. Layers of cracks, blurs and sparkles make the images of her surreal and ever-receding. After a pause, the work continues with live dancing, including the performance, by Bessie Award-winning tap artist Michelle Dorrance, of a flashy Hal Le Roy solo from 1931 that she reconstructed. You can enjoy the sensational original here.

There's magical illusion in the way Olinghouse stacks and fans out her dancing characters like cards from a deck of poignant oddballs, how designer Andrew Jordan conceals their faces or costumes them in distracting fabrics and shapes (which makes me think of the pants legs excitingly whipping away from Le Roy's thin limbs in that movie clip), how Kathy Kaufmann's lighting moves snatch away from us, for moments, the power of sight and then restore it. Now you see it. Now you don't. And what you see has been carefully constructed for your transitory delight. Beneath one white-smeared face is someone we will never know. And like the veiled, black-clad Eva Schmidt on her hiked-up feet, the work picks up its heels and trips away.

With dancing by Cori Olinghouse, Eva Schmidt, Michelle Dorrance, Elizabeth Keen and Mina Nishimura

Ghost lines continues through Saturday evening with performances at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Danspace Project

131 East 10th Street (at 2nd Avenue), Manhattan

(directions)

Regina Nejman's new "story" emerges at Dixon Place

There's rippling vigor in Regina Nejman & Company in Nejman's new work, "...and this is the story thus far". The dancers--including Alicia Dellimore, Kristin Licata, Lindsey Mandolini, Julie Miller, Oscar Santana and the choreographer--enjoy themselves and their Dixon Place environs so thoroughly that one can imagine them hanging out long after the audience has left for the cold, Lower East Side streets.

One can imagine them continuing to loll on the balcony, dangling and fluttering their legs through the railings; continuing to melt, slip and swoosh against the theater's back wall; continuing to slither up and down the stairs between sections of audience seating. In our absence, they could give one another, instead of us, double air-kisses, shimmy to the musical recordings from the dancemaker's native Brazil, whirl on the floor on their sides as if dropping capoeira moves in a different dimension, and scatter about like football players. (That's soccer, of course, to all you US folks.) Nejman's film might go on running, too, so that she and her friends could convince themselves that they really are rolling along a rough, bush-lined road to a beach. Once there, they could find themselves helplessly mesmerized by the ocean's glow.

As a title, "...and this is the story thus far" certainly suggests an unfinished narrative. Much of this episodic, meandering piece seems tentative as well as dreamy in the way of early, easygoing dreams floating just below the surface of consciousness. Dreams from which you quickly awaken only to dip into another. There appears to not be a lot going on except, perhaps, the desire to touch something of home when far away from home.

Most of the tension--and I mean that in a good way--comes through sometimes fiery accompaniment by rock guitarist Britt Reagan. Nejman wisely folds Reagan, and his original music, into the action in interesting, physical ways, and there's a particularly loud, cacophonous scene in which dancers shout over one another--What's happening?, It doesn't make any sense! and the like--while Reagan's music growls back.

At times, you might want to ask the same questions of "...and this is the story thus far" but politely, because it doesn't matter that much. You're warm and having a pleasant time.

"...and this is the story thus far" will have one more performance--tonight at 7:30pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street (between Rivington and Delancey), Manhattan
(directions)

NYU to host panel on "Circus: from Egypt to Éloize"

Duncan Wall
Author of The Ordinary Acrobat

Duncan Wall of the US advocacy group Circus Now, Suzi Winson of Long Island City's Circus Warehouse and their colleagues from the field are way cool. Here's a chance to hear all about the roots of circus and its contemporary flourishing and innovations from the experts.

Thursday, December 12, 6:30pm

Click here for details.

La Maison Française
New York University
16 Washington Mews (at University Place), Manhattan

(map/directions)

212-998-8750

Wendy Perron reads from "Through the Eyes of a Dancer," Saturday

Wendy Perron
(photo by Cliff Roles)

In her just-published Through the Eyes of a Dancer: Selected Writings (Wesleyan University Press), noted dance artist and journalist Wendy Perron surveys the dance world since 1960, from downtown experimental performance to major ballet troupes at the Metropolitan Opera House. Her extensive history as a student of dance, professional performer, critic and editor informs these perceptive essays, articles, reviews and interviews.

