Marni Nixon, 86

Marni Nixon, the Voice Behind the Screen, Dies at 86
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, July 25, 2016

LC Fest: Japan's Takarazuka Revue takes on "CHICAGO"

Started by a railway magnate in 1914 to attract tourists to the hot springs town of Takarazuka, the all-female Takarazuka Revue has grown into a true cultural phenomenon, with a devoted fan base that clamors for the company’s sparkling adaptations of classic Western and Japanese stories, movies, and plays, and a cultural influence that extends into the realms of anime and manga.

--from "Takarazuka: A History"

Granted, I did not have the best vantage point for Japan's Takarazuka CHICAGO, seated near the rear of the Koch Theater's hall (my bad, I guess, for waiting too late to try for a press ticket). From there, I could see, very well, that Takarazuka Revue's cast--nearly all women, often taking male roles--had brought their sharpest knives to the Fosse (via Ann Reinking) banquet. But I couldn't make out facial expressions or the subtleties of gaze and body talk that usually connect and even bond me to performers and the characters they play. I struggled to recover some sense of the 1975 Kander-Ebb-Fosse musical I had seen and enjoyed only in its 2002 movie version. It didn't help to have to continually aim my gaze nearly to the ceiling, away from those distant faces, to catch whatever English supertitles I could catch. I felt lost and got lost more often than I'd care to admit.

At the outset, the CHICAGO of Takarazuka CHICAGO seemed sluggish. Post-intermission, though, it took on a certain charge, and I did get a kick out of Saori Mine (playing flashy, celebrated celebrity lawyer Billy Flynn) and the moxie of foxy Roxie Hart (played by Hikaru Asami) and Velma Kelly (Yoka Wao), our two vaudeville-era lady killers. But I did not really start rooting for Takarazuka Revue until the hard-working performers lowered the curtain on CHICAGO and gifted us with one their famous encores, a show in itself.

To Takarazuka Revue, "encore" does not mean one or two quick, rousing sendoffs. Oh no. It means a string of numerous songs, each a mini-production with different performers, about twenty minutes more of material--Takarazuka's own material, this time, and what material! Glittering light effects sweeping the theater's walls and ceiling; sexy, romantic tangos between women dressed to the nines; Vegas showgirl feather costumes and Rockettes-style lineups. It's also fun to notice how audience members, many of them Japanese or Japanese-American, recognize and hail specific players as they take the stage for their encore segments.

As I giddily discussed this, via Facebook app, with a Takarazuka fan who has seen the troupe in Japan, we hit on the same explanation for why these encores slay. It's really hard to separate how gaudily over-the-top they are from the exquisite technical excellence of the performances. Your brain instinctively says, "Wait, no. I can't believe this," but you're grinning. Confections coming after the dark meal of CHICAGO, they feel like acts of sincere generosity, feel-good rewards and guilty pleasures. Each number is bite-sized but packs a lot of calories, and everyone goes away richly fed.

The North American premiere run of Takarazuka CHICAGO continues at Lincoln Center Festival through Sunday. Remaining shows are:

Friday, July 22, 7:30
Saturday, July 23, 2:00
Saturday, July 23, 8:00
Sunday, July 24, 2:00

Note: The show runs roughly three hours with one intermission.

Get information and tickets here.

David H. Koch Theater
20 Lincoln Center Plaza, Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Billy Name, 76

Billy Name, Who Glazed Warhol’s Factory in Silver, Dies at 76
by Randy Kennedy, The New York Times, July 21, 2016

Patti Smith, Mariachi Flor de Toloache at LC Out of Doors

Patti Smith and band
rocked the 2016 Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival.
photo ©2016, Deborah Feller

A perfect evening for Lincoln Center Out of Doors. Rain-free skies. July heat and humidity simmering at a comfortably mellow pitch. A pleasant crowd. Even the festival's security detail--with its new entrance gates and bag-checking procedures--kept things moving with cheerful efficiency.

Patti Smith, as I knew she would, had brought us good fortune.

