Imprinting (Dan)space: Tendayi Kuumba and Samita Sinha

Left: Tendayi Kuumba (photo: Angie Vasquez)
Right: Samita Sinha (photo: Aram Jibilian)

A shared evening of new work by Tendayi Kuumba and Samita Sinha
Danspace Project
April 25 and April 27, 2019

collective terrain/s is a collective research process into sounding in the body. How does the body open up possibilities for voice and resistance? What resonances in the voice and body exist beyond language?

 --from Danspace Project

As part of an evening organized by collective terrain/s, composer and vocalist Samita Sinha--with numerous collaborating vocalists of cultural diversity--creates a force field of sonic energy to surround an audience informally positioned at the center, not the perimeter, of the performance space. Infinity Folds is vocal music in motion, a lovely, luscious gift that makes you the focus of a meditative sonic bath and massage, your aura tingling. It's marvelously coordinated as the circle of vocalists shape and move breath--moans and drones, trills and low roars--into the outer air, using softly-adjusted bodies as tuning devices. You absorb the circling and circling soundscape that builds, pulses, overlaps, presses towards listeners and then ebbs, flares in spots, sometimes drops away entirely. Set in the sacred and justice-conscious space of St. Mark's Church, this loving ritual feels and sounds so right. You might never want it to end. [Performed by Regina Bain, Rina Espiritu, Fana Fraser, Yingjia Lemon Guo, Chaesong Kim, Risha Lee, Okwui Okpokwasili, lily bo shapiro, Samita Sinha, Sheena Sood and Helen Yung]

Somewhere in the midst of U.F.O.:(Unidentified Fly Objects), made and performed by Tendayi Kuumba in creative collaboration with Greg Purnell, an intermittent projection flashes against an upper corner of the church's wall. It images a patch of cloudy sky lit up by the glow of lightning. Kuumba's formidably quirky self-presentation gives way to something simply majestic, and you realize: this unpredictable, kinda scary woman is lightning. Folding, writhing, recoiling, she lights up the night with pure energy coursing through every stretch of her without impediment. The piece--accompanied by Purnell, seated at a desk, working a soundboard and providing a strong, rumbling ostinato--also features Kuumba's vocals. In body and voice--and soul--she is jazz.

We already whole, she sings. Even through the rain/somehow we always maintain.

We already home.

Purnell sings with her.

Can't break my soul.

Now hear that!

Choreography: Tendayi Kuumba
Creative concepts, lighting, dramaturgy, set design and songwriting/musical composition created with collaborator Greg Purnell

collective terrain/s is organized by Lydia Bell, Jasmine Hearn and Tatyana Tenenbaum. To learn more about collective terrain/s's activities and the series' publication--designed by collective please--click here.

A shared evening of new work by Tendayi Kuumba and Samita Sinha concludes tomorrow (Saturday) with a performance at 8pm. For the best effects, come a bit early to get a prime seat in the center, though you can also sit along the church's risers. For information and tickets, click here.

Danspace Project

131 East 10th Street (at Second Avenue), 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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My Eiko journal: Part 5

Eiko's A Body in Places
Conversation Without Walls: Bearing Witness
Friday, March 11 -- 4pm

Commemorating the fifth anniversary of Japan's triple disaster--earthquake, tsunami, nuclear reactor meltdown--Eiko Otake and Danspace Project convened three rounds of hour-long conversations as part of A Body in Places. Scholars, activists and artists such as luciana achugar, Yoshiko Chuma, Koosil-ja, Katja Kolcio and William Johnston, offered contextual information on the ongoing crisis of nuclear waste and displacement in Fukushima. Presenting and responding speakers provided insight into the necessity and challenges of artistic response to this great loss as well as the numerous traumas of our planet.

I was fascinated to learn that the people of Fukushima, a site of Japan's neolithic culture, had preserved ancient folk and shamanic practices, a strong interest of mine.  Fukushima, impoverished and precarious, was long considered an expendable "sacrifice zone," a backwater targeted for industrialization and nuclear reactor construction.  Around 100,000 people were displaced from their homes by the disaster, and there's little hope that this area can ever be restored to normalcy.

Johnston's large photographs of Eiko dancing at affected sites in Fukushima and elsewhere filled the floor and risers at the sanctuary of St. Mark's. In the short breaks between conversation sessions, I tried to get around to see as many of these images as I could, and each one pierced my heart. As noted in the discussions, they are rigorous, exceedingly beautiful compositions but devastating to see. And they underscored what I've been learning about Eiko and her purpose--that her practice is shamanic in its resistance to and disruption of the daily current of time, in its ability to bridge apparent gaps of distance, bringing Fukushima to New York, and not just in Johnston's brilliant photographs but throughout her work in the world.

