Tracks get fresher: bold new moves at New York Live Arts

FRESH TRACKS artists, left to right:
Anh Vo, Annie Heath, Jordan Demetrius Lloyd,
Kayla Hamilton and Stuart B Meyers

FRESH TRACKS: Anh Vo, Annie Heath, Jordan Demetrius Lloyd, Kayla Hamilton, Stuart B Meyers
New York Live Arts
December 13-14

I came away from last night's edition of FRESH TRACKS--New York Live Arts' showcase for rising choreographers--eager to see each of the five pieces separately, with ample contemplative, processing time and space around each. But, of course, an omnibus program like this--squeezing in five 15-minute works, diverse in maker and nature--does not allow for that. You might take a restroom break during intermission and look around at other audience members on the line, each of them exclaiming variations on "Whew!" Other than that, you better keep pace. Simply put, this particular FRESH TRACKS lineup can be overwhelming--in a good way. Presentations by Anh Vo, Annie Heath, Jordan Demetrius Lloyd, Kayla Hamilton and Stuart B Meyers made me hopeful for the future of dance in New York City, exemplifying the bold, urgent spirit of the art today.

Kayla Hamilton, first up, is an artist you should already know. But if you don't, take this opportunity. Nearly Sighted/unearthing the dark, created with a community of makers, sasses back at the male gaze, the terrified Karens of this world and anyone who might want to voice unsolicited opinions about a fat Black woman's body. With its quirky lighting cues and accessibility accommodations--including a riveting ASL interpreter/dancer, Brandon Kazen-Maddox--it also messes with the usual centering of non-disabled viewers and points of view.  I love it to pieces.

Informed by German Expressionist film, Stuart B Meyers' KOPFKINO (head cinema) enhances its eerie scenario with dim, blueish lighting that strips its dancers--Meyers and Isabel Umali--of healthy skintones and readable, relatable facial features. Aside from its extraordinary visual aesthetics, the piece gets hair-raising power from a combination of slow, creeping movement and frozen tension in the bodies. A nightmare from the past but made for our nightmarish times.

Anh Vo's BABYLIFT--the title memorializes a tragedy of the Vietnam War, the crash of the first plane to airlift evacuated South Vietnamese orphans--is the boldest of the bold and would reward repeated viewings. The subversive quality of Vo's slithery femme, hypersexualized self-presentation in front of a carefully-arranged votive altar would seem to clash with the projected photo of a Buddhist monk immolating himself as fellow monks look on. When I later had a moment to think it through, I realized these two figures might agree that the body is the fiercest site of resistance.

Annie Heath and Sokunthary Svay--a Khmer refugee and now Bronx-based poet and librettist--often occupy different, primarily diametrically opposed areas of the stage in an excerpt from Heath's This Mother/land Fabric. This keeps you wondering about how they are related, how their thoughts and ways are related, as you gaze from one to the other. Careful, expert gestures of wrapping a sarong contrast with desperate, helpless ones such as lifting a heavy pile of folded clothes, trying to secure this bundle high against the back wall with nothing but one's tired arms. Heath struggles and struggles; Svay's words leave a chill: "my mouth is magically sewn together" and "to find a soft landing spot, leave your skin on the ground" and "let me nurture this brutality."

In his witty abstract ensemble, Neighbors, Jordan Demetrius Lloyd keeps five dancers moving like game pieces continually rearranged in dynamic spacial interrelationship. Coming at the end of a demanding evening, Neighbors both clears the palate and looks like a kind of work easily picked up by major troupe looking for bright new repertory. Which is to say, hooray for Lloyd. Watch this guy. But, really, keep track of everyone here.

FRESH TRACKS: Anh Vo, Annie Heath, Jordan Demetrius Lloyd, Kayla Hamilton, Stuart B Meyers concludes with tonight's 7:30pm performance. For tickets, click here.