Hear Wendy Perron read at Barnes & Noble (82nd Street and Broadway) on Saturday, December 14, 6pm.

Book information here

Barnes & Noble
2289 Broadway (at 82nd Street), Manhattan

212-362-8835

(map/directions)

When artists spoke up, sang out for South African freedom

Remember this? Lou Reed, Rubén Blades, Nona Hendryx, George Clinton...after a while, you've got to ask yourself, who DIDN'T show up in this kickass music video!

Artists United Against Apartheid was a 1985 protest group founded by activist and performer Steven Van Zandt and record producer Arthur Baker to protest apartheid in South Africa.

Neil Young, Diana Krall plan January benefits for First Nation activists

Neil Young to Play Benefit Shows for Native American Group

by Allan Kozin, The New York Times, December 9, 2013

The great Soledad Barrio at The Joyce Theater

Martín Santangelo's vision for his renowned flamenco ensemble, Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca, continues to prove that superb music, dance and human voice, unadorned and with fidelity to tradition, can be enough, can archive and share rich experience. The stage at The Joyce Theater, the touring group's home through December 15, has been stripped to bare brick walls and several chairs for guitarists and vocalists. Apart from lighting designer S. Benjamin Farrar's moody poetry, everything needed is carried in the performers' skillful bodies, pulling us into the essence of human loneliness, attraction, pain and exuberance.

The current season reacquaints New York's fervent Noche Flamenca fans with the dreamy, sinuous beauty of Eugenio Iglesias's guitar work, sound quietly floating out to us like delicate incense and shaping images in the mind. Singer Manuel Gago's supple, buoyant way with his cante verses in Zambra Caracolera and guest dancer Antonio Jimenez's mischievous, in-the-moment freshness in Solea por Bulerías feel more authentic--meaning true to the actual person, not some persona--than much that passes for and is lionized as exciting flamenco performance.

I am, once again, delighted to see these three worthy performers surrounding the jewel in this company's crown, Soledad Barrio, Santangelo's wife and muse. She needs no dramatic froufrou. She is drama, so vibrantly alive as a body, even when merely stretching herself against the long line of partner Juan Ogalla in El Calzador, that you can imagine there's meaning, at least for her, in their connection.

What I notice in Barrio's Siguiriya, especially, is an active mind trained on something besides just performing. Not, What is the next step? How do I look right now? How does my footwork sound? (All of that has been well attended to and can be laid aside.) But rather, Who am I in this contained, gloom-threatened swath of light called my portion of life?

I notice a strong body determined to carve its singular mark in space and to exert magnetic--and enlivening--influence upon everyone within reach. Barrio's close interactions with the company's singers can be tender, or she can bear the sacred and humbling touch of a priestess. No conventional beauty and not possessed of meaningless charisma, she is a diva of flamenco by virtue of her willingness to reveal, as Teilhard de Chardin would have seen it, the spiritual being within as it has its human experience.

Choreography: Martín Santangelo, Gabriela Goldin Garcia

Dancers: Soledad Barrio, Juan Ogalla, Antonio Jimenez, Marina Elana
Guitarists: Salva de María, Eugenio Iglesias, Hamed Traore
Vocalists: Manuel Gago, Carmina Cortes, Jose Jimenez, Mayte Maya

See Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca at The Joyce Theater through December 15. For complete program and schedule information and to purchase tickets, click here.

The Joyce Theater

175 Eighth Avenue (corner of 19th Street)

(directions)

ASÉ Dance Theatre Collective announces audition, December 14

Adia Tamar Whitaker's ASÉ Dance Theatre Collective will hold an audition on Saturday, December 14 (4-6pm) at the Mark Morris Dance Center.

Mark Morris Dance Center

3 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn

C train to Lafayette, 2,3,4,5,D,B,Q,N,R to Atlantic/Pacific/Barclays

ASÉ Dance Theatre Collective is a professional neo-folkloric performance ensemble that is dedicated to preserving the past, present, and future of the African presence in the "New World.' Since 2000, ASÉ has presented work that links modem dance, original vernacular movement and traditional dance theater from the African Diaspora to conceptual ideas in the human experience.