Someone described Eiko's performance as "a prophetic form of mourning" not just for Fukushima but for all the suffering that surrounds us now and the suffering that is to come. And dance artist achugar spoke of resisting "the tyranny of the [linear] arrow of time" and "the illusion of separation." Eiko, herself, spoke of how "distance becomes malleable." Collapsing distance--of time, of geography, of minds, of hearts--is her special gift with which she has bewitched and inspired us throughout A Body in Places.

******

Read My Eiko journal: 

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

*****

Eiko's A Body in Places platform continues at Danspace Project and other venues through March 23. There's so much going on in this platform's programming, that Danspace Project is actually offering consultation with a docent to help you get your bearings. Really. For detailed information, click here.

Danspace Project
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street (at Second Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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My Eiko journal: Part 4

Eiko's A Body in Places
Tuesday, March 8 -- 7pm

Tonight is not necessarily about linking the work of Eiko and DonChristian but considering their perspectives side by side. Through this intergenerational conversation around institutionalized forms of violence and inequality, I hope we can reach a more nuanced and empathetic understanding of our present moment.

--Lydia Bell, co-curator of Danspace Project's A Body in Places

DonChristian in Remembering "Egg Box"
The rapper and painter was a guest artist
for Eiko's A Body in Places platform at St. Mark's Church.
photos (c)2016, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Although he studied with Eiko at Wesleyan University, DonChristian--painter, rap/R&B artist and producer--does not claim to be, in his words, "a mover." For her part, Eiko eshews the label "professor," preferring to think of herself as "a working artist who teaches." However they identify themselves, the non-academic likely approves of the way the non-dancer surveyed the difficult realities faced by young Black men at risk in a violent America in his short solo Remembering "Egg Box".

DonChristian, a guest artist for Eiko's A Body in Places platform at Danspace Project, journeyed through Eiko's installation in St. Mark's sanctuary. Stooped and vibrating, he crept down the sanctuary steps, around its outskirts, among canvases hung to serve as video screens, past costumes and props from Eiko's various solos. These items laid down a pathway--or a gentle, atmospheric surround--with a touch of ritual magic to their presence.

DonChristian at St. Mark's Church
photos (c)2016, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

He surveyed as a barefoot youth pulling thick rope behind him, a rope tied around his waist and, with our history, there can be no mistaking the significance of Black Man + Rope.  He might be an Eiko-styled ghost-in-places or, at best, an escapee--the rope remaining, though.

A few surprising musical accents--Anita Baker's "Caught Up in the Rapture" and Antonio Carlos Jobim's "A Felicidade" from Black Orpheus--infuse the solo with an air of sensuality and tenderness. "Escape," then, suggests the slipping of imposed, internalized restraints that bind body and mind, the offer of a freer way for Black men to see themselves and interact in the world.

DonChristian,
circling back to the sanctuary steps,
claims a place of power.
photo (c)2016, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

I wished for better clarity of sound for DonChristian's vocals, but he and Eiko made their meanings clear later in the post-performance chat moderated by Danspace Project's Lydia Bell. Guest curator Shin Otake--son of Eiko and Koma, and DonChristian's friend at Wesleyan--also spoke of the interconnection of state violence and intimate violence: "No violent incident is isolated [but is] embedded, generation to generation, in our DNA." 

Eiko and DonChristian share an interest in getting at the root of this trauma, a wound central to the American origin story and so many stories around the world. "Her practice alone makes me want to work harder," he said. She taught him to "find the light, feel the light that's on your body." When he felt daunted by the invitation to create a responding solo for the platform, she encouraged him. "She told me, 'Make this work thinking that I'm your aunt.' She's an extension of my family."

Yes, and by the time A Body in Places concludes in a few more weeks, we'll all feel that way about Eiko.

*****

Read My Eiko journal: 

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

*****

Eiko's A Body in Places platform continues at Danspace Project and other venues through March 23. There's so much going on in this platform's programming, that Danspace Project is actually offering consultation with a docent to help you get your bearings. Really. For detailed information, click here.

Danspace Project
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street (at Second Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

If you like what you're reading,

subscribe to InfiniteBody!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Infinitebody

My Eiko journal: Part 3

Eiko's A Body in Places
Saturday, March 5 -- 7-10pm

It was disconcerting to see Eiko with a bandaged sprained arm--the result of a trip and fall at home. But she still danced, still valiantly surveyed, on this Saturday evening in St. Mark's Church along with invited soloists--Michelle Boulé, Beth Gill, Neil Greenberg, Koma Otake, Jimena Paz, Arturo Vidich and Geo Wyeth. Each soloist took a piece of the church--Koma, on the porch in his filmy-thin costume, braving the cold night air; Greenberg commandeering one side of the balcony; Gill inchworming her way all around the sanctuary's carpeted risers--over the course of three hours.

