Ballez: La MaMa Moves presents ballet on the wild side

Khadija Griffith (left) and Deborah Lohse in
Sleeping Beauty & The Beast,
a Ballez world premiere
(photo: Theo Coté)

Ballez is performance, company, class and community, that invites everyone to witness and celebrate the history and performances of lesbian, queer, and transgender people.

Ballez dancers claim our inherent nobility and belonging within, around, and on top of a form that has historically excluded us. 

Ballez celebrates the virtuosity of complexly gendered embodiment, energetic eloquence, queer coding, and the magical adaptability of expression that Ballez dancers have cultivated through their lives as a way to survive and thrive.

--some statements from www.ballez.org

Sleeping Beauty & the Beast--the latest project of Katy Pyle (with Jules Skloot and members of Pyle's Ballez troupe) is big.

How big, you ask?

So big, it requires more than two hours and two--not one--theater at La MaMa to tell its story.

So big, it's really telling multiple stories, mashing up classical ballets and fairy tale archetypes with Lower East Side labor organizing history and with L.E.S. queer culture--resulting in a hot mess that is and isn't.

So big, Pyle needs two dozen versatile, well-trained and coached dancers (most playing multiple roles) and eighteen classical musicians (New York's Queer Urban Orchestra playing straight-up Tchaikovsky for Act 1) plus a DJ JD Samson's house music (Act 2) and even that's not enough.

So big, it Occupies the Ballet Canon; big enough for a look-in from Graham and Loie Fuller; too big for the gender binary; too big to behave.

So big, it can embrace sweetness, humor, revolutionary fervor, sexual heat of diverse and ever-shifting varieties, and the pain of loss.

So big that--well, you know those old timers who regale you with stories about being there when so-and-so made her stunning debut or first danced with Nureyev and knocked their socks off in that difficult role? One day, if you're lucky, you will be that old timer, unable to shut up about how you saw Ballez premiere Sleeping Beauty & The Beast at La MaMa Moves.

That big. Historic. Meaningful. Moving.

Pyle and company get so much joyfully right, starting with the complex precision work of Act 1's opening yarn weaving dance. But I'm going to let you discover the best of Sleeping Beauty & The Beast for yourself, because you're going, right?  You're going.

Sleeping Beauty & the Beast continues tonight and through May 8--Wednesday to Saturday at 7pm; Sunday at 4pm. For information and tickets, click here.

La MaMa
at Ellen Stewart Theatre and The Downstairs
66 East 4th Street, 2nd Floor (between Bowery and 2nd Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Kimberly Bartosik: In close quarters at Gibney Dance

Lance Gries and (in background) Joanna Kotze
perform alone in Gibney Dance's Agnes Varis Performance Lab.
(photos above and below: Scott Shaw)

If you're lucky enough to get in--I almost was not!--your first experience of Étroits sont les Vaisseaux might be the shock of nearly bumping into its two dancers already standing, breathing heavily and eyeing each other just inside the studio door. Well, there's not a lot of "inside' to the lobby studio at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center. Choreographers seem to be increasingly drawn to its challenge.

For this world premiere by dance artist Kimberly Bartosik and lighting, sound and set designer Roderick Murray (Kimberly Bartosik/daela), audience seating must stop at around twenty. Chairs and cushions fill skimpy corners of the narrow space with the performance area marked off by tape strips. Dancers Joanna Kotze and Lance Gries don't get a lot of room to roam, but their powerful actions make that little space ring like church bells. Their more intimate actions make space disappear entirely.

Étroits sont les Vaisseaux ("Narrow are the vessels") draws inspiration from an Anselm Kiefer sculpture that is long, narrow (like the Gibney space) but also rough, forbidding, even violent in form. The performance runs precisely 24:50, with an 8pm performance recapped each evening at 9. That sounds short but proves to be just enough. We're sealed in--door closed; shade to the street window mechanically lowered--and so close to the performers as to be able to focus on individual sweat beads, strands of hair and fingernails.

Each dancer's focus varies--deep, quiet interiority; attempts to glimpse something other than each other; close engagement, loving and erotic in its implications. The spiky, birdlike Kotze gazes upward a lot, Gries, more compact and intense, often looks elsewhere. But then they do regard each other, almost touch, touch and guide, use one body as another's support, or melt away together towards the floor. Subtle sounds--thunder? crashing waves? a distant train?--imply an unseen environment that holds these two, perhaps an imagined or remembered "outside" to this radically confining "inside." We don't know who they are, but we can infer how they are, how they might have been and how they might yet be.

Leaving them is not easy, but when the time comes and the window shade draws up to once again reveal a mundane city street, we're literally shown the door (by Bartosik) and given access to our checked coats and bags. We leave Kotze and Gries to themselves and their lives. For all we know, these two beautiful dancers could have been in that narrow room forever and will remain so.

Étroits sont les Vaisseaux continues through Saturday, April 30 with performances at 8pm and 9pm. Contact boxoffice@gibneydance.org to inquire about ticket availability and standing room. For other information, click here.

Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center

280 Broadway (enter at 53A Chambers Street), Manhattan

(map/directions)

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art announces new MetLiveArts season

Tony Award-winning actor Alan Cumming
will perform Max and Alan, his evening-length musical work
inspired by German Expressionist Max Beckmann.
(photo: Steven Trumon Gray)

Mali's legendary master singer-musician Boubacar Traore
will perform in December.
(photo: courtesy of World Music Institute)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's 2016-17 season of live performances, newly renamed MetLiveArts, was announced last evening. The lineup features music, theater and dance events, the latter represented by the indefatigable Monica Bill Barnes and Anna Bass, whose latest project with artist Maira Kalman, The Museum Workout, aims to both introduce you to art works and get your blood pumping each morning of its run, one hour before the museum officially opens.