This audition is for hardworking professional dancers of color with the stamina, physical strength, and technique to contribute something powerful to our collective. Freestyle dancers welcome! Male dancers are strongly encouraged to audition! Our performances are not limited to the concert stage.

That said, we are also looking for open-minded, adventurous people that dance about more than just dance, have a strong connection to African culture and respect the intricacy of traditional movement.
Dancers with intermediate to advanced training in contemporary modem dance, African based dance forms (specifically Afro-Haitian, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican and Brazilian) and unique styles of movement are encouraged to come through! We are looking for female and male dancers to learn company repertory for upcoming spring and summer performances. Permanent positions in the collective will be offered to those who demonstrate consistency and exceptional performance quality.

Most performances are paid. Currently we do not have the funding to pay dancers for rehearsal time.

We need dancers who can vocalize, hold a note, hold the rhythm, hold their balance, slice through space, and breathe where there seems to be none.

Bring a headshot and resumé.

For information, write to asedance@gmail.com

Fun thought: Dukakis as Maupin's Anna Madrigal again

Olympia Dukakis hints at screen return for Armistead Maupin's Anna Madrigal
Forthcoming novel from San Francisco author, centered on iconic Tales of the City character, could be made into a film

by Joanna Walters, The Guardian, December 7, 2013

Tracy Chapman's "Talkin 'bout a Revolution"

Congolese singer Tabu Ley Rochereau dies

Tabu Ley Rochereau Dies; Spread the Sound of Soukous

by Jon Pareles, The New York Times, December 7, 2013

Camille A. Brown: changing the joke, slipping the rope

Above: Choreographer Camille A. Brown
in Mr. TOL E. RAncE
(photo: Grant Halverson)
Below: Scott Patterson at the piano
(photo: Christopher Duggan)

from publicity for Camille A. Brown's Mr. TOL E. RAncE:

"Inspired by Mel Watkins’ book, “On The Real Side: From Slavery to Chris Rock”, Spike Lee’s controversial movie, “Bamboozled”, and Dave Chappelle’s “dancing vs. shuffling” analogy, this evening-length dance theater work celebrates African-American humor, examines “the mask” of survival and the “double consciousness” (W.E.B. DuBois) of the black performer throughout history and the stereotypical roles dominating current popular Black culture.

"Mr. TOL E. RAncE speaks to the issue of tolerance--how much Black performers had to tolerate, and addresses-forms of modern day minstrelsy we tolerate today. It is not a history lesson. Blending and contrasting the contemporary with the historic, the goal of this personal work is to engage, provoke, and move the conversation of race forward in a timely dialogue about where we have been, where we are and where we might want to be."

Something unprecedented happened last night at Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts when Camille A. Brown & Dancers presented Mr. TOL E. RAncE, Brown's magnificent work from 2012. Something that rocked me back in my seat. No, I don't mean the hour-long delay before the show started (serious technical problems). Or 651 Arts's Shay Wafer gamely and humorously fielding audience questions while we waited. And, no, I don't mean the dance itself--although that certainly would qualify, and we'll get to that.

I'm talking about what happened when Brown, her fellow dancers and her remarkable pianist, Scott Patterson, reassembled after the performance to sit in dialogue with their audience. A few groups of young students, not staying for the talkback, had just filed out of the front rows, and Patterson spoke his mind, admitting that this performance had been, in all the history of the piece, the toughest he had ever faced.

As Brown and other company members also spoke up, it became clear that the youngsters' behavior--visible and audible to the cast, if not to those of us farther back--had been unnerving. Performing a physically and emotionally intense, political work drawn from Brown's experience of being a Black artist and woman up against mainstream power, drawn from the long, twisty, complicated history of Black entertainers in America, Patterson said he felt as if he himself had been made into a minstrel. "I felt that they [the students] were laughing at me, at us, not with us."

Brown later tempered that a bit. Though she had noticed the disturbance too, she also caught moments when the students were quiet, clearly into what the company was doing--presumably because they more readily related to the hip hop style of one particular passage.