Members of the audience, armed with a site map and schedule, curated their individual experiences. But, clearly, everyone wanted to see everything--or as much of everything as logistics will allow. That meant trying to get over to a tiny space--say, the reportedly-haunted Priest's Room--in time to squeeze yourself in with a dozen other people as Vidich struck and vibrated church bells. His solemn performance, though simple in form, rivaled only Paz's stark, crow-like expressionism for beauty.

Overall, this evening proved to be a fragmentary experience--chaotic, impossible, a nightmare for the claustrophobic but interesting for not only dancer-watching at various angles but watcher-watching. It was funny to run into an old friend who mentioned the same phenomenon--enjoying the unusual vantage points for looking at how people look at the dancing they're looking at.

*****

Read My Eiko journal: 

Part 1
Part 2

*****

Eiko's A Body in Places platform continues at Danspace Project and other venues through March 23. There's so much going on in this platform's programming, that Danspace Project is actually offering consultation with a docent to help you get your bearings. Really. For detailed information, click here.

Danspace Project
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street (at Second Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

If you like what you're reading,

subscribe to InfiniteBody!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Infinitebody

My Eiko journal: Part 2

Eiko's A Body in Places
Wednesday, March 2

11:30am Delicious Movement workshop

I arrived a tad late but slipped off my shoes, got down on the floor with everyone else and took part in the second of Eiko's weekly Delicious Movement workshops at St. Mark's Church, learning so much about the genesis of her work. I enjoyed her focus on words like "surveying" and "landscape." The thought of every part and every millimeter of the body being unique terrain to be slowly surveyed, with the aid of the floor or a partner's body, effortlessly liberates the imagination. For the first time, I understand why she calls this movement "delicious." And Eiko is wickedly, wickedly funny! If you have only seen her perform, could you have guessed that?

May she get her wish to go the UN and teach Obama and Putin Delicious Movement, the critical aesthetic of hesitation! I'm grateful to Danspace Project for giving all of us this chance to get to know her better.

3pm Eiko solo

Can Eiko just stay in the East Village indefinitely and continue to reveal it? Please secure funding.

Yesterday, we walked south on Second Avenue and turned on Seventh Street into the office entrance of Middle Collegiate Church. We found Eiko sprawled on the floor of a brightly-lit meeting room where crimson fabric spilled against cream-colored tiles.

Eiko at Middle Collegiate Church
photos (c)2016, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

In the past, I might have written that Eiko made achingly-slow, minute "adjustments." After taking her workshop, I found the idea of "adjusting" too brain-oriented and deliberate for something that arises from discovery in the complex, intimate relationship of surfaces--body to floor, body to fabric. When force or sudden movement arises, it's like a dash of strong color across canvas or spice dropped into the recipe.

She worked that red stream, burying her face in it, gently pulling it to her, reaching into it, giving a sudden tug that reduced it to a puffy triangle. She crawled a bit and then withdrew with the fabric cascading from her chin to the floor. She protected it, perhaps, hid behind it in another moment. She struggled, finally smacking it against a blank white space on the wall where a film could have been projected. At one point, I got a good look at the fabric and noticed holes and tattered edges.

Here's a moment of Eiko walking against the carpet of the church's sanctuary where she took us next:

Eiko in Middle Collegiate Church sanctuary
photo (c)2016, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Eiko's bits of business with a half-filled bowl of water, a sheet ripped from a presentation pad and the church's piano filled time in the church's handsome, empty sanctuary. That is all. But look at Eiko approaching light at the front door:

Eiko approaches Middle Collegiate's front entrance.
photos (c)2016, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Here, with the incipient emergence of her body into the light and rush of the street, the solo took on tension and poignancy.

Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect...and Eiko
photo (c)2016, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

*****

Read My Eiko journal: Part 1 here.

*****

Eiko's A Body in Places platform continues at Danspace Project and other venues through March 23. There's so much going on in this platform's programming, that Danspace Project is actually offering consultation with a docent to help you get your bearings. Really. For detailed information, click here.

Danspace Project
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street (at Second Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

If you like what you're reading,

subscribe to InfiniteBody!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Infinitebody

My Eiko journal: Part 1

Flower from Eiko
(photo: Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

Eiko's A Body in Places
Tuesday, March 1 -- 12pm

For my initial engagement with A Body in Places--Danspace Project's massive, multifaceted new platform--I join a group of people assembled at the gate of St. Mark's Church and await word of where to meet dance soloist Eiko. At noon, Danspace staff guide us across Second Avenue to a corner by Liquiteria, the juice/smoothies emporium. And there is Eiko, perched on Liquiteria's outdoor bench, wrapped in clothing of thin, vulnerable fabrics and a small comforter, feet in flipflops, scant defense against the late-winter chill. I'm certain that if my neighborhood noticed her at all, people would assume her to be homeless and pay no mind.