Monica Bill Barnes and Anna Bass
will perform and lead The Museum Workout
for a troupe of early-bird participants at The Met.
(photo: Paula Lobo)

Introduced by Thomas Campbell (Met Director and CEO) and Limor Tomer (General Manager of Concerts and Lectures), the announcement event previewed The Museum Workout and offered a lively performance by chamber music group PUBLIQuartet and a Q&A with Nate DiMeo, creator of The Memory Palace podcast. DiMeo--MetLiveArts's Artist in Residence for the 2016-17 season--will spend his year crafting ten podcasts inspired by an exploration of the Met's American Wing.

Describing himself as "culturally omnivorous," DiMeo explains that his passion for history is guided by an intense interest in people.

"Abraham Lincoln is really just a dude doing real things in the world. And the Met is a place that makes history, tells people a story about what's valuable and valued in art." His series will be available on The Met's Web site as well as on The Memory Palace.

New York's adventurous PUBLIQuartet,
will be MetLiveArts's 2016-2017 Quartet-in-Residence.
(photo: Paula Lobo)

"In the 2016–17 season we will unleash the power of the Museum's collection to make sense of our world by challenging performing artists to stretch the boundaries of their craft and genre—playing with our pre–conceived notion of what performance is, what a museum experience can be, and what to expect when we go to The Met," Tomer says.

A question of how to change both performers and audiences guided Tomer's development of these new projects. One fun way was to commission Monica Bill Barnes & Company, long noted, as Timor joked, for "bringing dance where it does not belong." Just ask NPR's Ira Glass (This American Life). We all know dance definitely does not belong on radio--or on national tour with an acclaimed radio and podcast star. And yet....

With recent reports of emergency belt tightening at the Met, it's clear that Campbell faces challenges more pressing than finding "something shiny" to wear to take part in The Museum Workout.  Still, the expansive MetLiveArts initiative seems a positive move towards heightening interest in the museum across artistic disciplines and boosting accessibility without sacrificing quality.

Get more information on the full schedule of MetLiveArts events here or call 212-570-3949. Tickets are also available at the Great Hall Box Office, which is open Monday-Saturday, 11 am–3:30 pm. Tickets include admission to the Museum on day of performance.

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Jenny Diski, 68

Jenny Diski, Author Who Wrote of Madness and Isolation, Dies at 68
by William Grimes, The New York Times, April 28, 2016

Jen Rosenblit presents "Clap Hands" at The Invisible Dog

Jen Rosenblit in Clap Hands
(photo: Maria Baranova)

In Jen Rosenblit's Clap Hands, I first notice color. A choreography of color. Color dancing across a wide space. Yellow. Red. Black. White. A fractured medicine wheel of color of sorts pulling attention every which way. Because that's what's dancing. Piles of tomato red felt neatly folded and stacked or unfolded and scattered or placed just so here and there. My eyes go to this and the spotless white of Effie Bowen's fencing uniform, the sunny, satiny yellow of Admanda Kobilka's wrestler unitard, the black that wraps Rosenblit, which she eventually sheds.

Clap Hands--hosted by The Invisible Dog Art Center , co-presented with New York Live Arts--was conceived as a complicated solo (add or remove quote marks as you will) performed by three people. And, actually, there's a fourth--the "supportive" alexia welch, whose role seems to be to hold a boom mic for Rosenblit and look impressively butch dykey with her laden toolbelt.

Clap Hands diffuses "center" and focus, allowing us to hold fast to nothing, especially our need to hold fast to something. So much there, so little there. At the same time, it feeds us, immerses us in color, texture (that fabric, the rabbity fur of the mic's windsock), shape (all that scarlet felt in folds, rolls, drapery, mounds, trains of a makeshift gown), sound (even the almost volumeless flow of air from Kobilka's yellow-red-black melodica), voice (Rosenblit's clear, resonant speaking). When Bowen dresses Kobilka in a bright pink turtleneck sweater, she adds a new, irrational splash of color. It first looks like an assault--the fabric restraining his throat, a sleeve bunched up tight around his arm. Then she unwinds it, draws it over his body in the normal way before, for good measure, slipping a red felt vest over his already burdened torso. You sense an uncomfortable heat, reminding you of his body...and yours.

But disappearance, I think, is the one through line and ironic touchstone--references to a disappearing ship, disappearing hair, escape routes, departures. Generally speaking, bodies, and their grounding force, aren't key here...until they are. Rosenblit, matter-of-factly nude, going about her workmanlike business, uninflected. Bowen, in her fencing gear, introducing skilled physical alignment, precision. Rosenblit folded up on a table before audience members whose metal bleacher row has been reoriented to place them just a few feet away from naked skin. Rosenblit, again, with a half-chewed strip of yellow plastic dangling from her mouth, dancing like...I can only call it the rustling of seaweed...with her gaze wild.

Here is something she would like us to consider:

How do we continually locate ourselves and what is it to deal with the haunting nature of remaining alone? Clapping hands is a phenomenon we do together, to celebrate, mark or culminate. Clap Hands is something we have to sit alone with, to recall being together.