More good luck arrived with Smith's opening act, Mariachi Flor de Toloache, New York's first and only all-women mariachi troupe. (Their eponymous debut album received a 2016 Latin Grammy nomination for Best Ranchero.) They offered original songs, traditional tunes, Nirvana and Led Zeppelin covers and Coltrane's "Afro-Blue," all with superb musicianship and mariachi flavor and warmth--trumpet, guitarrón, vihuela and violin blending peppy rhythms as gorgeously flutey voices ascended.  They took Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" at a frisky pace, voices now a bit reminiscent of the Andrews Sisters. It was a little offbeat, spine-tingling and irresistible. The audience fell in love.

A taste of Mariachi Flor de Toloache performing on NPR:

Following a surprisingly quick break, Smith--mindful of LC's strict runtime policy--fondly admonishing her audience to not "mill around like a herd of turtles." Then she offered a passage from Just Kids, her beautiful remembrance of life with Robert Mapplethorpe. But her incantations (Ginsberg's "Howl") and rocking out with Lenny Kaye to "Dancing Barefoot" and "Summer Cannibals" brought the turtles rushing to the edge of the stage, phones aloft, as "Ghost Dance" rang into the night.

It was a night for calling up our holy dead--from Mapplethorpe to Ginsberg, yes, but also Amy Winehouse (a tribute to her called "This is The Girl"), Prince (a decidedly sultry "When Doves Cry"), Jim Morrison ("Break It Up") and her beloved late husband Fred "Sonic" Smith ("Because the Night"). If I recall, I might have heard a little George Harrison snaking through "Beneath the Southern Cross."

Aside from the sorry state of our politics--Smith, of course, took a few moments to excoriate Trump and the GOP and insist we use our People Power to do better--Smith very much had death and the passage of time on her mind. She startled me with the choice of "The Last Time" by The Rolling Stones, because she made me hear its refrain as a song of uncertainty about what time remains. It recalled that moody standard from way back in the '30s, you know, that goes, "For all we know, we may never meet again...."

We won't say goodnight/Until the last minute/I'll hold out my hand/And my heart will be in it

For all we know/This may only be a dream/We come and we go/Like the ripples of a stream

My heart clenched a little as I listened to the band lace into The Last Time. Smith was having fun with it but also making me imagine saying goodbye to this extraordinary being whose wit, spirituality and life force has always brought her audiences renewed belief and just the right jolt of energy in the nick of time.

I don't think the sensible and fiery Patti Smith is going anywhere anytime soon, though, and she later told us as much:

"I'm getting old," she roared, as we pumped fists into the air. "And I'm going to get fuckin' older!"

Words to live by.

* * * * *

Lincoln Center Out of Doors runs through August 7. All events are free. For schedule information, click here.

Damrosch Park and other Lincoln Center venues, Manhattan

map/directions

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Presenting new work by art collaborators Twig and Lux

(photo: Dan Safer)

Readymade sculpture/ installation created last night by Twig and Lux.*

Water bowl, two food bowls with cat food, bear toy,

carrot toy with feathers, shoe lace, Santa hat on placemats.

2016

*We are now assuming this is solely the work of Twig,

with perhaps occasional assistance from Lux.

-- Dan Safer, director/choreographer, Witness Relocation

* * * * *

My review:

Just the right combination of balance and asymmetry. Light and shadow on the wall; the moon-like water bowl. A haiku-like suggestion of season (Santa hat) and the passage of time (half-eaten food) plus samples of metal, wood, fabric and plastic, the real (the inclusion of one of the artists) and the fake (soft toys). It's quite a composition.

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John Gruen, 89

John Gruen, Cultural Renaissance Man, Dies at 89
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, July 19, 2016

Garry Marshall,81

Garry Marshall, ‘Pretty Woman’ Director and Comedy Mastermind, Dies at 81
by Bruce Weber, The New York Times, July 20, 2016

Maralin Niska,89

Maralin Niska, Lyric Soprano at New York City Opera Who Won Hearts, Dies at 89
by William Grimes, The New York Times, July 13, 2016

Hector Babenco, 70

Hector Babenco, Director of ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman,’ Dies at 70
by Katie Rogers, The New York Times, July 14, 2016

Alan Vega, 78

Alan Vega, Punk Music Pioneer and Artist, Dies at 78
by Jon Pareles, The New York Times, July 17, 2016

Joya Powell, Donald McKayle win early Bessies; nominations announced

Oh, how I deeply regret missing the Bessies press conference last evening, but I am up very early this morning to catch a train out of town for a few days.

