"Ship of Fools" docks at HERE Arts Center

Scenes from Ship of Fools
at HERE Arts Center
(photos: Josiah Shelton)

Last evening, HERE launched its 2016-2017 season with Ship of Fools, a multidisciplinary production created by visual artist and puppeteer Jessica Scott with Anonymous Ensemble.  After some delay, we were waved into the tiny Dorothy B. Williams Theatre, filling seats atop what would prove to be our very own "ship of fools"--a platform slowly rotating us past various scenarios of puppetry, dance, music-making and video installation tucked along the perimeter of the space.

My first, innocent step onto this seating area made me fear I was having vertigo--or a heart attack! I stepped, immediately and inexplicably pitching sideways, somehow managing to keep my feet and reach an empty chair. Something probably jostled the platform--maybe even just my stepping onto it--but I didn't figure that out until, during the performance, the platform suddenly began to revolve. That realization would have been reassuring had this turning not felt unpleasant. So this is my trigger warning. But go. You'll eventually get used to the sensation and experience some striking artistry along the way.

Scott plunges us into a shifting terrain that evokes both mental instability and the irrational fear and exploitation of what she calls "women as a dark continent."

From France’s famous all-female asylum Saltpetriere, to the Mary Laundry’s of old England, the overwhelming incidence of modern female depression, to the recent attacks on women’s reproductive rights, diagnosing femininity has forged our modern psychology and politics sewing a seed of an insidious fear: a conviction that the fault line between woman and world lies not in the constructions of popular culture but instead somewhere rooted our inherent femaleness.

--from publicity for Ship of Fools 

Scott and her collaborators turn the theater into a combination wax museum, puppet theater, fun house and house of horrors brought to life by her performers--Kate Brehm, Liz Davito, Jacob Graham, Takemi Kitamura, Sarah Lafferty, Georgie Tisdale and Jessica Weinstein. We're trapped in a compelling nightmare--equal parts elusive imagery, numinous beauty, amusing absurdity, disorientation and looming terror. I must resist the temptation, here, to open this box of surprises, but I particularly enjoyed one famous, unmistakable article of clothing that undergoes a wardrobe malfunction of epic proportions. Its construction and puppet-like manipulation are just a taste of the wild imagination and detailed, painstaking craft on display in Ship of Fools.

The production does have some sluggish, awkward moments--including a few text passages spoken by the otherwise wonderful vocalist Liz Davito. But, no worries. This ship just keeps on turning, always delivering you to something new to discover.

Co-direction, puppetry, costume and set design: Jessica Scott
Co-direction, text and projection design: Eamonn Farrell
Original compositions: Alex Klimovitsky
Lighting design: Ayumu "Poe" Saegusa
Sound design: Gavin Price
Live music and vocals: Liz Davito

Ship of Fools runs through October 22. For schedule and ticketing information, click here.

HERE Arts Center

145 Sixth Avenue, Manhattan

Enter on Dominick Street, one block south of Spring Street.

map/directions

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"Trade Practices" on Governors Island: "Dude, money is crazy!"

Scenes from HERE's Trade Practices
Above, l-r: Daphne Gaines, Mary Rasmussen, Peter McCabe
Below, l-r: Mike Iveson, Jr., Peter McCabe, Dax Valdes
(photos by Carl Skutsch)

A theme as weighty as the financial collapse of 2008, the hand basket we found ourselves in, and what money means in American society might take a project as big, as intricately textured and as labored upon--by a list of collaborators as long as my two arms and two legs spliced end to end--as Trade Practices, created by HERE artistic director Kristin Marting and David Evans Morris. A two-hour event directed by Marting and set in Governors Island's Pershing Hall, the site-specific, multimedia, physical theater performance is audience-immersive and interactive to the max, a game of "high-stakes" investor role-playing on our part as we move among rooms and storylines. It also has song-and-dance numbers, undercurrents of soap opera and even a bloodcurdling touch of the supernatural.

