Joan Duddy, 78

Joan Duddy, Nurtured Dance and Joyce SoHo in Manhattan, Dies at 78
by Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times, November 27, 2015

Come celebrate--and bid fond farewell to--Joyce SoHo

An announcement from Cathy Eilers

As you may have heard, The Joyce Theater Foundation is in the process of negotiating a deal to sell Joyce SoHo.  This will allow The Joyce to further its mission of serving and supporting the art of dance by purchasing The Joyce Theater.  At the same time, we are looking at new and alternative ways of addressing the needs of the artists we served at Joyce SoHo.

We are excited about these developments and want to share some love with you, our closest colleagues, who have had the opportunity to create, perform, learn, teach, fund, support, present, and connect with us over the years at Joyce SoHo.

Please join us on Monday, February 11 from 5-9pm for I heart Joyce SoHo! at Joyce SoHo to visit with old friends, roam the building, share your stories, have a drink, touch the wall!, and leave your mark on this historic piece of New York City dance. 

Please invite your dancers, colleagues, etc.  We just ask that you please RSVP to iheartjoycesoho@joyce.org by noon on Monday so that we have an idea of how many people to expect.  Our electronic records do not span our entire 16 years - or Dia Art Foundation days prior - so we’re sure to have missed some folks; feel free to pass the information along.

We hope to see you next week!

Cheers,
Cathy :o)

P.S.  Joyce SoHo will remain open for rehearsals for an undetermined period of time, so if you have rehearsals booked there already, there is no need to panic!

Cathy Eilers (Programming Manager and former Joyce SoHo Program Manager)The Joyce Theater Foundation, Inc.)

Joyce Theater will strengthen its Chelsea roots

Joyce Theater to Buy Its Chelsea Home
by Robin Pogrebin, The New York Times, September 18, 2012

All the world's a Stage Stage Stage Stage

Cast of Beginning of The End of The...: Graham, Solomons, Fire, Mattocks, Setterfield, Gordon, Cunningham, Cohn, Skeist (Photo: Andrew Eccles)

David Gordon and Valda Setterfield (Photo: Andrew Eccles)

In the playwright's head (and here that would be the head of writer/director/choreographer David Gordon as well as the head of David Gordon playing the head of Luigi Pirandello), the world is not constructed of four primal elements--air, fire, water and earth--but of four stages. And the world of David Gordon's Beginning of The End of The..., as manifest at Joyce SoHo, is composed of four stages separated by hop-able gaps and demarcated by rectangles formed by neatly-placed lines of pristine white tape. And the mutable world and mutable narratives inside each of those rectangles are made of numerous characters--each rambunctiously alive with his or her back story, resentments, desires and passionate intensity.

Gus Solomons jr and David Skeist

Based on Pirandello texts--Six Characters in Search of an Author, A Character's Tragedy and The Man With The Flower In His Mouth--Gordon's Beginning runs only 60 minutes but packs enough verbal wit, choreographic elegance, visual playfulness and emotional vitality to supply 60 other dance makers. Vividly leading Gordon's deft Pick Up Performance Co(s) troupe in this cyclical tour de force on love and mortality, on autonomy and loyalty, on art's illusion and the theatricality of reality, are Gus Solomons jr (a harried and somewhat irascible commuter), David Skeist (a fierce man wrestling, poetically, with a fierce diagnosis) and Gordon's actual leading lady and wife in real life, exquisite Valda Setterfield who, at one point, reminds us that, unlike the others, SHE wears black for DRAMATIC EFFECT! These three performances are flashes of lightning skimming over the smooth, subtle, dependable flow of colleagues Charlotte Cohn, Scott Cunningham, Norma Fire, Karen Graham and Aaron Mattocks. "What a pleasure, watching good wrappers wrap," someone says here. And I can only add, What a pleasure, watching David Gordon's players.

With lighting by Jennifer Tipton

Beginning of The End of The... runs through June 30, a happy bit of news for a dance show. So, take advantage. Get schedule and ticket information plus David Gordon's own cheeky description of the piece here.