Here's all the exciting news you need to know, and my hearty congratulations to the winners and the nominees.

I hope to see you on October 18!

--Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody

*****

The 32nd annual Bessie Awards, presented in association with the Brooklyn Academy of Music, will take place on Tuesday, October 18 at 7:30pm, at BAM Howard Gilman Opera House.

Three 2016 awards were presented at last evening's press conference at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center:

Outstanding Emerging Choreographer Award: Joya Powell

"for her passionate choreographic engagement with issues of justice and race in our communities and our country; for connecting with the audience in ways that make it clear that these concerns belong to all of us—and action is required."

Outstanding Revival: Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder, choreographed by Donald McKayle

"for giving a classic modern dance new and powerful life, transforming the midcentury portrayal of an African American prison chain gang into a searingly resonant cry for our current times, performed with humanity, craft, and beauty by the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, produced by Paul Taylor’s American Modern Dance as part of its 2016 season."

Juried Bessie Award: Pam Tanowitz

"for using form and structure as a vehicle for challenging audiences to think, to feel, to experience movement; for pursuing her uniquely poetic and theatrical vision with astounding rigor and focus."

The 2016 Bessie Nominations

Outstanding Production:


luciana achugar

An Epilogue for OTRO TEATRO: True Love

Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center



Souleymane Badolo

Yimbégré: Replanting roots in the name of freedom

BAM Fishman Space



Camille A. Brown

Black Girl: Linguistic Play

The Joyce Theater



Jack Ferver and Marc Swanson

Chambre

The New Museum co-presented by FIAF



Pat Graney

Girl Gods

Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University



Maria Hassabi

PLASTIC

MoMA



Heather Kravas

dead, disappears

American Realness at Abrons Arts Center



Ralph Lemon

Scaffold Room

The Kitchen



Dada Masilo

Swan Lake

The Joyce Theater



Justin Peck

Heatscape

Miami City Ballet

David H. Koch Theater



Liz Santoro & Pierre Godard

For Claude Shannon 

The Kitchen



Safi A. Thomas with H+ | The Hip-Hop Dance Conservatory

Sleeping Beauty

Flamboyán Theater



Outstanding Revival (* indicates award recipient):



get dancing

By Andy de Groat & Catherine Galasso

Danspace Project



Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder  *

Choreographed by Donald McKayle

Performed by Dayton Contemporary Dance Company

Produced by Paul Taylor American Modern Dance

David H. Koch Theater



Outstanding Performer:



Ephrat Asherie

Sustained Achievement with Dorrance Dance, Doug Elkins, Bill Irwin, Gus Solomon jr., Rennie Harris, Cori Olinghouse, and many others



Nicolas Bruder

In Custodians of Beauty by Pavel Zuštiak

New York Live Arts



Omar Edwards

In FLY

New Victory Theater



Paul Hamilton

For his body of work including Ralph Lemon’s Scaffold Room and the work of Jane Comfort, Keeley Garfield, and others



Parisa Khobdeh

For her body of work with Paul Taylor Dance Company



Kazunori Kumagai

For his body of work including Live at the Blue Note Late Night Groove Series



Jennifer Lafferty

In Catacomb by Beth Gill

The Chocolate Factory



Molly Lieber

For her body of work with several artists including luciana achugar, Maria Hassabi, and Donna Uchizono



Aaron Mattocks

In Big Dance: Short Form by Big Dance Theater

The Kitchen



Gillian Murphy

Sustained Achievement with American Ballet Theatre



Aakash Odedra

In Rising

Skirball Center for the Performing Arts



Jamar Roberts

Sustained Achievement with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

 

Outstanding Emerging Choreographer (* indicates award recipient):



