Artists Reach Out: Laurie Berg

Dear friends,

Welcome to Artists Reach Out: reflections in a time of isolation. I dreamed this series of interviews out of grief for my work both as a documenting arts writer and curator of live performance. In this time of social distancing, we are called to responsibly do all we can to safeguard ourselves and our neighbors. It is, literally, a matter of life and death.

But there's no distancing around what we still can share with one another--our experiences, thoughts, wisdom, humor, hearts and spirit. In some ways, there are more opportunities to do so as we pull back from everyday busyness out in the world and have time to honor the call of our inner lives.

So, let me introduce you to some artists I find interesting. I'm glad they're part of our beautiful community, and I'm eager to engage with them again (or for the first time) in years to come.

--Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody

Laurie Berg

Laurie Berg
(photo courtesy of the artist)

Laurie Berg makes work in a variety of forms including dance, performance, collage and jewelry. She is co-organizer of AUNTS, co-curated the Movement Research Spring Festival 2017, was the 2016 recipient of “The Tommy” Award and a 2016-17 LMCC Workspace Artist-In-Residence. Recent works include EZ Pass (Roulette Intermedium), scape: Times Square (co-commission by Times Square Arts and Danspace Project), Ziegfeld Goes Down (as part of Charles Atlas Presents: The Kitchen Follies), Terrifying Times Call For Terrifying Jewelry (Dixon Place) and The Mineralogy of Objects (Danspace Project).

Whether working with dance and performance, collage, or jewelry, Berg draws on her interest in iconography, detail, humor, and absurdity to cultivate a collaborative, creative space that allows for rigorous play. Through complex choreographic structures and collaborations between people and objects, her performances conjure a space that is simultaneously structured and fantastical, layering together past, present, and future; bodies, objects, light, and space; imagination and knowledge; the real and the surreal.

scape: Times Square (2018)
(photo: Ian Douglas)

"Doll Ball," EZ Pass (2018)
(photo: Tony Sisco)

Do you have a current or planned project whose progress is affected by the pandemic?

I have lost a few gigs due to the pandemic, and the hope is these are just postponements and not cancellations, but right now it is hard to tell when we might all be able to gather again in a theater, bar, or gallery space. UPDATE: Between writing these responses and sending this in, George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis. Black Lives Matter activists and BIPOC leaders have led us into the streets in protest. Clear demands have been made. This moment is unprecedented. A revolution within a pandemic.

I’m supposed to have a show next Spring, which seemed far away. Now, it seems unlikely that we will be able to gather in a theater even next Spring. Honestly, the biggest project that was put on hold, was re-emerging from my art hiatus. I never completely stopped making things (jewelry, performance, a baby) and planning projects, but I slowed way down after the birth of my baby, Zelda (who just turned one). It was just two weeks before New York City shut down that I got childcare a couple days a week, so I could think about setting up rehearsals for a new project, and return to work without bringing Zelda along.

Briefly, tell me about how you got involved in the arts and in your particular practice.

Dance was a way to escape my shyness. Even when I was young, performing felt elevated. Time functioned in a different way. Every detail was important. I started taking classes in a strip mall dance studio in St. Louis, MO when I was 5 or 6. That studio was all I knew about the dance world. It was MY dance world and my dance family.

Finding myself where I am now was a long steady process of questioning what I was looking at, looking for more. It wasn’t until I got to college that I started to use the term “artist” to describe myself. That I was a dancer and an artist. A dance artist. I was also a misfit, and a weirdo, and proud of it. But that realization took time as well. The process of naming things, so I could move past the names and towards embodiment.

In a more specific way, what are you practicing? And what are you envisioning?