--from publicity for Clap Hands

Clap Hands concludes tonight with a performance at 7:30pm. For information and tickets, click here.

The Invisible Dog Art Center
51 Bergen Street (between Smith and Court Streets), Brooklyn
(directions/map link)

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Maurice Kenny, 86

Maurice Kenny, a Poet and Teacher, Dies at 86
by John Motyka, The New York Times, April 26, 2016

Papa Wemba, 66

Papa Wemba, Known as the King of Congolese Rumba, Dies at 66
by The Associated Press, The New York Times, April 24, 2016

Billy Paul, 80

'Me and Mrs. Jones' Singer Billy Paul Dead at Age 80
by Hillel Italie, The Associated Press, ABC News, April 25, 2016

Brian Asawa, 49

Brian Asawa, Celebrated Countertenor and Pathbreaker at the Met, Dies at 49
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, April 23, 2016

Satter's Half Straddle rocks out at New York Live Arts

Playwright/director Tina Satter
of Half Straddle

The lights go down at New York Live Arts, and a big WHOOP goes up from the audience.

Yeah, it's not a dance show.

It's Ghost Rings, the latest theater piece from Tina Satter's Obie-winning Half Straddle troupe, and her fans are pumped.

Commissioned by NYLA, Ghost Rings takes the form of a pop rock concert featuring a made-up band credible enough to be a real band. Performers include actor/singers Erin Markey (deep into her being and as compelling as ever) and Kristen Sieh; keyboardist/backup singer Chris Giarmo; and Satter, herself, narrating, singing and drumming. (Satter learned to drum to perform in this piece.) Markey and Giarmo share credit for composing the music. Half the time, I had no idea what anybody was singing about--my hastily-scrawled lyrics notes might only confuse you--but they sounded fantastic, funky and passionate, and that's all that mattered to me. Rock on!

Driven by music and movement, the piece looks back on Satter's childhood closeness with her sister (now estranged) and their fantasies of having a band. For some reason, there are two animal spirit guides in the mix--adorable seal and deer puppets manipulated and voiced by the lead singers. These charming creatures appear to shyly dip into risky territory best friends Samantha (Markey) and Shawna (Sieh) otherwise avoid. The force of the music and vocals and the sweetness of the interactions with the deer and "Sealy" give Ghost Rings a heartfelt impact.

Ghost Rings continues through Sunday, April 24 and returns April 26-30 with all performances at 7:30pm. On April 28, there will be a Stay-Late Discussion moderated by Kate Valk. For information and tickets, click here.

New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Lonnie Mack, 74

Lonnie Mack, Singer and Guitarist Who Pioneered Blues-Rock, Dies at 74
by William Grimes, The New York Times, April 22, 2016

Elemental dancing: Munisteri's new "Antimony (51)"

Katie Weir and other dancers
performing Ben Munisteri's Petrichor (2015)
The company also premieres Antimony (51) on this weekend's program at BAM Fisher.
(photo: William Chafkin)

Antimony sounds as if it could be the opposite of harmony. But while the word--literally meaning "not alone"--does connote the presence of contradiction or paradox, it's also the name of a metalloid element, the 51st element on the Periodic Table. And now it's the newest creation--entitled Antimony (51)--from choreographer Ben Munisteri.

Premiered at BAM Fisher's Fishman Space, the hour-long ensemble work finds its inspiration in the brittle element variously described as "white," "silvery," "silvery-white," "bluish-white" or "lustrous gray." Antimony, Munisteri says, is "unable to exist alone in nature." His dancers exist in an orderly structure and decidedly not alone; in fact, when we first notice them, lined up on the nearly-dark stage, they're holding one another's hands. A brief image, perhaps meant to be received almost subliminally, but it well conveys the spirit of the dance to come.

Munisteri works with only six dancers in this--and only eight in the following piece, Petrichor, last year's premiere--but gives the illusion of far more. It does not take showy, aggressive movement to fill and animate this space--just the opposite. Every turn, dip and extension, every coalescence or separation and regrouping is unforced, performed with modest restraint and within undisturbed tranquility. Partners use the gentlest, most nimble control of each other, by simple touch to, say, a head or a shoulder. This is best shown in the smooth and non-gendered way in which a lift of one can easily transform into a lift of the other. The soft pastels and brights of designer Harry Nadal's flattering unitards contribute to this magic, turning every twirl into a display of quicksilver, fairy-like changeability.

In all things, the dancers model mutual support, and no one gets more spotlight time or higher status than anyone else. Here is Utopia expressed in movement, and I suppose it could not truly be a dance unless "contradiction" and "paradox"--questions, differences contained within the whole--did not empower things to actually move. But what you get out of all of that movement--and out of the clear dedication of these fine dancers to Munisteri's aesthetic--is a remarkable sense of cohesion. You see that also in Petrichor, which offers both a showcase for the dancers' technical rigor with an underlying trace of jazzy impulse and rhythm.

I was surprised by how much this cohesion meant to me, how much it worked on me and charmed me. I always love seeing the spark of individuality in individual dancers, and that is so not the look here. And yet. What's in the fabric of this dance, giving it its seamless appearance? Contradiction, paradox, human presence.

Dancers: Eric Sean Fogel, Katie Weir, Shane Rutkowski, Angela Maffia, Shomeiko Ingham, Kenneth Stephen Neil, Andrew Harper and Ricky Wenthen

Lighting: Kathryn Kaufmann

Antimony (51) continues tonight and tomorrow, Saturday, with performances at 7:30. For information and tickets, click here.