Joyce SoHo
155 Mercer Street (between Houston and Prince Streets), Manhattan
(directions)

Beller's house of stories

Excerpt from other stories

How many times have I seen versions of other stories? I forget, but it's likely at least three now with the opening of Alexandra Beller/Dances' 10th Anniversary season last evening at Joyce SoHo. And, of course, no matter how many times other stories is seen, it will always be different according to which guest--chosen from among contemporary dance's most fascinating artists--has been tapped to catalyze the current performance.

As described by the company, the game plays out like this: "Each performance is a high stakes event featuring a pivotal, improvisational performance by a guest artist who has rehearsed minimally, if at all, with the company." Yeah, bring it.

Last night, that catalyst was Jennifer Nugent, a lithe, springy, Puckish spirit of vitality and fun. Some of her best moments came near the end of other stories, as she returned to a circle of the dancers, scattering them and, to my mind, dispersing the mystifying fog of gestures and juxtapositions, mosaics of story fragments, dream-like driftings and memories constructed through lush, sensitive choreography and Martijn Hart's beautiful filmwork.

other stories, for me, inspires unconditional love, the way one takes a good friend to heart, accepting that there will always be things about that person that cannot be fully known or comprehended. This seems to be a dance about just that--opening with Hart's videocamera focused on one corner of a lovely Flatiron District building and a couple, just behind its large windows, holding a conversation that we cannot hear. The camera zooms in close but to no avail. We will never grasp what is being said nor know its history or current context. We're left to project interpretations onto the couple's body language and gestures.

We do much of the same throughout other stories with its plethora of imagery. When we hear words, they merely fan out in the general direction of something that we can only imagine out of our own personal experiences: "This is the only place that makes me laugh," or "This is the space that will not close," or the disjointed recounting of a medical history, audibly redacted. We watch inexplicable expressions wash over the face of one or another dancer; the look is soon wiped away, replaced by another or...nothing. It feels as if we're being plunged into the life recall or dreams of not just one person but a whole tribe, simultaneously.

So, of course, it's not going to make sense. And, of course, it makes sense.

Have I mentioned that I love it?

Dancing by Beller, Lea Fulton, Toni Melaas, Kendra Porter, Edward Rice and Simon Thomas-Train plus the evening's guest artist. Original music composed and performed live by Robert Poss. Lighting by Amanda K. Ringger. Costumes by Karen Young. Set design by Brian Ireland.

See other stories at Joyce Soho through April 21. There will be also be a 10th Anniversary Celebration on Friday, April 13. For season schedule details and ticketing, click here.

Joyce SoHo
155 Mercer Street (between Houston and Prince Streets), Manhattan
(directions)

Stefanie Nelson's "Prolegomena II" premieres

Stefanie Nelson's new evening-length piece, Prolegomena II, running now at Joyce SoHo, beckons you to plunge in. Anywhere. Really. But when you do, you will have to make your own way. Don't expect help.

As it opens, fog and radically intermittent lighting create dramatic mystery. A woman's body stretches and undulates in the mist, then appears to float, tread air and even disappear through clever theatrics I will not reveal. A solo violin sings of loneliness and mourning.

This is a roughly hour-long work--abstract in form yet informed by a patchwork of personal narratives and meanings. Created by a big collaborative team, it comes massively multi-layered in poetry, music, animations and the performance of Nelson's large and excellent ensemble, more sprawling and unruly than a linear 55 minutes can account for. It's fair to say that Prolegomena II deserves more than a single look, not just for the wonder of the performances but also the chance to dig into its deep pockets. You never know what you might find.

Samples of Nelson's Proximity Spiral
(Joyce SoHo, 2010)

Stefanie Nelson Dancegroup continues tonight at 7:30pm and tomorrow, Sunday, at 2pm at Joyce SoHo. Tonight's program includes a post-performance discussion. For information and tickets, click here.