John Heginbotham



Jillian Peña



Joya Powell *



Larissa Velez-Jackson



Outstanding Music Composition/Sound Design:



Admanda Kobilka

For Clap Hands by Jen Rosenblit

Invisible Dog Art Center / New York Live Arts



Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste

For #negrophobia by Jaamil Olawale Kosoko | anonymous bodies

Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center



Dan Trueman, Sō Percussion, and Mobius Percussion

For There Might Be Others by Rebecca Lazier

New York Live Arts



Ustatshakirt Plus

For Dream'd in a Dream by Seán Curran

BAM Harvey Theater



Outstanding Visual Design:



Holly Batt

For the visual and set design of Girl Gods by Pat Graney

Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University



Design Team: F. Randy deCelle, Ralph Lemon, Roderick Murray, Naoko Nagata, R. Eric Stone, Mike Taylor, and Philip White

For the visual design of Scaffold Room by Ralph Lemon

The Kitchen



DD Dorvillier and Thomas Dunn

For the lighting and visual design of Extra Shapes by DD Dorvillier

The Kitchen



Eamonn Farrell

For the new media scenography of Forgiveness by Emily Berry | B3W Performance Group

BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center

ABOUT THE BESSIES

Produced in partnership with Dance/NYC, the NY Dance and Performance Awards have saluted outstanding and groundbreaking creative work in the dance field in New York City for 32 years. Known as “The Bessies” in honor of revered dance teacher Bessie Schönberg, the awards were established in 1984 by David White at Dance Theater Workshop. They recognize exceptional work in choreography, performance, music composition, and visual design. Nominees are chosen by a 40-member selection committee comprised of artists, presenters, producers, and writers. All those working in the dance field are invited to join the NY Dance and Performance League, as members participate in annual discussions on the direction of the awards and nominate members to serve on the selection committee. www.bessies.org

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Seeking a friend for the end of the world: Monstah Black's HOT!

Clockwise from bottom left:
Shiloh Hodges, Monstah Black, Benedict Nguyen,
Alicia Dellimore and Joey Cuellar (center)
(photo: Peter Yesley)

The world is coming to an end!

(No kidding!)

So, what do you do?

Well, if you're Monstah Black, you grab your pals, slap on wigs and stilettos, shake your cocktails and throw a fabulous dance party. Hyperbolic! (the last spectacle)--running Fridays and Saturdays through July 23 for Dixon Place's 25th Anniversary HOT! Festival--takes place by the light of a mushroom cloud and suggests nothing more complicated than what a lot of us have been saying lately in the wake of one bad, unacceptable piece of news after another.

Wherever you go, there you are.

You bring to each crisis precisely who and what you are and do what you were sent to Earth (from, you know, wherever Sun Ra hailed from) to do. So, let's just get the funk on with it!

When we first meet Black and company, they most bring to mind the Wicked Witch of the West--after she's been slain by a flying house, that is. Dressing room chairs and clothing racks have already toppled, pinning them against the floor. Glittery pools of blood-like fabric spread away from their poor heads.

It's August 11, 2033, and only Tucker (Joey Cuellar) appears to have survived the fashion apocalypse, perched on a bed, curly white wig dangling from fingertips. But, like creatures arising from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" ("Midnight hour is close at hand...."), the others soon spring to life, as preoccupied as ever with their usual pursuits.

Johnnie "Cruise" Mercer's character, for instance, can't get enough of his phallic selfie stick. Really, really, really can't get enough. Others obsess over their mirrored reflections, and Black--addressing us from a balcony--frets about how to fit a huge shoe collection into one suitcase.

What's important is important. "I'm going to make sure I look good if the world is coming to an end," one dancer declares. And Black--who designed the amazing costumes--certainly made sure everyone looks smashing, not only in these clubbing outfits but also the show's brisk, cartoonish movement stylings.

A lot of disciplined teamwork went into this production, you can tell, and the creative, performance and production team is sizable and complex--even with multi-talented Black appearing numerous times in the credits. The end result is far more amusement and glamour than you'd expect from catastrophe. But, then again, that's why we have queer artists.