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

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Prince, 57

Prince Is Dead at 57
by Jon Pareles, The New York Times, April 21, 2016

Osserman troupe presents "Quick Time" program at TNC

Ancient Egypt's symbol of the sacred eye gave Wendy Osserman a powerful focus and impetus for her 1985 trio Udjat. The piece--now danced by Lauren Ferguson, Cori Kresge and Emily Vetsch--stands at mid-range in a dance career stretching back to the 1960s. It reflects Osserman's ongoing interest in the plasticity of the body as sculptural medium and her facility at turning connected, interactive bodies into dynamic mobiles.

Performing this week at Theater for the New City, the Wendy Osserman Dance Company celebrates its 40th anniversary with Udjat and two premieres in an hour+ program entitled Quick Time. If Udjat intimates healing and eternity, Timed, the choreographer's new solo, suggests preoccupation with time running out.

"If time was a good mother," Osserman says in the piece, "she'd wait for me," a dilemma that even Einstein cannot help her resolve. Well, I will not guess at Osserman's age, but she has remained a lithe, mercurial mover. When she muses, "My body can surprise me with movement," the viewer's response can only be, Why, yes.

Timed and Quick Time--a quartet including the troupe's only male dancer, Joshua Tuason--sup from and thrive on that surprise as well as what appears to be, for better and for worse, a loosening of the choreographic grip. These works are not Udjat. They play across space and time like doodles--lines and impulses free to go where they will, twisty and slippery and clever and sometimes remarkable in the moment. Awkwardness of form and interactions--sometimes profoundly so and, yes, surprising--is permitted. The abstract physical relationships among performers flare without building towards resolution or meaning, the very things one might hope for from the passage of time.

Music direction: Skip La Plante
Musicians: Skip La Plante and Harry Mann
Set: Sanya Kantarovsky
Lighting: Alex Bartenieff
Costumes: Cori Kresge

Quick Time continues through Saturday with performances at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.

The Johnson Theater at
Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Richard Smith, 84

Richard Smith, British Painter Who Turned Toward Pure Color, Dies at 84
by William Grimes, The New York Times, April 18, 2016

Doris Roberts, 90

Doris Roberts, Mother on ‘Everybody Loves Raymond,’ Dies at 90
by The Associated Press, The New York Times, April 18, 2016

Transcendant Malini Srinivasan

Dancer Malini Srinivasan introduces a dance.
Winter Garden at Brookfield Place
(photos: Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

Musicians shown, l-r: Vocalist Taniya Panda,
violinist Arun Ramamurthy
and bansuri (flute) player Jay Gandhi
(photos: Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

Sitting on the amphitheatrical staircase at the Winter Garden atrium at Brookfield Place can make you feel like you've finally fallen into that elusive "lap of luxury" you've always heard so much about. Beyond the round staircase landing (used as a performance space), you gaze out at a stand of palm trees, the entrances to upscale shopping spots and eateries and, past tall windows, to a yacht marina gleaming in the setting sun. The Winter Garden sits near the Hudson River edge of a neighborhood that, especially since 9/11, has seemed evermore sterile in design and sealed off from the rest of New York.

But Malini Srinivasan's Bharatanatyam performance last night--part of arts Brookfield's Transcendant Arts of Tibet & India series--brought heart and warmth to these surroundings. Entitled Rasa in the Round, the generous, nearly two-hour program included several dance solos by Srinivasan and music by Taniya Panda (Carnatic vocal), Samarth Nagarkar (Hindustani vocal), Umesh Venkatesan (nattuvangam), Arun Ramamurthy (violin), Jay Gandhi (bansuri), Bala Skandan (mrdangam) and Suryaksha Deshpande (tabla). Ramamurthy and flutist Gandhi, in particular, created heavenly beauty.

Srinivasan, dressed in magenta and gold, ritually blessed the space with movement and the release of rose petals to the air. Her dancing drew us close to those lovers of Lord Krishna who pine for him and vie for his favor. Her mastery of dance and story showed in her integrity of line, her firmly grounded plasticity allowing her to maintain control even when stretched, lunged or twisted out from her axis, shaping refined gestures and minute flutters of her fingers. Always, she displayed follow-through from head to toe, crackling with energy. Her dancing breathed as one with the singers' vocal lines.

For each tale, she took time to introduce the narrative with bits of dialogue and some imagery we'd notice along the way. For example, for Night, she previewed carefully inscribed gestures for "moon" and "waves." However, nothing prepared us for how deeply affecting these same simple gestures would be in their danced context and, especially, in Srinivasan's full-out, shapely performance.

Of one piece, Navarasa, Srinivasan noted, "It is up to the audience to taste the emotions" of the Divine Mother. Throughout the evening, she inspired us to taste a bit of everything, easily winning the rapt focus of her huge audience. Everything artificial, beyond her sacred circle, simply disappeared.

Transcendant Arts of Tibet & India is now closed. For information on future artsBrookfield programs at Winter Garden and elsewhere, click here.