Clearly the entire creative team had a blast growing the witty, rousing Trade Practices and making the ten actors work their sweaty butts off--most notably, Daniel Kublick who, with all his physical might, gamely throws himself into his role as a roguish factory foreman. Tip: If you go, you'll sweat, too. This year for sure, Labor Day doesn't really mean the end of summer, and few of these Pershing Hall rooms have A/C.

Above and below: details from Works Progress Administration military history murals
inside Pershing Hall, Governors Island's former Administration building
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Trade Practices--written by Erin Courtney, Eisa Davis, Robert Lyons, Qui Nguyen, KJ Sanchez and Chris Wells--introduces us to the fictional Tender family and employees of Tender, Inc., proud paper manufacturers who go back centuries in New England and US history. Tender's CEO, played by the versatile Peter McCabe, would like to keep some of that New England history (and all of the corporation's current troubles) under wraps. Audience members get to trade shares in Tender, Inc. and witness the secret damage and debris from extremely close vantage points. Cast members' performances, and your own, can be fun even if this sort of thing--high finance, corporate intrigue--is so not your thing. Each viewer's experience will differ according to the storylines followed; if you find yourself disengaged, as I did at one point, you'll have a few opportunities to trade your shares for something potentially more promising.

L-r: Daniel Kublick, Dax Valdes and Mariana Newhard
(photo by Carl Skutsch)

Trade Practices runs through September 21 with performances by Jenniffer Diaz, Daphne Gaines, Megan Hill, Brooke Ishibashi, Mike Iveson, Jr., Daniel Kublick, Peter McCabe, Mariana Newhard, Mary Rasmussen and Dax Valdes. Click here for full details, including performance schedules, ticketing and Governors Island ferry departures from Manhattan and Brooklyn. Enjoy Governors Island.

Smith + Tinker writers group presents new plays at HERE

So, what do you want to do this weekend? Catch a Ladder to the Moon?

Smith + Tinker launched Ladder to the Moon on the eve of Halloween at HERE Arts Center, the fruit of a five-month process of collaboration within its group of playwrights. Wikipedia, in its entry on Smith & Tinker--the electronic game company, that is--cites "the fictional characters Smith & Tinker, an artist and an inventor who are briefly mentioned in the Land of Oz series of books as the creators of Tik-Tok the machine man."

And, actually, here's what the theater-oriented Smith + Tinker's Sarah Rose Leonard had to say about that in an interview with blogger Kippy Winston:

In the Land of Oz, Smith, an inventor, and Tinker, an artist, created many fantastical inventions. But they are only referenced in the books; these two characters don’t actually appear. That’s because, long before you, the reader, showed up Tinker painted a river so real he fell in and drowned and Smith created a ladder to the moon and never came back down.

Yes, that certainly is some serious artist juju.

With that thought in mind, the purveyors of Ladder to the Moon promised: "Amid the mystic revelry of Halloween week, two entrancing bills will feature pieces related to fear, reinvention, and how we tell stories."

Above and below:
cakeface in Harold, I Hate You
(photos by Trevor James Martin)

Amanda Szeglowski's Harold, I Hate You, created with her skillful all-female dance/theater troupe, cakeface, gets Program B off with a trio of tick-tock-machine-like scouts--the choreographer, Elle Chyun and Jeso O'Neill--heading off on a camping trip. These squeaky-clean automatons, crisp and uniform in gesture, distract and entertain themselves around the campfire with chatter about things that supposedly scare them--"I contracted flesh-eating bacteria once. I’m pretty sure," "I think I have Mad Cow disease"--in a firm but expressionless way that, perhaps, suggests how we rehearse and ritualize our fears until they truly rule us. And who is the hated Harold? Oh, that's a great story, and I will leave you to discover that one for yourself.

Program B also includes an excerpt from Ghost Stories, created by Tiny Little Band (Jerry Lieblich and Stefanie Abel Horowitz), and an excerpt from The Dinosaur Play by Ryann Weir, directed by Annie Tippe. In fairness, I can't say much about these works-in-progress, but I can tell you that the cozy environment of the first--and its eerie stories--took me back to childhood in a curiously pleasant way. (Caribbean folk love all kinds of ghost tales, and some of these types of stories are quite familiar to me from my early study of the paranormal.) Weir's nutty dialogue with co-star Dylan Lamb in The Dinosaur Play is hilarious and leads, near the end, to a marvelous and touching twist. Both of these projects show signs of something interesting cooking below the surface, and perhaps those elements will strengthen over time.