Joyce SoHo

155 Mercer Street (one block south of Houston, one block west of Broadway)

(directions)

Karen Bernard's "Mix"

luciana achugar (Photo: Michael Mahalchick)

Nami Yamamoto (Photo: Julien Jourdes)

The famed Performance Mix Festival--presented by Karen Bernard's New Dance Alliance in association with Joyce SoHo--opens its 26th annual program, March 13-18.

It's a huge lineup featuring Daniel Linehan, Nami Yamamoto, luciana achugar and Johanna S. Meyer among many other contemporary dancemakers including artists from Canada, Poland and the Netherlands.

Performance Mix Festival promotes interdisciplinary work through performances, informal artist/audience receptions and special events.

For further information, see these helpful links:

Artist Bios

Full schedule and ticket information

Joyce SoHo
155 Mercer Street (between Houston and Prince Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Have a look at Low

Malcolm Low
Artistic Director, Malcolm Low Formal Structure

2011 fellowship award recipient
New Directions Choreographic Lab at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Presenting Collapsing Giant

March 2-3, 7:30pm

Featuring original text by Low and the dancers, Collapsing Giant addresses stories about love, loss, and memories from home to show the human condition through Low’s eyes.  This demanding and physical work will focus on those things we do while on this earth: we live, we love, we fight, and we gain knowledge, all while time continues to push forward.  Working with lighting designer Gregory Bain and visual artist Gautam Kansara, Low will create a new world vision.

For information, ticketing and a preview video, click here.

Joyce SoHo
155 Mercer Street, Manhattan
Between Houston and Prince Streets
B/D/F/M to Broadway-Lafayette, R to Prince or 6 to Bleecker

Keep an eye on CULTUREMARTists

HERE's CULTUREMART festival concludes this evening with a shared program featuring samples of two promising works-in-progress:

Shaun Irons, Lauren Petty and Mei-Yin Ng consider their multimedia performance work--Keep Your Electric Eye On Me--to be at a very early, very sketchy stage of development. I'll have to take them at their word, although KYEEOM already brings enough ominous razzle dazzle to make me wonder what radical changes, as the creative team calls them, we'll be blown away by when the final product debuts. Irons and Petty contribute the lysergic video and sound, and Ng, the enigmatic choreography and performance, in an already well thought out, well structured display that nevertheless seems to emanate from inside one damaged or very disturbed head. While I can't wait to see what this one becomes when it grows up, I'm a little scared, too.

I saw an early rehearsal of part of Alexandra Beller's other stories at the Gibney Dance Center, and that experience drew me to this CULTUREMART showcase where Beller is showing an excerpt. This interesting ensemble piece, set to premiere at Joyce SoHo in April, comes with three unique features.

The first is a video view into the window of a building in Manhattan's Flatiron District, a voyeuristic monitoring of a couple's unheard, but clearly troubled, conversation.

The second is a big white portable structure designed by Brian Ireland--a clever abstraction of a house with a simple rectangular cutout for a door and an external, embedded ladder. "Stories"--in the form of mystifying allegiances, provocations and conflicts--smoothly drift in and out of this house. (If you go, for a view into the house, where there's always something going on, avoid sitting at the extreme left end of the audience.)

The third, and most exciting, is the guest drop-in collaborator from among the royalty of New York's contemporary dance scene. Here's how Beller describes the collaborator's role:

Every show features a different guest artist...[who] works with us for 1 hour to one day, depending on the event. Their role is structured improvisation, which is then set and developed live during the course of the performance.

So, of course, for that to work, your company must be perceptive and game and, in that, Beller can thank her lucky stars. (Performers for the HERE showing, besides Beller and the guest artist, include Lea Fulton, Toni Melaas, Kendra Portier, Edward Rice, and Simon Thomas Train.)

At GDC, I saw the troupe stirred by the guesting Paul Matteson who moved clean and elegant as an angel on a mission. Last evening, the springy, lusciously flexible Luke Gutgsell gave this vanguard role a far scruffier, feral edge and seemed to rouse an uncommon animal intensity in the company at the conclusion. Alex Springer will perform tonight.