I’m practicing patience, compassion, flexibility (not the body kind--I’m so sore these days), and listening. I’m working towards a new project I’m calling :FOMO::DIPTYCH: but, right now, my attention is drawn to the conversations happening in dance and art communities all over the US. UPDATE: “Patience and compassion” also must include endurance and vigilance. “Flexibility” must include changing existing familiar and comfortable structures, de-centering whiteness, and centering BIPOC voices. “Listening” stays just that. I am practicing and learning ally-ship. This is an ongoing practice. I’m envisioning real lasting change. For me, as a white dance artist, maybe my new choreography needs to look something like this: look left, look right, step to the side, step back, and step up.

In mid-March the dance and performance platform I co-organize, AUNTS, decided to do a 15-day online series: AUNTS WPA micro-stimulus (a reference to the Federal Art Project as part of the New Deal). AUNTS WPA would be chain curated, so that we invite 5 artists, then those 5 artists would invite an artist and so on, to create 5 chains of 3 artists. Each artist would take over our Instagram account for one day and would do some kind of live broadcast. Artists choice! In the tradition of AUNTS, the artist could perform/broadcast--for 5 minutes or as long as instagram would allow--whatever they were working on or interested in sharing, and then we would pay them $75 via PayPal. It wasn’t a huge amount of money, but at least it could buy some groceries or pay part of a phone bill. Because of generous donations from individuals, instead of lasting 15 days, it ended up going for over a month with 42 artists participating. I never left my home and I met so many new artists!

How does your practice and your visioning align with what you most care about?

With AUNTS and my own choreographic work, my focus goes towards collaboration, resource sharing, and creating temporary and often permanent artistic families around each project. There is an opportunity in this particular moment to move towards radical change in how our arts institutions function. On all levels. I’m trying to envision what shape these potentially new structures could take. What should our institutions look like? Should we even have institutions? Trust artists! Can granting organizations fund artists instead of projects (allowing the money to precede the planning process)?

An artist receives a grant and pays their rent. Great!

An artist receives a grant, takes a risk, and fails, but everyone working on the project got paid. Great!

An artist receives a grant and the work receives many awards. Great!

“The system isn’t broken; it was built this way.” The truth is hard to swallow, and the change has to go deep. I’m ready to get out a shovel and dig down below the toxic rhizome that is capitalism and plant something new. This is work I have to do on myself as well as in my community. More content, less profit.

How does your practice function within the world we have now?

UPDATE: Honestly, I’m not quite sure at the moment. I’m going to wear comfortable shoes, stay ready, and bring snacks for everyone.

Briefly share one self-care tip that has special meaning to you now.

Enjoying this concentrated time with baby Zelda (who is a joyful, funny kid). I’m taking photography lessons from Zelda, who has a special iPhone photo technique which involves erratic (but also consistent?) hand movements--zooming in and out on the screen--while in panoramic mode to achieve a dual focus within a single photo. One half of the photo is in focus, while the other half is blurry, achieving the diptych form within the confines of a single image. I’m still working on it.

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

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The sign reads: Danspace Project at Times Square!

Laurie Berg (front, right) and dancers
perform -scape- in Times Square
(photo: Nicky Paraiso)

Inspired by Times Square’s history as the home of Broadway musicals, vaudeville, dance halls, and vernacular dance forms that emerged throughout the 20th century, Danspace Project has partnered with Times Square Arts to commission three new, site-specific dance works by esteemed New York City artists. -- from publicity for Danspace Project in Times Square

Congratulations to the folks at Danspace Project!

As directed by Prof. Google, I got off the R train at 49th Street and exited at 47th, not quite sure where I'd find this "Duffy Square" and you. But then--wow!--a mainstage with big sign:

Danspace Project at Times Square

You all really have come a long way. Well, let's see. That would be nearly forty blocks, six subway stations?

Front: Ana "Rokafella" Garcia
Back, from left: luciana achugar,
Gabriel "Kwiikstep" Garcia and Laurie Berg
at the crossroads of the world
(photo: Ian Douglas)

And what a great night for outdoor performance. Refreshingly cool. A happy swirl of tourists speaking a multitude of languages (all variations on Uh...what? What are they doing?) and lifting phones to capture the unexpected moment. Starting around 6pm, Laurie Berg's dancers snaked through the gathered crowd, occasionally dropping out of view, their genial dancing accompanied by the rumble of trains beneath the grates.