Ladder to the Moon's Program B repeats today at 4pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Program A--featuring works by Andrew Farmer and Francis Weiss Rabkin--will have its final performance tonight at 8:30pm; click here.

HERE Arts Center

145 Sixth Avenue, Manhattan

Enter on Dominick Street, one block south of Spring Street.

map/directions

They're making it right HERE.

New York Performing Artists Share Inspiration on ‘Made Here’
by Felicia R. Lee, The New York Times, March 13, 2013

MADE HERE? Yes, and now available at Hulu!

Vernon Reid and Gabri Christa (photo by Chiara Clemente)

HERE's innovative video documentary series MADE HERE--directed by Chiara Clemente and featuring theme-based interviews with performing artists who make New York New York--has come to Hulu!

Mildred Ruiz-Sapp and Steven Sapp (photo by Chiara Clemente)

See it here--yeah, I know, an unavoidable pun--presented in partnership with TenduTV.

Puppet theater of the damned

If you've never seen Phantom Limb's brilliant, acerbic marionette show The Fortune Teller, HERE Arts Center is giving you through December 4 to find some place to slap this on your calendar.

Premiered in 2006 at HERE through its Dream Music Puppetry Program, this smartly-written, compact piece--about 50 minutes--recounts the tale of a fateful gathering of seven men who believe they might inherit money from a deceased millionaire, one Nathaniel Ax. Each of these men represent "a rogue's gallery of our city's finest lowlifes," says the narrating crocodile (wonderful urbane voice by Gavin Friday). As you might suspect, they're all in for the surprise of their lives.

Instead of a reading of the will, each of the attendees is subjected to a reading by a mysterious fortune teller who doesn't mince words. Each vignette offers a view into the life and character of one of the seven and a certain little forecast. A hunter, a miser, a snoop, a self-absorbed actor and more--all of these grotesque, creepy guys have it coming to them. Revenge is a dish best served by a persistent butterfly or a manic roasted chicken or...what? Okay, well, if you go, you'll see what I mean.

Creator/directors Erik Sanko (who also designed the outstanding marionettes) and Jessica Grindstaff lead a crackerjack team including puppeteers Honey Goodenough, Anne Posluszny, Ian Sweetman and Sabrina D'Angelo who, in short order, make some of the weirdest, least-lovable puppets come alive in convincingly off-putting ways. Sanko also teamed up with famed film/television composer Danny Elfman for the score--a suitably over-the-top mix of florid oompah-pah and chiming tickytock. Kudos, in particular, to Andy Green for his chillingly rich sound design. It's dreadful--and I mean that in a good way!

Phantom Limb's The Fortune Teller, now at HERE through December 4

HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Avenue, Manhattan
Entrance on Dominick Street (directions)

Schedule and ticketing

Maybe not HERE

Soul Leaves Her Body, running now at HERE Arts Center, would benefit from relocation. No disrespect to HERE, but this piece--co-directed by Peter Flaherty and the dance artist Jennie MaryTai Liu, who also choreographed it--seems ready to bust its sheath. 

At 75 minutes, it's a biggish kind of multidisciplinary work which, unfortunately, often moves at a ponderous, earnest pace. But there are some very good big things about it, too--like set designer Peter Ksander's tall, adjoined glass panels that cleverly serve as video screens and create dramatic entranceways. Of the four live performers, including Liu, the work is best served by dancer Leslie Cuyjet's vivid, delicately-detailed performing and actress Wai Ching Ho's beautiful warmth. These two possess an assured subtlety and conviction that tug at one's attention.