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Malick Sidibé, 80

Malick Sidibé, Photographer Known for Social Reportage in Mali, Dies at 80
by William Grimes, The New York Times, April 15, 2016

Vicky Shick brings "Another Spell" to Danspace Project

Heather Olson (above)
Below, l-r: Donna Costello, Omagbitse Omagbemi, Lily Gold
and Heather Olson dancing Another Spell at Danspace Project
(photos: Ian Douglas)

New York provides so many ways to spend your precious weekend. But--oh, you lucky ones--you can spend an hour at Danspace Project with Vicky Shick, Jodi Bender, Donna Costello, Lily Gold, Marilyn Maywald-Yahel, Heather Olson and Omagbitse Omagbemi. Shick and all of her collaborators have brought us Another Spell, one of the most beguiling events of the dance season.

Another Spell's modular look, we're told, came together by picking through earlier work for elements of Barbara Kilpatrick's costume and set design. Even the movement bears that popular aesthetic--easygoing, sustainable--plus all the charm of an afternoon of thrift store shopping with a friend blessed with taste and ingenuity.

I imagine Another Spell drawn across white boards and then described--in juicy 3D--by circling hips, flapping thighs and knees, tensile ideas projected into receptive space. The scrapbook tape, filmic splices and stitched seams never show, and Kathy Kaufmann's lighting makes it all look mutable and luxurious.

Glitches prevented the opening night audience from hearing the proper soundscape (performed live by Elise Kermani with additional tracks composed by Todd Lent), but you might get to hear it if you go tonight or tomorrow. I hope you can!

Another Spell runs through Saturday with performances at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Danspace Project
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street (at Second Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Alicia Grullón reenacts Wendy Davis's Texas filibuster at BRIC

Alicia Grullón performs Filibuster
at BRIC House
(all photos: Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

It began with a pair of pink Mizuno Women’s Wave Rider 16 Running Shoes. On June 25, 2013, Texas State Senator Wendy Davis stood for 11 hours in these pink sneakers, filibustering against a restrictive abortion bill and creating history. Bronx artist Alicia Grullón will recreate this piece of history in its entirety (in an identical pair of pink Mizuno shoes) from 10am until 9pm Wednesday, April 13 at BRIC House.

--posted by BRIC Art Blogger, March 25, 2016

When, with the anti-abortion bill HB60, a defiant Texas legislature wedged itself between women and their physicians, State Senator Wendy Davis took a stand--literally--hour by hour, speaking truth to power. Her 11-hour embodied act of principle was not a stunt, and neither was Filibuster, Alicia Grullón's reenactment of this historic and remarkable effort, presented as part of the BRIC House exhibition, Whisper Or Shout: Artists in the Social Sphere.

I spent just one half-hour, yesterday, seated in front of Grullón on the porch at BRIC, but each of those thirty minutes hit hard. One particular story cited in the letters Davis/Grullón read concerned an expectant couple told their baby was severely ill and would not survive. Day and night, the mother lived with anguish that her child might die inside her before she could ever see and hold her.

"I was petrified that my baby was going to die while I was asleep," she wrote. "We decided to have labor induced. We were informed that it really wasn't possible." Why? Because her health insurance was provided by her employer, a faith-based firm.

"Knowing that your daughter is dying is heartbreaking," she wrote. "It feels as if your soul is ripping apart."

But the legislators who heedlessly wandered in and out of the Texas chambers as Davis read these words and other testimony had no interest in real life, just the pandering politics of so-called "pro-life."

Grullón read from another protesting letter: "I've seen the 1950s, and I don't want to go back there."

I witnessed only a short part of Filibuster--neither Grullón's first reenactment nor her first filibuster, as you can read here--but I know the physical, mental and emotional discipline required to perform it must have been enormous. As a woman of color, Grullón committed to this challenge to underscore the impact of retrogressive social policies on women and families of color and the need for us to be at the forefront of movements for social justice.

The exhibition Whisper or Shout: Artists in the Social Sphere continues through May 1 in the Gallery at BRIC House. Click here for information.

BRIC House
647 Fulton Street, Brooklyn
(directions)

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Anne Jackson, ,90

Anne Jackson, Stage Star With Her Husband, Eli Wallach, Dies at 90
by Robert D. McFadden, The New York Times, April 13, 2016

Fabian Barnes, 56

Fabian Barnes, founder/director of Dance Institute of Washington, dies at 56
by Sarah L. Kaufman, The Washington Post, April 12, 2016

Getatchew Mekurya, 81

Getatchew Mekurya, Ethiopian Jazz Saxophonist, Dies at 81
by Nate Chinen, The New York Times, April 11, 2016

American Dance Festival takes a stand on North Carolina's HB2...sort of

American Dance Festival--launched in 1934 as Vermont's Bennington Festival and, since 1977, based at Duke University--is arguably one of the world's most historic, most influential arts institutions. Its renown--and its location in Durham, North Carolina--recently raised questions for many of us in the dance community when the state's legislature passed HB2, touted as a way to protect women and girls from transgender women in school and public bathrooms and changing rooms. HB2, in actuality, broadly denies anti-discrimination protection to LGBTQ people and strips employees of the right to file claims under state law for discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin, color and age. It also restricts local governments from raising the minimum wage beyond the federal level.

HB2's passage drew swift condemnation--most notably from rock star Bruce Springsteen, who cancelled shows scheduled for the state, and PayPal, quashing plans to open a center with hundreds of jobs in Charlotte. But what about ADF whose programs include and serve many people who identify across the queer/gender non-conforming spectrum?

