An audience with Angie Pittman

Dancer-choreographer Angie Pittman (photo: Scott Shaw)

Sequined Kisses and Vazlean is a diptych that grapples with ways to give love, receive love, be cool, be resilient, achieve survival, and daydream. Sequined Kisses... is an exploration of interiority, and its relationship to compression, love and joy within the context of historical trauma against Black folk. ...VazLean centers “cool” as an African Diasporic concept through greasiness, lubrication, and James Brown cape choreography. Together, these two pieces are a journey towards what Donnell Alexander calls “finding the essential soul while being essentially lost.”

Presented as part of The Racial Imaginary Institute: On Whiteness at The Kitchen, Angie Pittman's performance of conjoined solos--Sequined Kisses and Vazlean--seemed like a half-hallucinated audience with Black shamanic or ancestral royalty. The James Brown/Prince lineage, in particular. One night only--and for your eyes only, lucky ones.

We saw her partly in dim light and, even when bathed in spotlight, in a form that seemed indirect and indistinct, often twirling or oriented sideways, never giving us a good look in the eye. Moving and gesturing as if through a fishbowl filled with gel. Here and not here.

The radiant white-and-gold satin cape (designed by Athena Kokoronis), which Pittman wore at the top of the hour, was lifted away by a tender supplicant and only returned late in the action. Musical voices accompanying her were often unpleasantly muddled and distorted, discordant and abrasive as if they, too, represented someones not of this time. Many pasts accumulated into the present.

Our evening with Pittman unfolded in a much-transformed performance space that turned what is normally inclined rows of audience seating into dark, bleak mountain for the holy descent and re-ascent of a spiritual being. The audience--and we were many--sat in semicircular rows opposite this "mountain," watching Pittman gradually forge her path down its central steps, her movements suggesting an effort to turn a three-dimensional body into bold, iconic marks against a black surface. Ancient, enigmatic, beautiful, powerful.

Powerful, especially, when reaching the black floor and whirling nearly--but never--out of balance on the dips and surge of the music, her surefootedness a thrill and an instruction. Vulnerable to the risk of stumbling and yet taking care of herself in the midst of the ecstasy she claimed.

Angie Pittman: Sequined Kisses and Vazlean is closed.

The Kitchen's visual art exhibition of The Racial Imaginary Institute: On Whiteness continues through August 3. Artists include Josh Begley, Paul Chan, Mel Chin, Ja’Tovia Gary, Ken Gonzales-Day, Kate Greenstreet, Titus Kaphar, Baseera Khan, Charlotte Lagarde, Seung-Min Lee, Glenn Ligon, Mores McWreath, Sandeep Mukherjee, Native Art Department International, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Tim Rollins and K.O.S., Cindy Sherman, Rodrigo Valenzuela and Anicka Yi. For information, click here.

The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street (west of 10th Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Tap in the city: ATDF's "Rhythm in Motion" takes wing

American Tap Dance Foundation presented
Rhythm in Motion at ATDF's Tap City festival.
(photo: Amanda Gentile)

This year's Rhythm in Motion--part of the well-loved TAP CITY, the summer festival of all things tap--might be artistic director Tony Waag's best show ever. No trace of bloat, fluff or cornball, just expert, all-in, radiant power tap for nearly two hours. This is tap right on time and into the future. And diverse aesthetic styles with something for everyone--from lovers of Brazilian samba to Fats Waller to Steve Reich--and millions (they wish) served. Really, if you came away not finding something to cheer hard about here, I'm worried about you.

I regret that this show--presented at Symphony Space, long-time partner with Waag's American Tap Dance Foundation--ran only one night. People, can we do something about this sort of thing? The show I saw last night felt downright historic. Certainly, there were standout and breakout dance artists on the bill, and a viewer might even start contemplating...hmmm, yeah....some award nominations. Just sayin'. But, seriously, Bessies committee, start taking a wide-angled look at some of what's happening in tap these days.

I loved so much, but I will long remember the matchless, grounded, joyous confidence of Brinae Ali's Ndizzy Spellz; the always-surprising Caleb Teicher falling off his high heels then proceeding to kill it with yet one more unexpected strategy around tap and space and theatricality; and the all-women Full Circle Hardrocks's sharp cheerleader moves for Rokafella's The Drums Say Africa; and Lisa La Touche's Tap Phonics trio in the propulsive, offbeat Fragile. These artists do more than make tap "relevant" today; they offer no excuse to ignore tap.

