Experimenting with Miss Ruth: Lionel Popkin at Abrons

(Left to right) Lionel Popkin, Emily Beattie and Carolyn Hall
in Popkin's Ruth Doesn't Live Here Anymore
(photo: Cristal Jones)

Ruth Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, says dancer-choreographer Lionel Popkin. And why not? Well, maybe that's because Ruth St. Denis--illustrious modern dance pioneer--was a white woman who got famous for pushing a vaudevillian Orientalist fantasy, and Popkin is a contemporary dancer of Jewish-Indian lineage who is more than ready to go toe-to-toe with her. His hour-long dance at Abrons Arts Center--a trio performed with enchanting Emily Beattie and Carolyn Hall--asserts a right to mess in and mess up her space in the greater interest of, perhaps, starting to clean up his own ambivalence.

Popkin takes a leaf blower to St. Denis's legacy, the way he takes a leaf blower to Beattie's abundant hair, stirring up swirls of theater dust in the process. When we first see them, both are dressed in a uniform of blue-collar workers--heavy, navy-colored coveralls--suggesting a certain no-nonsense approach to dance, the hallmark of more recent dance eras. By contrast, the glam St. Denis was all about sparkly artifice and nonsense and just plain making shit up.

Lionel Popkin
(photo: Brian Mengini)

Like a Ghostbusters crew, Popkin and his dancers venture deep into an ectoplasmic detritus of discarded saris and veils, the haul of St. Denis's far and frequent travel, strewn across the theater floor. Choreographic instructions (projected in white type on the backdrop) will be indifferently observed because, modeling St. Denis, Popkin says, they have given themselves leverage to excavate, appropriate and revise.

Watching a Hall solo, in particular--the one with the green skirt we're told "she found at a thrift store for seven dollars"--I have a sense of Popkin thinking through what he, as an American dancer, inherited from St. Denis and her age. He tips his hat to her ingenuity, her self-assurance and way of presenting herself, showing us something in her that transcended the wrongheaded aesthetics. Something useful in the way the mothers of modern dance clawed out a place for this art in the world's imagination and fought to keep it alive so folks could do and see it differently today. Like with more awareness. When we actually have awareness, that is.

Ruth Doesn't Live Here Anymore is well danced and fun. But who wins out here? Well, from Popkin's final words, it's clear that, as activists always say, the struggle continues.

Music composed and performed live by Guy Klucevsek (accordion) with Mary Rowell, violinist (ETHEL); costumes and set design by Marcus Kuiland-Nazario; lighting design by Christopher Kuhl; video design by Cari Ann Shim Sham

Ruth Doesn't Live Here Anymore, curated by Laurie Uprichard for her Travelogues series, continues through November 1 with performances tonight and Saturday at 7:30pm and Sunday at 3pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Abrons Arts Center (Experimental Theater)
466 Grand Street (between Pitt and Willett Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Leilah Broukhim explores "Traces"

Last evening, the 92Y Resource Center for Jewish Diversity hosted a presentation of excerpts from Traces: A Sephardic Flamenco Journey, a work-in-progress by dancer Leilah Broukhim. A New Yorker of Persian Jewish heritage, Broukhim has lived in Spain for a decade, becoming a performer of distinct style and command. Immersing herself in flamenco on its home turf took "a lot of work, a lot of patience, a lot of humility," she later told her audience in a post-performance Q&A. 

Traces reflects Jewish, Iranian and gitano cultures and derives from Broukhim's quest to "close the circle"--to uncover the meaning of her blended identity in a narrative of her people's exile from Spain and her sense of homecoming. The excerpts were a wonderful promise. Her handsome dancing--with its simmer and its exuberance, with its proud exactitude and its Near Eastern accents--marks her for flamenco royalty.

On hand to provide some deep, delectable sounds were Saray Munoz (vocals), Pedro Cortes (guitar) and Nacho Arimany (percussion) plus--and this was a very big plus--Bahram Ji, Persian singer and master of the santur, whose powerful drive channeled irresistible joy. 