Berg's -scape- has an easy-breezy feel that, at the same time, feels defiant of the towering advertisements that color and dazzle and overpower and absolutely define the area. In the middle of all of this, the ensemble seems to say, are us. Notice us. Notice yourselves. Turn your captured gaze away from the ads for a minute, and see us dancing.

The piece concludes with the troupe climbing the square's big staircase to the top where they sit, neatly spaced across the top step, and run a long, long, arcane string of semaphoric gestures and rhythmic, synchronized movements. They know they can't rise as high as the bright lights of Broadway and the corporate messages those lights train down on helpless humanity, but they can seize their own moment and send their own "message" that doesn't have to mean any one particular thing because, after all, this is Danspace Project.

-scape- performers: Jodi Bender, Laurie Berg, Melanie Greene, Madison Krekel, Kyle Marshall, Tonya Sisco, Anna Adams Stark

Costume Design/Concept: Liliana Dirks-Goodman, Jaime Shearn Coan, Laurie Berg
Costume Printing: Print All Over Me
Sound Design: Rena Anakwe
Glasses: Everything Branded
Gloves: Tyler James Designs

Along the way from -scape- and luciana achugar's 7pm performance of New Mass Dance, some of us stopped to watch some non-Danspace dancers work their own street dancing project, the kind you're more likely to see everyday. Then it was on to Broadway Plaza (at 44th Street), where I only knew I was in the right place when I noticed a woman steadying herself as she mounted one of those short, thick steel posts that act as a security barrier. Sure enough, it was achugar, assisted by a pair of those "barefoot" running shoes molded around each toe. And then I noticed several other people, a few of them also perched on posts, dressed like her in denim and the running shoes.

New Mass Dance came off as a ritual at the crossroads--the crossroads of the world, that is, as Times Square has long been called. The ensemble eventually drew a rapt crowd, but it was amazing to see how oblivious most passersby remained at the outset, never breaking stride, even those who bothered to snap a picture.

achugar built things up from a simple group circle with clasped hands pumping up and down to raise energy to a Busby Berkeley-style star pattern of synchronized (though markedly diverse) bodies to a writhing tangle of hedonists. At one point, after gazing around at the Ernst & Young ad and the Hard Rock Cafe facade and the like, I suddenly remembered how the dancer Eiko Otake's body has intervened in all kinds of places. achugar's piece, though lacking Otake's gravity and poignancy, did feel like an intervention. But I doubt last evening's strollers and watchers got achugar's intended, embedded connections to 1930s labor demonstrations, left-wing dance agitprop and resistance.

New Mass Dance performers: luciana achugar, Oren Barnoy, Rachel Berman, Malcolm-x Betts, Michael Mahalchick, Rebecca Wender, Sarah White

I regret I missed Full Circle Souljahs, the street dancing/club dancing troupe directed by Ana "Rokafella" Garcia and Gabriel "Kwikstep" Dionisio, back at Danspace Project's mainstage where they performed Behind the Groove: Times Square Edition. It had been a long evening for me, most of it spent on my feet. Close to the souljah's 8pm start time, I wound through Times Square's public space enticements--wow!--heading back to the subway.

Full Circle Souljahs: Odylle “Mantis” Beder, John “Flonetik” Vinuya, Nasir “Kid Break” Malave, Mark “Styleski” Mack, Raymond “Spex” Abbiw, Richard James
FC Hardrocks: Deana Richline, Jennifer “Beasty” Acosta, Janice Tomlinson, Sharmaine Sheppard
Lite feet by Noahlot: KR3Ts
Krumping: TJ Rocka and the Nu Knynnes
Logo design: Shiro
T-shirts: Eric Michael
Kuduro choreography: Manuel Kanza

Danspace Project at Times Square, presented in partnership with Times Square Arts, continues tonight and Sunday evening, beginning at 6pm. For information and directions, click here.