On March 30, ADF's Facebook friends found this posting on its page:

In light NC's legislature passing ‪#‎HB2‬, we want our friends in NC and beyond to know that our bathrooms are still safe for trans and gender non-conforming folks. ‪#‎WeAreNotThis‬ ‪#‎NoHateInMyState‬

followed by Google's handy map of North Carolina businesses "who have stated publicly that their bathrooms are safe for trans* and gender non-conforming folks under HB2." And that--to the immediate and continued anger of many friends from the dance field--is as far as things went.

Yesterday, finally, a dance artist I know discovered a new statement now linked through ADF's website:

The American Dance Festival (ADF) is disappointed by the North Carolina legislature's recent passage of HB2, a bill that cruelly reduces the scope of anti-discrimination protections in the state. Discrimination is wrong, period. As an organization, ADF has long promoted diversity and is deeply troubled by North Carolina's embarrassing step backward. HB2 does not reflect the values of ADF nor do we believe it reflects the values of the overwhelming majority of the state of North Carolina. ADF has been a proud resident of the North Carolina arts community since 1977, a community that believes in inclusion and fairness and believes that every individual is important. 

ADF strongly urges the North Carolina General Assembly to repeal HB2 at the earliest opportunity. ‪#‎WeAreNotThis‬

This is the rough equivalent of "Hey, you guys, cut it out. We're over here trying to do the right thing, and you're making us look bad." No one expects dance folks to make economy-shaking gestures on the level of a Springsteen, an Apple or a PayPal, but we really need to pull out better words than these prim ones about disappointment and embarrassment.

ADF has no shortage of smart, creative people. Surely, good heads can work up a statement or action that, in no uncertain terms, reflects ADF's cultural and economic value to the state of North Carolina and the weight of its rejection of hate. Direct, uncompromising condemnation of HB2 from ADF--an institution associated with the best North Carolina, and our nation, has to offer--would have high visibility and moral impact, giving needed support to anti-discrimination activists in the state and beyond.

This fight isn't only about who gets to use which bathroom. It's about concerted efforts to drag our country back to times when discrimination and abuse could be widely, openly practiced without restriction or consequences. An ignorant, hate-filled demagogue now commands an army of supporters who--even if he goes down to defeat--have been encouraged and activated. With or without a Trump--or a Cruz--we're staring at damage we'll likely still be confronting well into the future. Sitting there in the belly of the beast, ADF needs to toughen up, speak truth to power and represent our dance community the right way.

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William Hamilton, 76

William Hamilton, Popular Cartoonist at The New Yorker, Dies in Car Crash
by Christopher Mele and Bruce Weber, The New York Times, April 9, 2016

Tony Conrad, 76

Tony Conrad, Experimental Filmmaker and Musician, Dies at 76
by J. Hoberman, The New York Times, April 9, 2019

Dance Theatre of Harlem's season at New York City Center

Nayara Lopes, Chyrstyn Fentroy and Stephanie Rae Williams
of Dance Theatre of Harlem in Dianne McIntyre's Change
(photo: Jeff Cravotta)

Classical ballet isn't really my beat (or my jam), and I'll admit it's been quite a while since I've seen Dance Theatre of Harlem which now appears to be doing its best work as...contemporary dancers!

Last night's show at New York City Center bolstered that conclusion. Elena Kunikova's stodgy, if pleasant, classicism in Divertimento does nothing to help these dancers go out there and "sparkle like diamonds"--Virginia Johnson's final instruction to her company. Although intended as a kind of sampling of and homage to story ballet roles and traditions, it seems stuck in its imagery, and some dancers aren't even prepared to ride the music (Glinka) or, with the exception of Brazil-born Ingrid Silva, to look as if they genuinely enjoy what they are dancing.

Chyrstyn Fentroy's dancing in When Love (2012), a contemporary duet by Helen Pickett, acts as a buffer against the work's syrupy romanticism about the "very old, old story of love." Here's a real diamond for Johnson. Supple. Playful. Ardent. The engine of this piece, Fentroy's alive from the inside, uncorking energy that even makes suitor Jorge Andres Villarini seem a little sharper than usual. Back in 2015, Dance Magazine advised us to keep an eye on Fentroy, and I can well understand why.

Change, Dianne McIntyre's tribute to oft-unheralded women of color ("warriors for change"), benefits from tapping a similar vigor shared by DTH's current corps of women. Another contemporary piece--reflective of McIntyre's long, lauded career in modern dance--it serves dancers like Stephanie Rae Williams, Lindsey Croop and Nayara Lopes well to the extent that technique, rather than existing for display alone, shades into expression, conviction and meaning.

Change evokes Black spirituality, struggle and achievement. Late in the work, the trio appears in multi-shaded leotards made of scraps from tights worn from former DTH dancers, and I am mindful of the current season's emphasis on women choreographers and the legacy of Black women in ballet. But I had a moment when, towards the end, movements refocused my thinking from dance to sports--sprinters, broad-shouldered swimmers, Serena Williams. Why Serena Williams--though I adore her--when ballet has its own Black sheroes? Did my mind go there--and possibly McIntyre's, too--because that's the way we see things here in Americaland? Someday, perhaps, more of our youngsters will also look to dance, readily and directly, for exemplars of courage.

Not to be completely outdone by the ladies, the men of DTH finally find and unleash their energy--and then some--for Nacho Duato's flashy Coming Together (1991; DTH premiere, 2015).  But can I take a minute to single out Anthony Javier Savoy? Whether whipping through Coming Together with his mates or showing his elegant partnering skills in Divertimento, Savoy models the proper combination of reliable, focused technique and equally focused presence. Like Fentroy, he's another special diamond to treasure.