Broukhim envisions the completed work as a multidisciplinary piece with a larger musical corps and a video of art (her mother, painting) linked to the flow of the music. I liked the intimacy (if not the sightlines) of her showing at the Y, and I hope she will resist any temptation to turn Traces into a mega-production. Following the Soledad Barrio/Noche Flamenca model, keeping it reasonably small, spare and close to the audience would be ideal, and I can easily see a successful run at Theater 80 St. Marks, Barrio's usual East Village stomping ground.

Keep watch for news of Broukhim's progress, and I will certainly let you know if I hear anything worth sharing.

Upcoming 92Y dance events of note

Sundays at Three: Lionel Popkin
Sunday, December 12, 3 pm ($10)

The Los Angeles-based dancer and choreographer shows excerpts from two pieces--a section from There Is an Elephant in This Dance (2009), a clever, funny and uncanny dance about how one body can hold multiple identities; and an excerpt from a work-in-progress, Looking for Ruth, as in Ruth St. Denis. A former performer with Trisha Brown, Terry Creach and Stephanie Skura, Popkin has shown his own choreography in Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, Philadelphia and London. Dance Magazine has written that his work “heightened and transformed one’s perception of the theatrical space.” Q&A with Popkin following the performance. 

Dance on Camera: Richard Move

Sunday, December 19, 2:45-5 pm

In collaboration with Dance Films Association, we examine the interaction between dance and the camera. What happens when we put dance behind a lens? Examine how the filmmaker’s intention can guide everything from lighting to choreography. Joining us is downtown icon and Martha Graham-impersonator-extraordinaire, Richard Move. Move has danced with and choreographed for Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rasta Thomas, Debbie Harry, Shirley Bassey and the Martha Graham Dance Company. He has also made several films: Bardo, which earned a Jury Prize nomination in the 2009 Dance on Camera Festival; Bloodwork--The Ana Mendieta Story, which won a National Board of Review award; and Ghostlight, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The 92nd Street Y

1395 Lexington Avenue, Manhattan (directions)

212-415-5500

In search of mavericks

John McClain might say he never claimed to be one. Sarah Palin might give it a bad name. But La MaMa still loves mavericks. This week, you can visit the La MaMa Moves Festival and see who--among a bevy of choreographers across four shared Mavericks in Motion programs--deserves to wear the label with pride.

I'm going to cast an early vote for a couple of handsome Cunningham dancers, Rashaun Mitchell and his collaborator/dance partner Silas Riener, who showed Nocturnal Excerpts, a work-in-progress. Telfar Clemens's costumes turn them into a couple of vaguely disheveled, modern-day Pierrots, and Mitchell's movement ideas disturb and contort any conventional notion of what human bodies can do. Riener, in particular, is a compelling presence and mover, and it will be interesting to see where these guys take this duet.

If you missed Mitchell and Riener last night, try for Saturday's show (8pm), which also includes offerings by Benjamin Asriel, Myra Bazell w/ SCRAP, David Capps, Luke Gutgsell (partnering the fascinating Elise Knudson), and Lionel Popkin & Robert Een.

Mavericks in Motion programming concludes this Sunday evening. The festival continues through June 20.

Complete La MaMa Moves festival schedule

Tickets

La MaMa E.T.C.
First Floor Theatre
74a East 4th Street (near 2nd Avenue), Manhattan

A craving for Popkin

Since one of my dearest friends performs in Lionel Popkin's There Is An Elephant In This Dance--brought in from the West Coast and opened, last evening, at Danspace Project--I won't write a review. But I can urge you to go to see this delectable, dreamy, poetic, luminous thing, continuing tonight and Saturday at 8:30. Expect the unexpected!

Performances by Popkin and Carolyn Hall, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Peggy Piacenza. Original music by Robert Een, performed by Een with percussionist Hearn Gadbois and singer Valecia Phillips. Costumes by Jean Landry. Lighting by Kathy Kaufmann. Video by Kyle Ruddick and Cari Ann Shim Sham*. All deserve a shout-out!

Information and tickets or 866-811-4111