Information on the individual works can be found at these links:

-scape- (6pm at Duffy Square)

New Mass Dance (7pm at Broadway Plaza)

Behind the Groove: Times Square Edition (8pm at Duffy Square)

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Laurie Berg: Say, what's that around your neck? Ewww!

from the Terrifying Jewelry collection

Last evening, dance- and jewelry-maker Laurie Berg brought her perfectly-named, perfectly-true Terrifying Times Call for Terrifying Jewelry to Dixon Place for one night only. The Lower East Side bar and performance venue was turned into a merchandizing party space with circulating performer-models (lounge), jewelry gallery/boutique (lounge and hallway leading to the theater) and Boschian den of iniquity (theater).

I first saw Berg's finished jewelry and works-in-progress at a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council artist salon back in January, charmed by its magpie-scavenged nature, collage-like whimsy, the embedding of old, found jewelry and miniatures. She makes colorful amulets, all the more powerful for their playful spirit. As I inspected the work, Berg let me in on a little secret plan to unleash a new line of necklaces with gummy or metallic cockroach pendants.

Okay, Laurie....

As it happens, this summer I've been all about tamping down my lifelong abject fear of centipedes. Maybe I shouldn't say that because Berg will probably up her jewelry game, but I have long since gotten over the cockroach/waterbug thing.  If you want to really freak me out, try centipedes...but hurry, because I've been getting steadily better at dealing with them.

Well, the "terrifying jewelry" is now manifest, saucily modeled, fashion runway- or bordello-style, towards the end of Berg's performance piece by the likes of Antonio Ramos, Madison Krekel and Carolyn Hall. But I have to say the most terrifying elements were surely the smiling 2-D masks of the face of late PBS painting instructor Bob Ross, donned by dancers--Jodi Bender, Jillian Sweeney and Berg--eerily cavorting and propping themselves around the theater's balcony railings. The stuff of nightmares, truly.

But it's a funny thing with Berg--funny, icky, lovely, irritating and beguiling all at once, qualities and moods deliberately hard to tease apart. She turned a rough alcove into a kind of catacomb awash in frightful/luscious flame red. Here we watched a mound of nude, inflatable sex dolls, rustled by living performers, slip and cascade over the edges of a grand piano. There was a huge fake roasted turkey wrestled and ported around, and who knows why?

Fake votive flames wriggled in the dazzle of their artificial light source, and a "fire-toasted" marshmallow on a stick was offered 'round the arc of viewers seated on the floor, passed hand to hand, as if we were scouts at a campground that also happened to be a mass grave. And brief, fairly random movement kept breaking out and ending up with a dancer suddenly hurling her body backward into the performance space wall--splat!--looking for all the world like...well, like a squashed waterbug with one futile, dead leg cocked at an undignified angle. Electronic experimental cellist Topu Lyo's sound work contributed obsessive repetitiveness crossed with self-medicating, mind-numbing vagueness--the perfect atmospherics.

For Berg's promotion, someone wrote the following:

"With the Terrifying Jewelry Collection, Berg explores the insidious and grotesque things that seep into our lives and 'under our couches,'  turning them into talismans for exuberant defiance and resilience."

If we humans go the way of the dinosaurs--these days, a fate that seems more and more likely--the meek will inherit what we leave of the Earth. The insects and the microbes will survive us. But, in the meantime, maybe these tough little badasses can teach us something.

Too amusing to be terrifying,
an alien makes landing in a Berg pendant.
(photo courtesy of Laurie Berg)

Terrifying Times Call for Terrifying Jewelry is closed, but you can check out some of that jewelry, and other fine work by Berg, right here.

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