Look for this work when it comes to Joyce SoHo, April 4-21.

The final presentation of this shared program runs tonight at 8:30pm. For program information, click here for Irons/Petty/Ng and here for Beller. For general ticket and box office information, click here.

HERE
145 6th Avenue, Manhattan
(Enter on Dominick Street, one block south of Spring Street.)
(map/directions)

Up by their bootstraps!

You go to omnibus dance shows featuring emerging choreographers with hopes that you'll catch someone worth following. Last night, The Bootstrap Festival--a multidisciplinary showcase created by the New York Foundation on the Arts--devoted an hour to short pieces by five up-and-coming dancemakers, all women, at Joyce SoHo.

Ephrat "Bounce" Asherie, whose solo Brothers I enjoyed at Dixon Place last year, led the evening with Sonatina (in three movements), a title offering no hint of what would come. The Israeli-born dancer, steeped in the ways of hip hop and club dancing, is compact and forceful. In Sonatina, she flings and splatters angular movement against space but manages to do so with wit, musicality and the kind of upfront, audience-snaring presentation I associate more with jazz dance than contemporary dance. Bounce is, I think, working on being a star and should get there in due time. I also liked Cristina Jasen's Mouth for String, a quintet that displays a sensibility that's intriguingly off-centered and roomy. Discover this artist.

Caitlin Trainor's (un)Square dance is a refined modern-ballet hybrid for a quartet of women--Alison Cook Beatty, Aditi Dhruv, Julia Lindpaintner and Leslie Ziff, all lovely performers. Trainor has a fresh eye for picturesque lyricism and unusual transition but deserves a conclusion that doesn't look pat, like a quick snip and tuck.

Sydnie L. Mosley showed an excerpt from The Window Sex Project which raised a bunch of questions for me, including: Who are the four women in this piece? Are they sex workers (sort of judging by their costumes and the title)? Or are they everyday Black women who, as can happen, get showered with all kinds of verbal harrassment, like the ones litanized here, from Black men just for simply walking down the street? I ask because not only the costuming but the flow of the dance blurs these identities. The overall loopy chorus line vibe and neutrally energetic dancing also makes me wonder: What's Mosley's point of view? That doesn't really become clear until the very end when actress Leah King delivers her final line, "Is this the kind of culture we want to see?"

Throughout Shandoah Goldman's vivid ensemble piece, 23 skiddoo, I kept thinking of Pina Bausch (wacky doings among women in evening gowns and their dashing dans) and wondering if I should be tickled or alarmed by the clever resemblance. I still haven't decided. But if Goldman can marry an original vision to the kind of brazenness on display in 23 skiddoo, I'll certainly want to see more.

The Bootstrap Festival continues through February 18, culminating with a "Celebration of Movement and Interdisciplinary Art" at Brooklyn's new Cumbe: Center for African and Diaspora Dance. For complete schedule and venue information for all festival events, click here.

The partnership of presenters and artists

The Field invites you to

an ERPA PUBLIC DIALOGUE

How Presenters and Artists Work Together

Monday, January 30, 6:30-8pm

at Joyce SoHo

It’s easy to forget that artists and theaters are partners birthing artworks to the world. So often these relationships can have challenging power dynamics. Let’s open communication and get down to business. How do we work together on logistical challenges, how do we negotiate our needs?

Panelists include:

Shoshona Currier, Producer at Dance New Amsterdam

Cathy Eilers, Program Manager at Joyce SoHo
Kristin Marting, hybrid director and Artistic Director of HERE
Brian Rogers, theater artist and Artistic Director of the Chocolate Factory
James Scruggs, theater artist

Facilitated by Maura Donohue, Artistic Director of inmixedcompany

Admission is free. For information, click here.

For more information on The Field's programs, click here. 