Hyperbolic! (the last spectacle) continues Fridays and Saturdays, July 9, 15, 16, 22 and 23 at 7:30pm.  For information and tickets, click here.

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

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Don Friedman, 81

Don Friedman, Versatile Jazz Pianist, Dies at 81
by Nate Chinen, The New York Times, July 7, 2016

John McMartin, 86

John McMartin, ‘Sweet Charity’ Star, Dies at 86
by William Grimes, The New York Times, July 7, 2016

Three Open Call dancemakers take wing in the Bronx

This fall, the South Bronx arts organization Pepatián will present evening-length works by three emerging choreographers from its 2016 Open Call residency program in partnership with BAAD!.

All three artists--Fana Fraser, Jasmine Hearn and Alethea Pace--will have received free rehearsal space and mentoring in preparation for this paid performance opportunity. Their Open Call mentors include Aileen Passloff, Dr. Marta Morena Vega, Ni'Ja Whitson and Alicia Diaz.

I asked Fraser, Hearn and Pace to write about where they locate the soul of their creativity, how that's best expressed through dance, what they're currently obsessed with--within or outside of dance--and how they view the value of mentorship to their practice.

--Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody

FANA FRASER

Fana Fraser
(photo: Marisol Diaz, 2016)

I often daydream myself into bizarre, delightful and problematic scenarios. As I piece together these fragments, I am finding recurring plots that blend underbelly tempos of the Caribbean--the place where my navel string is buried; assumptions and anxieties surrounding femininity; dying, death, decay; and the nurturing of newness. More and more, I am listening as my body reveals these stories to be from a seemingly endless source of experience. My performance work harnesses dance and theater to create a playground where histories and future tales are rigorously re-imagined compassion, wildness and power. I am conjuring a space for performer and witness to negotiate ways of being.

I am just beginning to unearth my creative process. My dancing body serves a vital role in unraveling the idiosyncrasies of a character or the inner life of an idea. Guided by intuition and sensitivity within tightly constructed frames, my movement research straddles narrative, abstraction, ritual and tradition. It seems that the more specific, intimate and rigorous my work, the more accessible it becomes to a wide cross-section of people. I revel in that connection.

These days I am obsessed with illustration. You can create any universe you want. I’ve been spending hours doodling and drawing odd little characters, imagining them living rich, complex lives in fantastical realities.

Suddenly and more than usual, over the past couple months, I’m craving intimate and even unsettling exchange between myself and performers. I’m remembering how much I love to serve as witness, however glorious or exhausting that might be…and I’m hooked.

Aileen Passloff and Dr. Marta Moreno Vega are my mentors through Open Call. It is wonderful to have mentors in differing fields. With them I can share ideas, voice my thoughts, and gain valuable feedback and insight. My mentors are an added support system as I find my way through figuring out the work. And hopefully, it’s a mutually beneficial relationship!

PERFORMANCE: NOVEMBER 19

JASMINE HEARN

Jasmine Hearn
(photo: Marisol Diaz, 2016)

The center focus of my creativity is the listening that needs to happen for when I should need to call on it.

My creativity is best expressed through dance because of how involved the body needs to be with the mind and the spirit to be open and prepared for the complicated work at hand.

Outside of dance, I busy myself with nesting, reading and baking granola. With dance, I am currently obsessed with taking my time.

I believe that having a mentor---someone on the outside that you can trust is so important. I am so curious and glad to have Ni'ja Whitson and Aileen Pasloff as mentors and guides during our residency.

To have inter-generational conversations about what is being found and explored through practice and performance is a rare and wonderful opportunity to have especially as young and emerging artist.

PERFORMANCE: December 7

ALETHEA PACE

Alethea Pace
(photo: No Longer Empty, 2015)

Questioning is central to my creative process. Right now, I'm asking questions that relate to identity, how it lives in both our personal and cultural history, how it is experienced through our senses and how it is manifested in our bodies. The answers are less important than the questions, which can be continually refined and can open up more possibilities.