The piece, inspired by a story from China's 13th Century Yuan Dynasty, overlaps and merges ancient and contemporary narratives in a way that is sometimes intriguing, sometimes drawn out and not quite fresh. The point of it all--which, according to press materials, is something about love and family and distance and digital communication--wanders about and gets lost at times. But its visual elements--especially the larger-than-life imagery of characters in period theatrical garb and makeup--are knockouts.

Soul Leaves Her Body feels not only stuffed into its space but, with the maneuvering of the glass panels or the deployment of the video, shoved into our laps and faces. I imagine it, instead, in a more generous setting where its virtues can perhaps be reconsidered and better appreciated.

Soul Leaves Her Body continues through November 23. Ticketing information and directions

HERE Arts Center

145 6th Avenue, Manhattan 

(entrance on Dominick Street, one block south of Spring)

MADE HERE Project

MADE HERE Project

A new documentary series and website devoted to the challenging and eclectic lives of performing artists in New York City

View the first episode--CREATIVE REAL ESTATE--by clicking here.

Special event: 

Tuesday, May 25, 6:30-8:30pm

at LMCC Swing Space

14 Wall Street (Penthouse), Manhattan

Launch event and public discussion with screening, refreshments and  conversation about CREATIVE REAL ESTATE

Event co-hosted by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council

RSVP to madehere@here.org by Friday, May 14. Space is limited.

A project of HERE

Springing down to Spring Downtown

The Lower Manhattan Arts League invites you to Spring Downtown--a new, multi-venue series of affordable events including dance, film, music, theater, visual arts and much, much more.

In response to the economic challenge of the times, LMAL's organizations have banded together to produce and host fiscally-sustainable arts events. They include:

Blue Coyote Theater Group

3-Legged Dog/3LD Art & Technology Center

Access Theater

Battery Dance Company

Children's Museum of the Arts

DCTV

Dance New Amsterdam

Dixon Place

Soho Rep

The Flea

HERE

For a schedule of events and more information, visit this site.

Keithley's opulent park

I followed Karinne Keithley down the rabbit hole of Montgomery Park, or Opulence, trying to make sense, until I realized that--as Keithley quotes William James--"the boundary-line of the mental is certainly vague." This multimedia performance isn't vague as much as it is poetically surrealistic and delicately laced with the exquisite opulence of Keithley's musical and movement aesthetics.

How bizarre to witness Lucy Guerin's stunning Corridor at BAC one night then hear two references to a burning insane asylum corridor in Keithley's piece the next afternoon. How bizarre to watch Keithley and Katy Pyle demonstrate a sequence of "Spinozan Calisthenics" (created by Sara Smith) then, later that evening, see Michelle Boulé, Miguel Gutierrez and Tarek Halaby demonstrate something that should really be called Hellaerobics in Gutierrez's outstanding Last Meadow at DTW. This has been a weird--if ultimately rewarding--weekend.

Keithley's show concludes its run at 7pm tonight at HERE Arts Center. Space is limited, but if tickets are still available, you can get them HERE or at 212-352-3101.

Note: My review of Gutierrez's Last Meadow will be featured in Dance Magazine, and I will let you know when that's available.

Together for survival

Lower Manhattan Arts Groups Seek Safety in Numbers
by Christopher Isherwood, The New York Times, June 10, 2009

HERE's "Bearshow"

The cozy and blessedly air-conditioned HERE Arts Center in Soho is presenting Johanna S. Meyer’s Bearshow for one more night as part of The American Living Room annual festival of emerging arts. Bearshow is described as a “humorous and allusive work that explores images of real women, from courtesans to movie stars, while focusing on the Roman myth of the Big Dipper, in which a jealous god’s wife turns his mistress into a bear.” Sandwiched between two brief one-act plays, this avant-garde duet of poetic scrambles and nonsequitors features absorbed and absorbing performances by fake-fur-clad Alejandra Martorell and Jennifer Monson, both looking as scrubbed down and down-to-earth as can be, a few indicators of the trappings of lust and luxury notwithstanding. Watching them wind their way through this dance is like linking all the stars in a constellation.

Despite New York’s rain-wracked transit troubles, the theater was packed, and seats might be once again hard to get this evening. Call 212-352-3101 after 4pm today or click HERE.