Joyce Soho
155 Mercer Street (between Houston and Prince Streets), Manhattan
(directions)

Hear it straight from the artists

Here are two audience development series that should be on your radar in 2012:

SORRY I MISSED YOUR SHOW

presented by Gibney Dance Center, developed in partnership with Dance/NYC

video screenings of works by both emerging and established choreographers followed by thoughtful discussions and reflections led by some of the great minds of the contemporary dance world

Jill Sigman in her hut at the Oslo Opera House (photo: Elisabeth Færøy Lund)

One recent SIMYS session--part of a marathon afternoon featuring other dance artists--detailed how choreographer/multimedia artist Jill Sigman created and performed in a hut made of trash in the light-filled lobby of Norway's Oslo Opera House. ("I do not find [discarded] skis when I build huts in New York City!") Concerned about the alarming amount of waste produced in the US and developed nations worldwide, Sigman seeks to raise awareness of this environmental issue while also engaging ancient means of forging community around place, work, food and movement. In her Hut Project series, she employs a music system run on renewable energy and elevates her diverse found objects "back into the realm of value."

For information on upcoming Sorry I Missed Your Show events, get on the GDC mailing list. Phone: 212-677-8560 or email here.

location: GDC, 890 Broadway, 5th Floor, Manhattan (map/directions)

Admission: Free (includes "popcorn and drinks")

Video archive coming soon

DANCE TALKS

presented by The Joyce Theater

If a more in-depth examination of issues shaping dance today interests you, join one of our Dance Talks, a series of conversations with artists and audiences illustrated with dance videos and movement demonstrations.

location: Joyce SoHo, 155 Mercer Street, Manhattan (map/directions)

Admission: Free. RSVP at 646-792-8377, although walk-ins are certainly welcome.

If you can't make it to Dance Talks, visit the Joyce's Ustream channel (sample below).

Video streaming by Ustream

November 21 Dance Talks at Joyce SoHo (65:33)

Gideon Lester (Director of Columbia University's Arts Collaboration Lab) chats with choreographer Martha Clarke and playwright Alfred Uhry ("Driving Miss Daisy") about their unusual collaboration on Angel Reapers, opening November 29 at The Joyce Theater.

Talk about Martha Clarke

The Joyce Theater's DANCE TALKS presents

Martha Clarke on Angle Reapers

November 21, 6pm

Martha Clarke says that the making of Angel Reapers was a "labor of love." It has taken Clarke and her collaborator playwright Alfred Uhry seven years to create and produce this dance theater work based on the Shakers. Clarke, a New Englander, felt an affinity to the minimalist Shaker aesthetic, and was fascinated by the repressed community founded by "Mother Ann" Lee. The work is described as "a stirring and dramatic blend of shaker songs, modern dance, and theater about forbidden sex and unchanneled lust in New England’s 18th century Shaker community." In a video illustrated evening, Gideon Lester (Director of Columbia University's Arts Collaboration Lab) converses with Clarke, examining the ideas that make up this new work.

RSVP: 646-792-8377

Joyce SoHo

155 Mercer Street, Manhattan

(directions)

Finwall premieres EVENFALL at Joyce SoHo

Alyce Finwall Dance Theater, from San Francisco, presented the world premiere of its first evening-length work last night at Joyce SoHo. A vigorously performed, if mysterious, piece for eight women, EVENFALL lasts just under an hour and will be remembered best for the atmosphere created by Andrea Williams (video) and Finwall and Joe Landini (lighting).

Inspired by the moody, betwixt/between time following sunset, EVENFALL is chock full of movement for its capable octet in a space first lit by a single light carried by one dancer drifting along within a group of her colleagues, all of them dressed in abbreviated black outfits. This cluster slowly, silently orbits a rock-still dancer dressed in pale underwear. The lantern-like light dramatically illuminates her face and body. A video projects smudgy masses flickering on either side of the space as she begins a stretchy, scrunchy solo, later joined by one and then more dancers under an elegant constellation of cherry-red lights that dangle overhead.

