Nicky Paraiso: ready at La MaMa

Nicky Paraiso (right) with dancer Paz Tanjuaquio
in now my hand is ready for my heart: intimate histories

Nicky Paraiso
now my hand is ready for my heart: intimate histories
Ellen Stewart Theatre at La MaMa
March 22-April 7

Nicky Paraiso's performance memoir, now my hand is ready for my heart: intimate histories, directed by John Jesurun, runs about 80 minutes. A densely-packed, non-stop monologue, it is augmented, surrounded--and, more or less, supported--by scenic design, music, movement and the occasional verbal exchange with his dancing collaborators. It traces Paraiso's Queens boyhood in a Filipino immigrant family through an illustrious, four-decade career in theater, music and curation to the present day. These "intimate histories" of the verbal kind take the lion's share of space and oxygen--although the projections on the scrim dividing one half of the audience from the other can be as enchanting as Paraiso's piano playing and singing.

I question the choice of engaging four star dancers of downtown renown--Irene Hultman, Jon Kinzel, Vicky Shick an Paz Tanjuaquio--if, while relating nearly every life and career detail of your own with a biographer's specificity, you keep these fine artists largely marginalized until nearly the end. I enjoy seeing these performers wherever they land, but why here for what adds up to so little?

Their movement patterns never achieve the impact of Paraiso's heartfelt reenactment of singing "Into The Mystic"--one of my own soul songs--at a lover's memorial. They can't match his remembrance of how the late La MaMa, Ellen Stewart, loved to proudly flash her melon-like breasts and how she admonished him that "you like those talky, talky plays. That's not La MaMa, baby!" And how she added, "You do whatever you want, but I don't gotta like it!"

Talky, talky, indeed.

now my hand is ready for my heart: intimate histories requires some patience, but the rewards are real. Go, if you want to learn what made Paraiso Paraiso. He is beloved by our downtown arts community and one of the most knowledgeable, diligent and gracious advocates for artists everywhere.

Written by Nicky Paraiso
Direction by John Jesurun
Created in collaboration with performers Irene Hultman, Jon Kinzel, Vicky Shick and Paz Tanjuaquio
Dramaturgy/Script Development: Irene Hultman, George Emilio Sanchez and John Jesurun
Production Management by Caleb Hammond
Costume Design: Gabriel Berry
Lighting Design: Joe Levasseur

now my hand is ready for my heart: intimate histories continues through Sunday, April 7. For schedule information and tickets, click here.

Ellen Stewart Theatre at La MaMa
66 East 4th Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenues), 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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A taste of Ballet Hispánico at 92Y Harkness

Choreographer Bennyroyce Royon is developing
a new work for famed Ballet Hispanico.
(photo: Kuo-Heng Huang)

92Y Harkness Dance Center's Fridays@Noon series regularly offers audiences up-close-and-personal views of dance. Yesterday, New York's Ballet Hispánico delivered a presentation so masterful and  charged that it was a wonder the relatively small space could contain its energy.

Billed as a celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month and an intersection between Asian and Latinx cultures, the Pino-Latino program gave a just a taste of what Eduardo Vilaro's troupe can do. The afternoon opened with Sombrerisimo (2014), Colombian-Belgian choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's male sextet with Magritte-inspired bowlers. It is filled with intense and slippery entanglements between and among men, acrobatic flourishes and dashes of salsa, flamenco and Fosse. Filipino-American dancemaker Bennyroyce Royon previewed a work in development, Homebound/Alaala. With its novel use of visual symbolism--primarily, numerous brown cardboard boxes--and the dancers' deeply expressive performances, this ensemble reflects on caring, longing, suffering, mourning, collaboration and community resilience, speaking to what and how we share as human beings.

Following these performances, John-Mario Sevilla, Harkness's director, engaged Vilaro, Royon and two dancers (Raúl Contreras and Gabrielle Sprauve) in a conversation that often returned to the value of the arts for the health of society. When evoking difficult histories (in this case, the ravages of colonialism), the arts can also strengthen cultural identity and help dissolve artificial and destructive barriers between people.

Hurry, hurry, hurry if you want tickets to catch this beautiful company  on either October 12 or October 13 at New York City Center's Fall for Dance Festival. Click for information here.

For information on upcoming Fridays@Noon at 92Y Harkness Dance Center, click here.

92Y
1395 Lexington Avenue (91st-92nd Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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