New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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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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Disabled Arts on Camera, Part 2: "Vision Portraits" by Rodney Evans

Dancer Kayla Hamilton,
one of four artists featured in Vision Portraits
(photo: Kjerstin Rossi)

Writer Ryan Knighton telling his story at The Moth
(photo courtesy of Vision Portraits)

Vision Portraits

(2019, USA/Canada/Germany; 78 min.)

written and directed by Rodney Evans

The documentary Vision Portraits introduces us to four dedicated artists whose lives, careers and creative approaches have been profoundly impacted by diminished or lost sight. They include art photographer John Dugdale, our beloved dance colleague Kayla Hamilton, Canadian writer Ryan Knighton and the award-winning filmmaker himself, Rodney Evans, best known for his 2004 narrative feature, Brother To Brother.

filmmaker Rodney Evans
(photo: Kjerstin Rossi)

We visit with these appealing and thoughtful people, the stories and glimpses of the work of the first three interspersed with the story of Evans's attempts to reverse the degeneration of his vision from Retinitis pigmentosa. Evans also wants to share with us how impairment affects vision through occasional images simulating fuzzy or dim sight, narrowed visual range or--as in the case of Dugdale--a nonstop internal light show of spectacular colors and effects.

Self-portrait of photographer John Dugdale

Dugdale's photography, achieved with assistants who adjust lens focus, is deeply poetic, melancholic and moving. When a stroke befell him at the age of 30, taking all but a crescent-like sliver of his sight, he told his mother "What makes you think I'm not going to be taking pictures anymore? I'm going to be taking pictures like crazy now!" I am grateful for that indomitable spirit; the work is so beautiful.

It was also fun to get to know a little about Knighton (author of the memoir Cockeyed), who considers his blindness to be a door onto "a different way of living, a different point of view." His blindness opened a portal to deeper honesty and a wicked sense of humor. If you watch this documentary for no other reason, you will value it for the concise yet uproarious story of the trip he took with his brother to a snake rodeo in Texas. It's a safe bet you'll never set foot at a snake rodeo in Texas or any other state but also a safe bet you'd enjoy hanging out with these guys.

Vision Portraits opens in New York City at Metrograph on August 9 and in Los Angeles at Laemmle Royal on August 23.

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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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Dancer Kayla Hamilton up close at BAAD!

Dance artist Kayla Hamilton
(photos: Travis Magee)

She moves through the world with a chronic illness that has left her with sight in one eye, loss of peripheral vision, double vision, blurred vision, and difficulty seeing in low light.

 --from publicity for Nearly Sighted by Kayla Hamilton

My experience of Nearly Sighted, Kayla Hamilton's solo performance at BAAD!, actually started before I reached the theater. Coming off the #6 train at Zerega Avenue, I ran into a group of people--including some I knew--heading for the show, all in good spirits. We walked together past the churchyard and, once inside BAAD!, were warmly greeted by more people we knew. While we waited for Hamilton to perform, we watched a wonderful video compilation of interviews and studio scenes with the much-loved choreographers, all Black and women, who contributed work to this evening--Francine E. Ott, Nia Love, Christal Brown, Crystal U. Davis and Jaimè Dzandu. Fond co-workers and at least one grateful student of Hamilton spoke up during the post-show discussion. Yes, that kind of evening. More like a family gathering than most anything you'll find at your typical New York dance concert.

Clearly, Nearly Sighted is the place to be. And you're lucky if you can get a ticket. Yes, BAAD! is not the largest venue in town, but even so.

For the suite of dances, which is surprisingly short--maybe 45 minutes at most--Hamilton has woven together material from the choreographers as well as video artists Sammie Amachree and Drake Creative.  Each member of the audience is encouraged to wear an eye patch through most of the performance, giving us a small taste of how Hamilton's vision disability alters her perception of and relationship to her surrounding environment. To work with this, I left my distance glasses off and, given the intimacy of the space, did not need them. I adjusted to the eye patch over time.

If you've ever seen Hamilton dance, you know she brings presence, passion, momentum and juicy fluidity. In her program notes, she calls herself "thick."

"Thick not as in muscular, but thick thick." She adds, "I rarely get to see a thick-bodied disabled person on stage...."

She is a thick spinning top, a thick blossoming flower, a thick burst of fire, a system of thick coursing energy. She is also Black and female all day and embodies Nia Love's words: "It's the way that you stand, the way you sit...the notion that all that you are is all that's right and powerful and good. That's dignity." Her work is a healing gift.

Nearly Sighted was two years in the making. It was fun to talk in our small discussion groups about it and hear Christal Brown tell us none of the choreographers had previous exposure to the finished work. They had no idea how Hamilton would turn their individual material into a this tapestry. The performance, then, was a revelation for everyone.

Nearly Sighted concludes this evening with a performance at 7:30pm. It is sold out, but if you want to try for a last-minute, unclaimed ticket, click here for information.

BAAD!

The Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance

2474 Westchester Avenue (Westchester Square), Bronx

(map/directions)

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