Such a poetic environment could call forth choreography of equal interest, with a focused purpose and development over time. However, Finwall's almost nonstop chain of movements mostly fills the 55 minutes without sufficiently articulating the movements' connection to the environment or their reason for being. I'm not sure I saw a clear investigation of "femininity, identity, innocence and nakedness" that publicity previewed, although there was an oft-repeated bit of business around swiftly stripping off pieces of the black clothing from one's partner and then each partner getting re-dressed. I saw dancers efficiently doing what they do, but I suspect there's a lot of experience encoded in Finwall's sequences that has been diluted and abstracted down to a level that, while fine to look at, may no longer be readable and meaningful to the outside eye.

One striking passage stands out from this fairly even ground. A pair of dancers face each other, make esoteric hand gestures--which one writer, reviewing an early version of EVENFALL, likened to American Sign Language--and aggressively paw at each other. This happens a couple of times, if I recall, with these two and another pair. It's rather like an animal encountering and batting away at its mirror image, thinking it's attacking prey. Now that's interesting.

With a soundscore by Carson Whitley. Dancing by Julia Hollas, Emmaly Wiederholt, Joy Prendergast, Malinda Lavelle, Kaitlin Parks, Emily Jones, Madelyn Biven and Maggie Stack 

EVENFALL continues tonight and tomorrow at 8pm.

Information and ticketing 

Joyce SoHo
155 Mercer Street (between Houston and Prince Streets), Manhattan

Directions: N/R/W to Prince, B/D/F/M to Broadway/Lafayette or 6 to Bleecker

Rosner at Joyce SoHo: Yay, oh!

With the world premiere of 90 ways to Wake from drowning, Sarah A.O. Rosner and her ensemble, The A.O. Movement Collective, have taken an important, assertive step into the spotlight of contemporary dance. After two years of developing 90 ways--their first evening-length work and first New York season--these performers show a remarkable cohesion and intensity that other troupes might take a decade or more to achieve. Rosner and her young colleagues are ready to rock.

90 ways to Wake from drowning emerges out of the shambles of the past--a messy performance space strewn with analog tvs, cassettes and VHSes, some with tape unspooled, an ancient projector and wadded-up plastic bags. Dancers mill about, alluding to some never-identified incident that sounds dire and final. Now and again, bodies appear on the floor. Television screens run scenes of cars crashing, cars on fire. One section's soundscore might trigger terrible memories of the roar of low-flying planes on 9/11. Rosner, who is also a filmmaker, utilizes drastic, cinematic splicing effects to make visible and audible those nightmarish things stuck in a looping pattern in the head.

"I just need to see it again," says dancer Ilona Bito about something never defined. She's quickly told, "You can't. It. Doesn't. Exist. Anymore."

What disaster has happened here? Might as well supply your own. You might think, too, about the tension between the immediacy and corporeality of dance and the fact that, usually, when it's done, it's gone, a memory. Rosner, a dedicated documenter of process, must wrestle with this issue of dance, here and gone, as we usually think of this art.

Rosner's brutal focus on relationships and emotions might seem retro, but there's nothing clichéd or formulaic about how she handles these things in her theater. Among the many, many elements to admire here is a male-female duet in which the heaviness of the dancers' bodies and the seriousness of their interactions are, very strangely, manipulated by the airy lightness of the crumpled plastic bag that they toss, whirl and reach to grab. Rosner makes you look at a wafting plastic grocery bag that you might swerve to avoid on a windy street, and suddenly see a batch of things that this stupid object could be or mean.

She also handles space with gutsy imagination. For example, I enjoyed her vertical line of four dancers from nearest to farthest from the audience, each with his or her assignment to be still, slow, active or variable (from still-to-active in relation to dancer #3).

I also marveled at the outright, raw ferocity of her dancers. At first, I was thinking it was only the men--Cory Antiel, Jon Cooper and Rowan Magee--and I wanted more edginess from the women. But forget that. The women-- Bito along with Lillie DeArmon, Cristina Jasen and Larissa Sheldon--turn out to be plenty edgy, like a python wrapping itself around your neck and torso. The entire company keeps the audience on edge at all time.

"I just need to see it again."

Yeah, I could see this one again. And whatever's next in Rosner's plans. The only question, now, is whether to take anxiety meds before or after.