Also serving some awesome tap on this program:Chloe Arnold and Robin Passmore, Christina Carminucci, Michelle Dorrance (with collaborating choreographer/improvisers Hannah Heiler, Melinda Sullivan and Josette Wiggan), Felipe Galganni, Charles Renato, Tami Sakurai, Delores Sanchez, Leo Sandoval, Samara Seligsohn and Nicholas Van Young.

Rhythm in Motion is closed, but there's one more event (Friday, July 13) you can enjoy before the season finishes up:

"TAP IT OUT" -- a free, public outdoor tap dance event at 1pm, 1:30pm, and 2pm at Father Duffy Square/Times Square (Broadway, West 46th Street to West 47th Street, 7th Avenue, Manhattan). Adult and pre-professional students create a chorus of hundreds of tapping feet. The contemporary percussion and movement "soundscape" promotes tap dance as pure music, while consciously deconstructing the basic elements that propel tap forward.

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A family affair: Jackie Sibblies Drury's "Fairview" at Soho Rep

Jackie Sibblies Drury's Fairview--now in a mostly sold-out run through July 22 at Soho Rep--is a high-speed autowalk masquerading as a clever ensemble play about an affluent Black family. It rolls out over a solid two hours. You embark within what appears to be safe, familiar sitcom-land--generically appealing, mainstream characters working through daily banalities and minor disputes while preparing a dinner party--and wind up whizzing through unsettling soap opera territory. I won't spoil any of Sibblies Drury's brilliant strategies and surprises. You absolutely should not go knowing what you're getting yourself into. Please, if you haven't already, don't read anything else that has been written about this play!

I will just say that, ultimately, Sibblies Drury has crafted this play with two distinct audiences in mind. I belong to one of them, and I felt duly amused and nourished.

The actors are vivacious, with standout turns by MaYaa Boateng (teenager Keisha, eventually calling b.s. on everything) and Roslyn Ruff (glamorous, meddlesome aunt Jasmine). The actors' deft timing and overall charisma benefit not only from Sarah Benson's direction but also Raja Feather Kelly's playful choreography which infuses and gives life to the entire proceedings. This work would not be the same without the way it claims and defines space and mobilizes bodies.

Performers: MaYaa Boateng, Charles Browning, Hannah Cabell, Natalia Payne, Jed Resnick, Luke Robertson, Roslyn Ruff and Heather Alicia Simms

Set Design: Mimi Lien
Costume Design: Montana Levi Blanco
Lighting Design: Amith Chandrashaker
Sound Design: Mikaal Sulaiman

Fairview continues through July 22. With the exception of July 8th's 7:30pm show ("99-cent Sunday"), where tickets must be purchased at the door, performances are sold out. For information, click here.

Soho Rep
46 Walker Street (between Broadway and Church), Manhattan

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46th Dance on Camera Festival, July 20-24, Lincoln Center

Between Yourself and Me--a documentary on the innovative immersive theater works of Third Rail Projects--will screen at the 46th Dance on Camera Festival this month at The Walter Reade Theater.

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For most of its 80 minutes, Lucinda Childs, Great Fugue by Beethoven (France, 2017) stays confined within the studio bubble, offering outsiders a dry, if rare, insider's view of the making of a contemporary ballet by one of the queens of New York postmodern dance. French filmmaker Marie-Hélène Rebois captures the choreographer at work with Lyon Opera Ballet to master the challenging surprises of a Beethoven piece. Dancers' sleek bodies skim across a tall, wide expanse of window panes in cool, fluid, friction-less partnering (which, with just a touch of daring, easily could have been rendered same-sex and gender-nonconforming). Happily, the final twenty-or-so minutes give us a handsome finished work--intricate for all its quiet lack of fuss; airy and shot through with light. World premiere Monday, July 23 (6pm) at the 46th Dance on Camera Festival, co-presented by The Film Society of Lincoln Center and Dance Films Association.

Also, check out the festival's world premiere of Between Yourself and Me (USA, 2017; 28m), co-produced with Dance Films Association, a look at acclaimed immersive theater troupe Third Rail Projects (Then She Fell) and Gravity Hero (USA, 2018, 70m), Trey McIntyre's reflection on his decision to shut down his successful, ten-year-old Boise, Idaho dance troupe.

Dance on Camera runs from Friday, July 20 through Tuesday, July 24 with all films screening at The Walter Reade Theater. For schedule information and tickets, click here.

The Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue), Manhattan

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