I'm obsessed with my working on my piece! I go to sleep at night thinking about it and wake up in the morning doing the same. My present focus is researching the Rhinelander case of 1925. Alice Jones, a mixed-race woman, crossed the color line when she married Leonard Kip Rhinelander, a white aristocrat from one of New York's wealthiest families. Leonard’s family disapproved and forced him to annul the marriage on the grounds of fraud. Prosecutors claimed that Alice had portrayed herself as a white woman and had duped Leonard into marrying him. Much to the prosecutors surprise, her defense team did not attempt to prove her white ancestry and instead acknowledged her blackness. Alice won her case and, after some appeal, was awarded spousal support until her death in 1989. The case was tabloid fodder in its day because it challenged notions of how race is perceived in a way that still has relevance today.

Alice was voiceless throughout the trial, never taking the stand in her own defense. She was objectified by the court, which argued that her race was a “material fact.” She was even forced to strip down by her own attorney to prove that she was unmistakably of color. Her experience lends itself to a movement exploration that relies heavily on perception through the eyes of others.

I am so thrilled to have two amazing mentors, Alicia Diaz and Aileen Passloff, as part of this process. Embarking on this creative journey, my first time making an evening of work, can feel overwhelming at times. Mentorship provides the guidance and support to help realize my vision. I'm being challenged in the best ways and feel myself growing as an artist and a person.

PERFORMANCE: NOVEMBER 6

*****

ABOUT 
OPEN CALL

Open Call helps stir up the dance and performance scene happening in the Bronx with support for emerging dancers/choreographers of color and/or emerging Bronx-based artists. We are thrilled to house this opportunity in the Bronx and to help keep the Bronx what it already is--an incubator and site for works that challenge, and provoke, and offer audiences places to imagine and consider possibilities in the world.

Pepatián began the project in partnership with BAAD!/Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance n 2014  with funding from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the Bronx Council on the Arts, and individual contributors to Pepatián. Open Call is now substantially funded by the Jerome Foundation, and in 2016, received a boost of support from the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation. Currently, the project provides artists with over $2500 each, in addition to free rehearsal space, mentors, video/photo documentation, and other support. I'm currently researching and contacting other funders to continue to grow the project (online donations are warmly welcomed! www.pepatian.org)

Artists have been selected for this opportunity by a committee of established artists, managers, curator/producers; among them: Arthur Aviles, Christal Brown, Susana Cook, Caleb Hammons, Charles Rice-Gonzalez, Merian Soto, and Marya Wethers.

Artists alumni include Awilda Rodriguez Lora (2014); Rebecca Lloyd-Jones, Richard Rivera, Milteri Tucker (2015), and mentors have included Susana Cook, Jorge Merced, Charles Rice-Gonzalez and Merian Soto. All the participating artists have additionally benefited from the experienced input of Arthur Aviles.

In 2015 and 2016, artists participated in creative process workshop with Merián Soto.

BronxNet has also been supportive of the project, hosting artist interviews on OPEN with Rhina Valentin and covering performances.

All artists who applied received specific committee feedback on their proposals. I also forwarded other residency and workshop opportunities. We want to help support artists who sent in their applications to keep growing their work and encourage them to apply to Open Call again next year. I also want to keep growing the community of artists around this residency opportunity--all of the projects' alumni, for example, were invited to attend Soto's creative process workshop as well as the final performances.

Open Call is for artists hungry to create, envision and realize full evening-length works with opportunities to showcase in the "Bronx Artists Now: Showcase & Conversation" APAP event that I've been producing in the Bronx in collaboration with local theaters (BAAD!, Hostos Center for the Arts & Culture, Pregones Theater-PRTT) for the past six years.

Open Call supports artists and the community that is inspired by their work and their dedication to creating new work.

