can you can you: Jerron Herman and Molly Joyce at Danspace Project

Jerron Herman and Molly Joyce
in Breaking and Entering at Danspace Project
In deep background below: ASL Interpreter Kathleen D.Taylor
(photos: Ian Douglas)

Breaking and Entering
by Jerron Herman and Molly Joyce
at Danspace Project
November 12, 15-16

Breaking and Entering, a collaboration between two well-regarded disabled artists--Jerron Herman and Molly Joyce--creates an intriguing relationship among its players and with its audience. Early on, we're introduced to American Sign Language Interpreter Kathleen D. Taylor whose signing rings with a robust, dancer-ly flow.

Uh-oh, I thought at first sight of her hands in motion, knowing all too well my tendency to gaze long at ASL interpreters whose particular style draws me in. What if I look at Taylor and miss important things that Herman might be doing?

No chance of that, really, since Herman is not exactly someone you can miss. Moreover--and curiously--Taylor soon gets relegated to deep backdrop, removed to the upper reaches of St. Mark's Church's altar steps for the rest of the piece. Thinking back on that now, I realize that distancing, blurring any initial, vivid connection to Taylor, might be by complicating design.

The words accompanying the work's three movements--entitled "Compliance," "Defiance" and "Emergence"--suggest a negotiated relationship with others, perhaps with viewers, perhaps with parts of the performers' own bodies.

Herman, who bills himself as "an interdisciplinary artist, primarily working in dance," is a snazzy performer with hemiplegic cerebral palsy which has caused him to devise ways to work balance and propulsion differently. His energy in the space is wrenching, surprising and always thrilling. Composer/musician Joyce, disabled in an accident, often moves with Herman, sings high and sweet, and plays a vintage toy piano set up in the middle distance between far-off Taylor and the audience. Their textures are so different, they make me think of their performance space as a painting canvas generous enough to make room, at once, for the roughest impasto and a silky brush.

The evening ends in an invitation to the audience to join the artists on the floor and dance to a DJ's fifteen-minute set. Disability activist and scholar Kevin Gotkin dj'ed last evening; Michael Hammond and JIJI will do the honors on Friday and Saturday, respectively.

Text: Marco Grosse, Molly Joyce, Jerron Herman
Sound: Michael Hammon
Costumes: Gerald and Cynthia Herman

Breaking and Entering continues with performances this Friday, November 15, and Saturday, November 16, at 8pm. Besides ASL interpretation, audio description is also provide for each performance. Each concludes with a fifteen-minute dance party for the artists and audience. For information and tickets, click here.

Danspace Project
131 East 10th Street (and Second Avenue), Manhattan

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DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve as Senior Curatorial Director of Gibney. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

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These Full Circle Souljahs refuse to be “Boxed in”

Kwikstep (left) and Rokafella
of Full Circle Souljahs
(photo: Ian Douglas)

From start to finish--and even throughout its post-show Q&A--Full Circle Souljahs's Boxed In aims to smack down barriers between dance techniques and traditions as well as who can and should perform what. If you think you've got classical ballet over here in this corner and street dance way over there on that far end and maybe a few discrete modern and postmodern things floating between, this hour-long show will simply break up alla that.

Holding court at Danspace Project now through Saturday evening, the troupe is the winning handiwork of two famed Bronx street dance veterans--the married couple of Kwikstep and Rokafella. Diverse in race and ethnicity, Full Circle Souljahs collective is also remarkable for its performers' diverse training background. And that's the point of Boxed In. What all have in common is a passion to do their art, to perform, and most have eagerly soaked up experience from all sectors of their art. Watch stately Shaneekqua Woodham and gymnast-sleek Odylle "Mantis" Beder switch gears from ballet to b-girl moves, you realize that you're looking at the smart, multiple dimensions of today's youth and their can-do spirit.

The show includes sequences that suggest the two choreographers might have Broadway audiences in mind--for example, the cirque nouveau-style Cyr wheel hooping of Gabriel "Emphasis" Alvarez who eventually puts distance between himself and some vaguely menacing characters in commedia dell'arte masks. The piece deals with issues of ambition, the temptation to sell out and the wonder of freeing your creativity to work outside of set rules, categories and expectations.

It’s the sort of show that would be great for youngsters, and there were many in the smallish opening night audience with parents plus a contingent of college students. People I did not see: the typical “downtown” Danspace Project audience. The troupe has two more shows, and—who knows?—that might change. But maybe the message they’re bringing—step out of whatever box confines you—needs to reach more of us.

Performers: Raymond “Spex” Abbiw, Jennifer “Beasty” Acosta, Gabriel “Emphasis” Alvarez, Odylle “Mantis” Beder, Michael Bond (pianist), Gabriel "Kwikstep" Dionisio (aka DJ KS 360), Deana Richline,  Sharmaine Sheppard, Gene Shinozaki(beatbox), Janice Tomlinson, John “Flonetik” Vinuya, Shaneekqua Woodham

Lighting: Carol Mullins

Boxed In continues through Saturday, May 19 with 8pm performances at Danspace Project. For information and tickets, click here.

Danspace Project
131 East 10th Street (at 2nd Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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