Those of us gathered with a purpose, though, we're rapt. This is Eiko who inserts her dancing body into places and makes you think about things you usually do not see. Eiko whose way of creating a separate channel for time adds dimension to the everyday. Stop and think. Stop and feel. Stop.

We stop. Gaze at her. She gazes back. She rises, silently draws us around the corner. She curves her comforter up into the air; her reach is small, vulnerable. She crouches near the pavement, near a parked taxicab, its driver alert to the presence of a woman with claw-like fingers and comforter lined in royal purple. She bunches it up against the bark of a tree. She bunches it up against her face and appears to grieve.

Arching. Stretching. Twisting. Trotting. Sudden cracks of hard slipper heels against concrete and garbage cans. Pretty soon, drivers stopped in traffic are looking; pedestrians, stopping and looking.

Ha-hah! Made you look!

Her ultimate destination? Kathy Kemp's tiny clothing and jewelry design boutique, ANNA, at 330 East 11th Street. Eiko has placed a few white flowers on the ground by the storefront. Some flowers will end up in her mouth, their petals spit out and scattered. She's less squeamish than I would be on these seriously skanky streets. She staggers, flinging petals, a stem. She heads through ANNA's screen door, most of her audience in tow.

We arrange ourselves around a small, rectangular table draped with several gold necklaces draped across it. We file past a rack of clothes, wondering how Eiko chose this delicate site and negotiated its use. Kemp stands by with her charming little dog resting quietly in her arms, its neck wrapped in chunky pearls.

Eiko fits herself into narrow space between curtained dressing rooms. We watch her and her reflection in the mirror. Beneath a sheer, dark tunic, she reveals the pink and salmon print of her underskirt. She emerges from this slot in space, pushes past a rack of clothes, tottering backward, humming to herself.

She seems alien, her body language foreign to these parts, her regard of her surroundings a sorrowful one on its way to self-abasement and erasure since it cannot accept what it perceives. Anyway, that's what I get and, at the same time, I'm feeling the following: "These fabrics and colors are really kinda nice. I wonder how much...."

The solo winding down, Eiko draws us back out into the noise of school kids at recess. She holds a flower out to me, and I take it. I realize that I want it. Very much. I'm hoping I won't have to give it back. And, as it happens, I won't have to. That makes me inexplicably happy. I'll take it home, just around the corner, down the avenue.

Eiko looks into traffic, crosses the street, does what I expected she would do. At first, her presence at the schoolyard fence seems to make the kids drift off. But, after a while, they watch before Eiko turns to us and sort of shoos us away before disappearing eastward.

*****

My Eiko journal will continue with reflections on Eiko's Delicious Movement workshop today and another site-specific A Body in Places solo in an undisclosed location. Check back for more.

*****

Eiko's A Body in Places platform continues at Danspace Project and other venues through March 23. There's so much going on in this platform's programming, that Danspace Project is actually offering consultation with a docent to help you get your bearings. Really. For detailed information, click here.

Danspace Project
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street (at Second Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

If you like what you're reading,

subscribe to InfiniteBody!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Infinitebody

Join Danspace Project's Twitter party on arts activism, volunteerism

Lydia Bell of Danspace Project and Jason Maas of The Artist Volunteer Center will discuss the state of arts activism post-Hurricane Sandy via Twitter this Friday, November 15 from 4-5pm. 

Join the conversation by directing questions and thoughts to @DanspaceProject and @TheAVCenter using the hashtag #precariousart.

For information on Danspace Project's Performing the Precarious: Cut Piece program, click here.

Unemployed artists wanted for performance

Just received the following call from Lydia Bell:

Call to Unemployed Artists

I am seeking 3 unemployed artists for a week-long project in September. You must be unemployed, comfortable with performing, and have an active artistic practice.

I will pay you minimum wage ($7.25/hour) for a full day of work on Monday, September 7 (Labor Day).

From 9am-5pm we will work collaboratively on an improvisational score that addresses employment, artistic practice, and marketable skills. No prior performance or dance experience necessary--I will introduce artists to basic choreographic and improvisatory concepts.

Must also be free and able to perform the afternoon of Sunday, September 13 at an outdoor performance art festival in Williamsburg. This is phase II in the project work for pay, made possible in part by FEAST (Funding Emerging Art with Sustainable Tactics). If you are interested in participating or want more information, contact me: lydia.m.bell@gmail.com. You can also check out my website/blog.