Scenes from Mr. TOL E. RAncE,
a work referencing the history of Black enertainers in the US,
racist and sexist stereotypes,
and the perilous double consciousness of the Black artist
(top photo: Grant Halverson
bottom photo: Christopher Duggan)

You might say, Why should this matter? It does matter, because Mr. TOL E. RAncE is, in itself, a blistering, exhausting piece, and I frankly don't know how Brown has managed to bring her dancers to the point where they can perform this work at all, let alone perform this tight, this polished. It matters, because all performers continuously exchange energy with their audiences (why Mr. TOL E. RAncE nearly killed me even as I marvelled at it and its maker), there being no blood-brain barrier at the edge of a stage where a fourth wall would stand, and those students were messing with those performers. It matters, too, because Mr. T--let's just call "him" that from now on--has a lot of questions to pose to Black youth. No answers, but deep questions about their autonomy and their choices.

It also matters, because of what Brown went on to say about herself, referencing, among other things, how Dave Chappelle gave up his lucrative tv gig because he didn't want to compromise his values. Which kind of spooked me, because it's unnerving to hear a woman of her unquestionable gifts and achievements--as dancer, choreographer and educator--openly express feelings of exhaustion and discouragement. Maybe because, in my own way, I can relate. Despite Mr. T being a kind of f... you to the status quo--and a massively effective one, I'd say--for Brown, the exhaustion and questioning continues.

As Brown would readily tell you, Mr. T is not a history lesson, but it is broadly sourced in the history and legacy of Black American popular entertainment, as well as contemporary controversies like Miley Cyrus's twerking and hip hop's ease with the N-word, violence and hypersexuality. It dares to examine the external and internal challenges that Black artists continue to face.

Brown jams all of that into an hour, vacuuming out most of the air and leaving us with something compressed that whips past us in a fury. Projected snapshots and film clips get distorted as they play across a back curtain. Fast, fast movement snaps and wrenches into place with little let-up; movement so hectic, so relentless that, in the work's beginning passages, the faces of the dancers, when not averted, become a blur. Eventually, we do come to know individual faces, and they sometimes present cartoonish, stereotypical exaggerations. But even some handsome smiles prove tricky to read because they emerge from different places within the person. Some are practiced and plastic. Some are self-satisfied. Some reflect real pleasure. And sometimes, there's a combination of these embodied states of consciousness. Black American performers, then as now, have been among the best at what they do, and it's all there--confidence, ambition, competitive ego, genuine joy in being and giving--in the faces they turn to their audiences.

This show can get very loud; it's one of the loudest dance shows I've ever seen (heard?) short of maybe something involving Streb or STOMP or something on that order. We get a warning about "strong language and sexually suggestive content" but not about the din or the fact that the movement won't often let you relax and breathe. Yeah, Mr. T is a brutal son of a gun.

You feel that brutality because the choreographer has baked it in, on purpose, to take us right to that place where she, regrettably, finds herself. But if you also feel the deep investment of each of Brown's performers in what he or she is doing, you've learned something important that she needs you to know about the Black artists she has studied.

Some segments relieve the onslaught. Things slow down, or there's genuine amusement. Audiences, at least those members of a certain age, respond well to the dancers movement parodies that accompany images from long-lost tv shows like "Amen" or "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" or "Good Times" or "The Jeffersons."

Waldean Nelson in Mr. TOL E. RAncE
(photo: Christopher Duggan)

Brown talks of how she was advised to "not be so direct," to tone down Mr. T. Let me catch my breath long enough to tell you that she was right to sharpen her knife and keep going. I want to tell her--here in this review--that she must sharpen her knife again. And keep going.

The Kumble Theater season of Mr. TOL E. RAncE concludes tonight with a performance at 7:30pm. If tickets remain, you can get them here.

With dancing by Brown, Timothy Edwards, Juel D. Lane, Waldean Nelson, Mora-Amina Parker, Willie "Tre" Smith III and Marlena Wolfe. They are all terrific, but watch for extraordinary solos performed by Brown and Nelson, portraits that, remarkably, compress the story, and the heartbreak, even further.

Lighting: Burke Wilmore
Set: Philip Treviño
Costumes: Carolyn Meckha Cherry
Text: Camille A. Brown

For more information on Mr. TOL E. RAncE and resources for study and discussion of its issues, click here, then click on the Mr. TOL E. RAncE tab on the navigation bar.

Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts
at LIU Brooklyn
One University Plaza, Brooklyn
(map/directions)