Pepatián is a South Bronx-based organization dedicated to creating, producing and supporting contemporary multi-disciplinary art by Latino and Bronx-based artists. www.pepatian.org

The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance creates, produces, presents and supports the development of cutting edge and challenging works in contemporary dance and all creative disciplines which are empowering to women, Latinos and other people of color, and the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) community. www.baadbronx.org

~ Jane Gabriels, Ph.D., and Director, Pepatián

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Yves Bonnefoy, 93

Yves Bonnefoy, Pre-Eminent French Poet, Dies at 93
by William Grimes, The New York Times, July 5, 2016

Abbas Kiarostami, 76

Abbas Kiarostami, Palme d'Or-winning Iranian film-maker, dies aged 76
by Andrew Pulver and Saeed Kamali Dehghan, The Guardian, July 4, 2016

Michael Cimino, 77

Michael Cimino, Director of ‘The Deer Hunter’ and ‘Heaven’s Gate,’ Dies at 77
by David Itzkoff, The New York Times, July 2, 2016

Elie Wiesel, 87

Elie Wiesel, Auschwitz Survivor and Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Dies at 87
by Joseph Berger, The New York Times, July 2, 2016

Please begin again: Edisa Weeks/Delirious Dances at Gibney

Ricarrdo Valentine
of Edisa Weeks/Delirious Dances
in To Begin The World Over Again
(photo: Julie Lemberger)

Dear To Begin The World Over Again,

That's right. I'm addressing you. It feels weird to be writing a letter to an entire theatrical production. I've never done this before. So please excuse any awkwardness.

Where to begin?

I must admit I wasn't quite sure I was up for a work about American democracy, one asking these questions: "How are freedom and democracy packaged and promoted in America? What does it mean to be free in America? As America becomes more consumer-driven, polarized and disenchanted, is America living up to its promise?"

Not after grueling months of our cringe-worthy pre-election process. Not after the shock of Brexit, across the pond, with its ugly, racist roots that mirror our own shame. Not after Orlando and the reminder of what horror can come of so much unrelenting political dysfunction, opportunism and irresponsibility.

But I took up Edisa Weeks's invitation to see you at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, and I encountered you--a collaboration in dance and music that feels so much like a living, breathing person that I must write you this letter.

Strange, isn't it? A dance company--say, Weeks's Delirious Dances--is certainly made up of individual people. Likewise, Numinous, the ensemble directed by Joseph C. Phillips Jr., your composer and conductor--is made up of real people, too. And yet, in over four decades of writing about performance, I have never had an entire event reach me and affect me with the sensitivity and focused power I'd normally associate with a single human being.

And I know there's a single human being at the root of your artists' concerns--philosopher Thomas Paine, a man of reason tapped by Weeks and Phillips in this age of irrationality. But it isn't Thomas Paine or any other founding father who comes through. It is you.

And you come through, first, in Phillips's music, especially the bright, brisk uplift of his opening, "Reel Liberty." In that music, your flutey, bell-toned, energized voice dances. You appear before us as a dance we hear in our ears. As you proceed, you will sing with different voices, bringing the words of Paine and more recent speakers to us. By the time you've finished--in "We Have It In Our Power"--your voice will echo like a hypnotic mantra, soothing yet also designed to ground, direct and inspire.

You are also in the voice of actor Michael Henry. I peg him in my notes as "the white man." And, of course, although other dancers--two Black men, one Black woman, an Asian woman from Singapore and a white American woman--gently greet us with baskets of fortune cookies and noisemakers, it is Henry whose forceful, crackling voice permeates the space with authority and no small measure of demand.

Everyone, for instance, absolutely must get a cookie, or he won't be satisfied. He throws them out at us. The woman to my left gets the "fortune" I'd wish for--"My mind is my own church. -- Thomas Paine."

Damn!  That's it exactly. Instead, I get something fairly obvious and dry but adopt my neighbor's "fortune" as my own, as an affirmation of my entire life. So, thank you.

You also appear through the energy of Weeks's five dancers, as mentioned before, a representation of diversity--Ardella Bang, Angel Chinn, Johnnie Mercer, EmmaGrace Skove-Epps and Ricarrdo Valentine. If there is anything here resembling the hoped-for "shining city on a hill," they are the ones who have built it. That's what their dancing shows me as their movements clear, carve, define and hold space. Their extensions, tumbles, runs, whirls, lunges, stretches and rolls, continuous and seamless, demonstrate labor and determination without which nothing would be here.