The DTH season concludes today with performances at 2pm (Program B) and 8pm (Program A). For specific programming and cast information and tickets, click here.

New York City Center
131 W 55th St (between 6th and 7th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Harlem's "E-Moves" spotlights emerging dancemakers

Tap artist Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards
with trumpeter Igmar Thomas
in Jason Samuels Smith's Going The Miles...
(photo: Marc Millman)

The coziness up at Harlem Stage Gatehouse for last night's E-Moves opener was enhanced by Simone Eccleston's generous, frequent expressions of welcome and thanks. As Interim Director of Programming--replacing the now @large Brad Learmonth--Eccleston has much to uphold and to celebrate: a unique, beautiful home for the arts in Harlem, a strong international community of creators and performers, a history of events that have made and continue to make memories.

Of the four commissioned dances, Jason Samuels Smith's Going The Miles... deserves to enter venerable Harlem Stage history. You'll never go wrong featuring tap champs like Samuels Smith, Derick K. Grant and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards. But the combination of that triple-threat sonic powerhouse with the intimacy of the Gatehouse was mindblowing. The closeness offered the chance to watch, but never quite fathom, how six feet can split musical moments into flickering microseconds, lending the overall fabric of music a refined, shimmering texture. Grant loves, is especially adept at, small, unexpected delicacies. Collaborators Igmar Thomas--a masterful trumpeter--and bassist Alex Hernandez take a journey through a trio of Miles Davis works, from 1955-1963 contributing to one of the most satisfying musical performances of this or any season.

Although already world-renowned in tap dance, Samuels Smith joined the E-Moves lineup as an "emerging choreographer," mentored by Broadway's Ted Levy.  Okay. But what of his lesser-known colleagues on the Harlem Stage bill?

Davalois Fearon in Water, Thirst & Storm
with video art by André M. Zachery
(photo: Marc Millman)

Davalois Fearon--actually a frequent critics' favorite for her dancing with choreographer Stephen Petronio--is not new to the spotlight. But as she ventures out more as her own dancemaker, we can see a personal, introspective focus that tempers crowd-pleasing, quirky agility. In her and her dancers' movement for Water, Thirst & Storm--as well as a bewitching video by collaborator André M. Zachery--she puts a quiet, ritualistic beauty in the service of expressing nature's power and preciousness. The work shown here has been excerpted from her developing project, Consider Water, "inspired by domestic and global water issues, like water scarcity, water quality impairment and water-related natural disasters." Without seeing Water, Thirst & Storm within this bigger context, it's hard to know how those issues might be integrated into a work of performance, but the piece is a good introduction to Fearon's evolving aesthetic.

Laurie M. Taylor's entertaining Deeper, Higher reflects a fusion of influences from modern dance to Broadway to hip hop, from African to the Afro-affirmative work of Urban Bush Women. An abstract ensemble for five women, including Taylor, it has the uplift of a signature piece, an appetizer. You definitely want to know what Taylor and her shining dancers might do next.

To appreciate Desiree Godsell's WONDERLAND a GO-GO, you're best advised to let go and let the psychedelics take your mind. Otherwise you might not know where you are or why--particularly if you happen to be way younger than me. While not exactly my flavor, despite the era it evokes, WONDERLAND a GO-GO has theatrical audacity. Salsa dancer Elvis Collado performs with stellar presence, and Godsell, herself, overflows with daffy charm best seen in her "Little Surfer Girl" number. Again, for those of you young ones, that's the Beach Boys.

E-Moves continues through Sunday, April 9 with performances at 7:30pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Harlem Stage Gatehouse
150 Convent Avenue, Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Merle Haggard, 79

Merle Haggard, Country Music’s Outlaw Hero, Dies at 79
by Bill Friskics-Warren, The New York Times, April 6, 2016

Inge Hardison, 102

Inge Hardison, Actress and Sculptor of Heroes, Dies at 102
by Sam Roberts, The New York Times, April 5, 2016

Kazuko Hirabayashi, 82

Kazuko Hirabayashi, Choreographer and Dancers’ Mentor, Dies at 82
by Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times, April 5, 2016

Gato Barbieri, 83

Gato Barbieri, Latin Jazz Trailblazer, Dies at 83
by Christopher Mele, The New York Times, April 2, 2016

Live Ideas presents Radouan Mriziga's "~55"

Radouan Mriziga
(photo: Benjamin Boar)

Fascinated by an artisan’s gestures in which movement is organized to serve production, Mriziga uses his body like a tool to play with perspective and audience expectations. What emerges is an ancient symbol bearing new meaning, questioning our fundamental attachment to symbols and their ability to transgress meanings over time. In the artist’s own words: “The starting point of 55 is: how can I be as functional as possible on stage? As a dancer you constantly ask yourself questions: Is it sufficient? Is this what I want to convey? Is this the right form? What exactly am I doing? What am I making? What do I express? I set out in search of functionality and the form functionality may adopt. It is an almost architectural approach. I question myself as a performer and as a creator.”

--from promotion for Radouan Mriziga's ~55 

Someone recently asked me what I look for when I look at a dance. It's an impossible question. Isn't every dance different? And, anyway, I'm not supposed to be looking for anything. I'm supposed to be looking at something. I'm supposed to be present with whatever's there and, with luck, connect and communicate with it in some way. At least, that's the way I see how I'm seeing. Just to be clear, that doesn't mean that I'm always going to connect or, if I do not, no one else can.