Keep an eye on this choreographer and this collective.

The A.O. Movement Collective completes its run with a show tonight at Joyce SoHo (8pm). See a video clip from the show and get tickets here.

Joyce SoHo
155 Mercer Street (between Houston and Prince Streets), Manhattan
Directions

Dance/NYC's town hall on dance writing

Solutions for Sustainable Dance Writing: A Town Hall
Monday, April 12, 6pm (free)

presented by Dance/NYC

Location: Joyce SoHo, 155 Mercer Street (between Houston & Prince), Manhattan

Over the last few years, the number of opportunities available to dance writers has declined sharply, as newspaper ad revenue from dance and other arts organizations has all but vanished. As a result, fewer and fewer voices - writers and choreographers alike, have the opportunity to make themselves heard. While new media gives everyone the opportunity to enter the discussion, how can writers establish personal branding when they can no longer benefit from the credibility of a newspaper banner?

The purpose of this town hall is to discuss strategies and ideas designed to increase paid writing opportunities for established and emerging dance critics and writers, while empowering audiences to discover to the broadest possible spectrum of dance art.

For further information and to RSVP (recommended), click here.

Visit the Dance/NYC Web site.

Stefanie Nelson adds up

Stefanie Nelson's Proximity Spiral is one of those dances where you just want to run grab somebody and say, So you think you don't grok dance?, and then basically push them in the direction of someone like the fantastic Matthew Oaks and say, Just sit quietly and watch for a while. And, later, they thank you.

Oaks and seven other dazzling performers from Stefanie Nelson Dancegroup
presented the U.S. premiere of Proximity Spiral last evening at Joyce SoHo. This evening-length work turns the space into a red-hot pressure cooker. Nelson sidesteps any sense of normalcy or polite limits in her depiction of the human body and the proximity of bodies to one another. These bodies seem instinctual, untamed and edgy. The spiral in question is the Fibonacci sequence--0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34...--and there's nothing like a spiral, beauty and all, for conveying that feeling of unrelenting, tightening intensity. That's certainly what goes on when the strong, fluid and exuberant Ali Schecter and Ariana Siegel bust out all around a creepily dangerous-looking Oaks.

Nelson's inventiveness steadily builds and never seems gratuitous. Explore the mysterious terrain she has created, with a stellar collaborative team, at Joyce SoHo, now through Sunday. Post-performance discussion tonight.

Schedule and ticketing information

casebolt and smith are INBOUND at Joyce SoHo

casebolt and smith, an emerging dance duo out of LA, launched their first full-fledged New York season last night at Joyce SoHo, offering something that has become a rarity here in contemporary dance--an assemblage of several short works, old and new, with an actual 15-minute intermission!  

Liz Casebolt and Joel Smith are awfully skilled and cute, and they seem to have carved out a highly personal niche: vest-pocket dance theater filled with quick-on-the draw gestural movement, self-revealing talk and quirky humor with a sense of urgency. Relative to LA, NYC might be perceived as "a serious city"--per Smith's remark in the team's video self-interview here--but The Big Apple, historically and demonstrably, can more than hold its own in the humor, especially transgressive humor, department. So, much as I enjoyed the pair's talents and versatility--particularly Smith's substantial technique, investment, sauciness and heart--I'm a little underwhelmed by c&s's claim to riskiness. "...a risky undressing of the politics of performing race," reads one of their promo materials. The company bio refers to a goal of using their collaborative process to "complicate, question and illuminate gender and sexuality dynamics and the cultural politics embedded in the ways bodies are traditionally represented in dance." But maybe the issue is with rhetoric. If so, these two should consider getting out from under.

In their show, Casebolt identifies herself as married to a man; Smith, as gay and it's complicated. I guess the most offbeat thing about watching them work together is not all the slapsticky grabbing and referencing of private parts that goes on, not the joking around about farts nor the image of Casebolt struggling to keep fruit from toppling out of her Carmen Miranda turban as she sings "I Feel Pretty" in a Spanish accent. Rather it's their acknowledgement that the intimacy and chemistry between hardworking creative partners who adore each other as much as they clearly do could be read by outsiders as sexual.

