New York Live Arts presents Westwater's "Rambler, Worlds Worlds A Part"

Choreographer Kathy Westwater
opened Rambler, Worlds Worlds A Part
last evening at New York Live Arts
in a co-presentation with Lumberyard.

Kathy Westwater
Rambler, Worlds Worlds A Part
New York Live Arts
(co-presented with Lumberyard Center for Film and Performing Arts)
February 14-16

It is our universal capacity for pain, and our histories of pain, that offer us hope of ever giving a damn about another being--or even just recognizing the value of doing so. Created by Kathy Westwater and her dancers, Rambler, Worlds Worlds A Part, deliberately inflicts nearly unrelenting discomfort and disorder. For the ears, the driven discordance of the late composer Julius Eastman, filled perhaps with the pain of being Black and queer in this society but even more with Black, queer defiance and zest. For the eyes, seven bodies propelled out of everyday, conventional function--how we look, how we walk, when we are doing the things we are asked to do--into states of less rational, conventional control. 

When the audience wanders in to take seats, dancers are already in view, attending to one another in preparation for what their bodies will endure (and achieve). I watched this process during a showing of excerpted material Westwater held at Gibney (a showing, as it happens, that in no way prepared me for the ultimate weight of this production). This time, at the New York Live Arts premiere, I did not enter until very shortly before the dance proper began. So I missed almost all of this prelude. But I remembered its importance and kind of felt it in the air as the dancers rose and moved away from view.

With a dimming of the lights, they returned--a few taking seats in easy chairs tucked into downstage corners; the first explorer, Rakia Seaborn, slowly placing one foot, then the other, in front of her as if testing how, and if, her Black body could relate to the white floor gleaming beneath it.

On either side of the space, pianists began to apply intensity, sharp against ear and mind. One by one, or in duos or groupings, dancers began to layer the space with roughly off-centered, loosely flung and floppy movement tumbling in front of a wide backdrop, Roderick Murray's lighting only slightly revealing ashy streaks rising from a dark, murky surface. Like Westwater's enigmatic title, Seung Jae Lee's visual design compels interest but dances forever out of reach. By the end of the hour-plus piece, past a moment of diminished intensity and complexity, we see things more clearly but still do not gain reliable understanding of what we are seeing.

The work of some dancers stood out for me--Alex Romania, vividly bearing down into giving way into seamless motion; Paul Singh letting his backbone slip; Thomas F. DeFrantz eventually slowing the rush of matters to find his hips, find himself, find his life in the midst of chaos. And, although his gift to the work is relatively brief, countertenor M. Lamar introducing an ambiguity that can be both a place of rest and of lush articulation.

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Choreographed by Kathy Westwater in collaboration with
the performers

Directed by Kathy Westwater

Performed by Ilona Bito, Thomas F. DeFrantz, Alex Romania,
Rakia Seaborn, Stacy Lynn Smith, Paul Singh and Kathy Westwater

Music by Julius Eastman, performed by Joseph Kubera and
Adam Tendler, with Patrick Gallagher and others; and
M. Lamar, performed by M. Lamar

Set and Visual Design by Seung Jae Lee

Lighting Design by Roderick Murray

Costumes by fufu

Dramaturgy by Melanie George

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Rambler, Worlds Worlds A Part continues through tomorrow with performances at 7:30. For information and tickets, click here.

Visitor Information/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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Lumberyard: Japan's Kei Takei returns with "LIGHT"

Kei Takei solo in LIGHT, Part 8
(photos: Kate Enman)

I remember Japanese choreographer Kei Takei from back in the 1970s when her company made its home in New York, and I used to think of her as "that woman who dances in diapers." Her vision seemed to arise from an earthly environment--she called her troupe Kei Takei's Moving Earth--but also from the humility and scrappiness inspired by watching and feeling and loving the elements of Earth. And, she's no different now at age whatever--which I hear she does not reveal--after many years of being off the New York scene.

Kei Takei's Moving Earth Orient Sphere has opened a season at New York Live Arts, launching this year's Lumberyard in the City Winter Festival. (BTW, while we debate PS 122's re-branding, surely it's time for Lumberyard to retire this festival's clumsy name.)  I was excited to reacquaint myself with Takei's work, which I recalled from the early days of my dance writing career. It felt amazing to revisit her solo from LIGHT, PART 8 (1974) in which this small, scampering character continuously ties fresh white garments to her body, growing into a bulbous, immobile mess that must be carried away by stagehands. The direct, naked lighting on all that white fabric--layered on so thickly--made my eyes sting. Honestly, I don't remember what I made of this absurd, caustic solo back in the day, but last night I wanted to burst out laughing. The opening night audience gazed at it quietly and responded to it, and the ensemble work LIGHT, Part 44 (Bamboo Forest), with reserve and polite applause.

Takei is as funny as a clown...with purpose. Like a clown, she puts her whole body into it. This physical investment you can't help but feel--or, at least, I can't--and that's what made me want to laugh. At the same time, I realize that here she is, an artist of movement, tying herself up and weighing herself down with things she does not need--whether they are material objects or useless ideas or restrictions. Fill in the blank, as I'm sure she'd want us to do. We've all been there. We could be there today, as could our world.

Takei, center, and members of her troupe
in LIGHT, Part 44
(photo: Kate Enman)

LIGHT, Part 44 (Bamboo Forest), a work from 2016 making its US premiere, opened the evening, danced here by Takei and eleven others. About this work, Takei has written:

To me, a bamboo forest is a mystical place. In it something is born, grows, and then vanishes. I am not trying to express anything in particular in "BAMBOO FOREST." It is simply that bamboo, whether it is giant or small, enchants and entices me. I follow it into its world.

And so she does, and so do we, something that we come to understand as the work concludes after a full hour of watching dancers mass, split apart, reorganize themselves into separate organic segments each with its focus, drive and rhythm, turning the single stage space into a tapestry of distinct and changeable dimensions, a living, breathing, regenerating forest. The work--with a minimalist set by Renta Kochi and rich music by Seiichiro Sou--deals with nature's cycles in which we, as mortal beings, partake.

Takei has been bringing to the stage her magnum opus LIGHT--in its numerous autonomous sections, now up to 45--since the late 1960s. She's an impressive elder and shows no sign of any interest, or need, to slow down or break focus.

Kei Takei's Moving Earth Orient Sphere continues tonight and Saturday night with performances at 8pm. For information and tickets for this and other Lumberyard in the City Winter Festival shows at New York Live Arts through February 10, click here.

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

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