Radouan Mriziga's ~55 solo--a US premiere at New York Live Arts--kept hitting me in the intellectual chakra, you know, the one that detects checklist items like counting, repetition, geometrics, workmanlike gesture. Stuff I get. Performing in NYLA's upstairs studio, Mriziga, dressed simply--black jeans, casual black shirt--made his way within a perimeter of onlookers. Hailing from Belgium, born in Morocco, he looked and moved like he would have been right at home at a showcase at Judson Church.

Every now and then, we would hear individual, ragged outbursts of unidentified music that sounded classic (as in really old), each lasting perhaps a few seconds. Everything about the movement construction seemed snapped together, like a Tinker Toy, and everything about this intermittent soundscape seemed rudely snapped apart, shredded, flying past the audience at unpredictable moments. I was more taken by the source--five ancient cassette decks--and the integration of layers of past-ness in this present-day event in a festival devoted to futurity (Live Ideas 2016: MENA/Future – Cultural Transformations in the Middle East North Africa Region). I was reminded of how, here in the States, we like to bulldoze and obscure the past--whether it be old neighborhoods or old social traumas--as opposed to other places in the world where the past is either rightly treasured or still sadly inescapable.

Anyway, those were my thoughts. And here I was with Mriziga who has his own thoughts and questions and something that, we would learn, building in his head, in the air and, ultimately and most carefully, on the ground. As his moves and gestures became more familiar to me, either I received them better or--and this could be true--he seemed to relax more, enough for me to see and connect with the human artist at work. Maybe, maybe that was because he knew he was closing in on something he felt sure about and we had yet to see.

~55 concludes with a performance tonight at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.

New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Enrico D. Wey presents new solo at Danspace Project

Enrico D. Wey performs his new solo,
to warring states, a useless tool,
at Danspace Project.
(photos: Elyssa Goodman)

In his third Danspace commission, Enrico D. Wey presents a deeply personal examination of Asian male identity and embodiment. Wey explores clichés such as the Asian body as a fetishized and invisible minority, asking, “Can I reclaim my own physical body from the gaze of others and from my own embedded prejudice?”

--from promotion for Enrico D. Wey's to warring states, a useless tool

At first sight, the set-up of Enrico D. Wey's solo at Danspace Project--to warring states, a useless tool--first resembles an improvised boxing ring. Audience seating lines all four sides of a large, square space covered in a white, illuminated plastic mat, its parameters neatly defined by festive, tricolored tape. A pink ribbon, anchored in the air by cords extending from the sanctuary's columns, encloses this area like the ropes of a boxing ring.

We enter, claiming chairs or cushions, to find Wey already stationed at the square's center, standing as still as a rubber doll, his long, black hair completely veiling his face, his chest, legs and feet bare. Oksana Meister's costume--largely front and back panels of multicolored fringe--wraps his lower body from waist to knees. Although the set suggests a competitive match of some sort, the costume introduces a different association--cultural ritual. As we will see, both associations are fair entry into the work.

The solo moves through an hour--most of that time, astonishingly glacial in pace. It takes a while at first, and close observation, to even detect change in Wey's body. But, yes, those arms are slowly rising and spreading. That might not register until the positional change becomes obvious. Fifteen minutes, at least, have passed before the arms find an arch like half-unfurled wings. As if to (sort of) highlight the moment, Elliott Jenetopulos's lighting gives the tiniest, fleeting uptick that seems almost like a hastily-corrected mistake.

Wey's arms begin a descent, his head and back dipping forward, folding downward at the same pace. A half-hour has passed, and he is suspended above the floor, nearby shadows tinted strawberry and green. Abruptly bursting into motion, he rapidly pumps, thrashes up and down, over and over, sharply exhaling, panting, snorting, shifting from one to all four directions. About forty-five minutes in, there's humming, sudden panting, something that sounds like yodeling, scatting, muttered gibberish and then ritual chant. Never, though, the revelation of his face. We're not granted that. The lashing motion blurs whatever we might have been able to see. He is there and not there. Or there in some form of absence that removes his actual identity from easy access. Forced or deliberate. Negative or positive. Make of that what you will. Make of him what you will.

In the post-show Q&A with writer Jaime Shearn Coan, the Taiwan-born performer spoke of sourcing material from traditions ranging across several Asian cultures--including, in his furious, ecstatic lashing, an aboriginal tribal dance of Taiwan performed solely by women. He was driven by a need to put himself at the center "and always at the center," embodying what appears to be stuckness but, as he sees it, is truly "activated space."

"I'm going to place that at the center of my work and see what spins out from it," he said. "That gray space in between, I want to be able to sit in that space and take from it."

Multitalented Wey has also worked in puppetry where, he noted "the idea is to make the puppet breathe" thus changing the nature of the puppet's movement and the audience's perception and understanding. The dancer in to warring states inhabits a space between inertness and dynamism, between being acted upon and acting, between being object and subject. He might be oppressively obscured or protectively hidden. He might be invisible or visible and apprehended and known in multiple ways. The states war. He is a vessel, useless or otherwise, in this adroit and fascinating performance.

to warring states, a useless tool continues tonight and tomorrow with performances at 8pm. Seating is limited. For information and tickets, click here.

Danspace Project
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street (at Second Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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