Happily, most of their material does not strain for significance, and perhaps significance arrives. They are fine when they allow subtlety and feeling and original ideas to surface. In the brand-new O(h), there's a section that tickles me, where the pair physically demonstrate how hard it is to overcome the creative limitations of a two-person company and how hard it would be even to adopt works by other companies. (Charles Weidman? Two people cannot form a mob. A typical Ailey wedge of dancers? Not enough arms. A corps de ballet with just two swans? Pitiful.) This passage offers a fresh look and one well-rooted in dance.

Presented as part of Joyce SoHo's international INBOUND Festival, casebolt and smith continue their series tonight and Sunday. For more information and ticketing for this and other INBOUND programs, click here.

Monk's Mood: DeFrantz raises the ghost

I'm at Joyce SoHo, watching dancer (and dance scholar, professor, author) Thomas F. DeFrantz sketch out some somber matters from the difficult life of Thelonious Monk, and I'm simply bursting with joy. Can't help it. DeFrantz is that good. And Monk's Mood: A Performance Meditation on the Life and Music of Thelonious Monk is that beautiful. Not a hackneyed, unoriginal moment in this impressionistic narrative.

DeFrantz's postmodern tap choreography and elegantly quirky performance--an apt counterpoint to the vast, irresistible undertow of Monk's music--are revelations. And, unlike another production hitting the city this week that fuses the impulses of the dancing body with responsive computer technology--and which, for now, will go nameless here--DeFrantz and poly-media artist Eto Oro strike a balance between human and machine. And that's an excellent thing, because you absolutely do want to keep DeFrantz's (and Monk's) humanity in mind. As the collaborators attest, the tech must serve the story. "We want to reanimate the ghost in the music."

Watch a couple of clips. And then try to get a ticket for one of the final shows (tonight or tomorrow, 8pm) here.

One more thing, I totally get DeFrantz and Oro's interest in making their collaboration an open source thing, essentially offering the Monk's Mood API for other creative types to use as they see fit. We're in a new age. But I, for one, really hope that DeFrantz himself will keep performing this piece and digging into it. It's an extraordinary performance, and I hope more people will get a chance to enjoy it.

Welcome, DANY: Joyce Foundation's new rehearsal space

from DanceNYC's FYI e-newsletter:

THE JOYCE THEATER FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES OPENING OF NEW REHEARSAL SPACE

Eleven Studios to be Made Available to Dance Community at Affordable Rates

The Joyce Theater Foundation announced today that it has leased new rehearsal space at 305 West 38th Street in Manhattan, formerly home of New Dance Group. The venue, renamed DANY (Dance Art New York) Studios, will further The Joyce's ongoing efforts to serve the dance community by providing affordable rehearsal space.

About the new rehearsal space, Linda Shelton, Executive Director of The Joyce Theater, said, "We are grateful to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, along with Bloomberg, for their support of this project. Because of their generosity, it is not only possible for us to address the challenges that limited rehearsal space imposes on the dance community, but also to resuscitate this marvelous venue."

Marvin Preston, President of the Board of the New Dance Group said, "By working with The Joyce Theater, we have been able to transform this leasehold into a fully functional, conforming, sustainable, and maintainable state. The dance community will benefit greatly from The Joyce's effective management of this real, needed, valuable, and usable facility."

Consisting of eleven studios appropriate for rehearsals, auditions, classes, and workshops, DANY Studios is equipped with storage space, lounge areas, and audio/video systems appropriate for rehearsal use. It will be available seven days per weeks, from 8am until 10pm, with rental fees beginning at $5 per hour for some of the available hours.

DANY Studios will be an addition to the current rehearsal space at Joyce SoHo (155 Mercer Street), which houses three studios. It will now be possible to reserve space for both venues through one call-in line: 212-564-3808. DANY Studios is located on the second and third floors of 305 West 38th Street on Eighth Avenue NY, NY 10018.