Weeks's choreography--here and in later sections--reveals your unfussy, transparent, accessible nature. You long to tell your bittersweet story and unburden your heart. For every time I've grieved that a good dance--or a great dance--will be seen by relatively few, I grieve harder to think that that could be your fate. You have been wonderfully made for the many. Please do not fade away.

I'm moved--eyes tearing--by how you sweep your audience into your story, your meaning, your humanity, teaching us and revealing us to ourselves. So much sweetness. Yes, the problems are old, hard, complicated, even perilous. But the feelings? Can we get to feelings that could help us begin anew?

At the end, I rise from my seat and catch a friend flicking something from her eyes. "You, too?" I ask.

"Oh, yes," she answers.

Thank you.

With great respect,
Eva Yaa Asantewaa
InfiniteBody

*****

With costumes by Sarita Fellows, lighting by Tim Cryan and live music by Numinous (Matt Aronoff, Mike Baggeta, Katie Cox, Maria Jeffers, Bogna Kicinska, Thomson Kneeland, Ana Milosavljevic, Adrian Sandi, Tammy Scheffer, Carmen Staaf and Emilie Weibel), conducted by Joseph C. Phillips Jr.

To Begin The World Over Again concludes with a Family Night performance tonight at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.

For Family Night, the company will offer free activities and care for children of all ages from 7:30-9:30pm. Space is limited for the free childcare, and the required RSVP registration was projected to end at 5pm Friday, but you can check to see if space remains: http://bit.ly/EdisaWeeksFamilyNight.

Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center

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

(map/directions)

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ADI/NYC presents new Jack Ferver dance at The Kitchen

Jack Ferver in I Want You To Want Me
(photo: Paula Court)

Jack Ferver,
writer, choreographer, director
and rather terrifying star of
I Want You To Want Me,
running now at The Kitchen

I thought I would try to make something for everyone. You know, like ballet or a good subscription audience kind of play. I consider myself a populist, but some people really hate my work. They even hate me they hate my work so much. So I thought: ‘Well, why don’t I make a really pretty ballet or a play about a straight couple and their issues?’ So that’s what I’m going to do. Oh, I also just wanted to say, that not everyone is going to make it. I don’t mean make it to the show. I mean make it out of the show alive.

– Jack Ferver on I Want You To Want Me

To whom does ballet technique belong? Katy Pyle--with her intersectionally queer ballez--joyfully throws its age-old doors wide open to pretty much everyone. Jack Ferver, with his premiere of I Want You To Want Me, claims it for the camp camp with a mixture of love and sheer wickedness.

Presented by American Dance Institute/NYC at The Kitchen, this hour-long quartet samples classical technique and stagecraft--puffs of fake fog amusingly mist Reid Bartelme's authentic danseur noble stylings--combined with a wry plotline, all infused with enough melodrama to outdo the likes of Black Swan and Flesh and Bone. A wide-eyed American ballerina (Carling Talcott-Steenstra) quarrels with and ditches her boring, resentful boyfriend (Ferver) for opportunity in France and gets far more than she bargained for.

Above: Carling Talcott-Steenstra
partnered by Barton Cowperthwaite
below: Reid Bartelme
(photos: Paula Court)

There she meets the Ferver-embodied Madame M, an American expatriot so counterfeit in her new self-presentation that she can never decide whether to give words their English or French pronunciation. The role triggers every Ferver skill in speech, gesture, anguished vulnerability and killer stare while offering this fun performer a variety of classy, sultry looks in an adjustable, midnight black gown by Reid & Harriet Design (Bartelme and Harriet Jung).

The lovelorn and lusting Madame--equal parts Graham, Duncan, Liza Minelli, Bette Davis and Nosferatu--has a way of controlling her dancers (Bartelme and Barton Cowperthwaite) even from what should be a safe distance. Observe her standing at the barre, demurely gazing into the mirror, one lower leg cocked and twirling behind her while, some feet away, the handsome boys just happen to be flicking their own calf muscles more times than is absolutely necessary. No good will come of this.

I Want You To Want Me continues tonight at 8pm and Saturday at 2pm and 8pm. For information and tickets, click here or call 855-263-2623.

The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street, Manhattan
(map/directions)

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