Barnard Dances at Miller

Barnard College Department of Dance, under chair and artistic director Mary Cochran, has commissioned new works by renowned choreographers Kyle Abraham, Faye Driscoll, Jill Johnson and Jon Kinzel for its student performers. 

Barnard Dances at Miller
Friday, April 29, 7pm
Saturday, April 30, 2pm and 7pm

For more information, click here.

Tickets: $20; $12 with Columbia University ID
To purchase, call 212-854-7799

Miller Theater
2960 Broadway (at 116th Street), Manhattan
(map)

The audacity of Leichter

The Barnard Project--a collaboration of Dance Theater Workshop and Barnard College's dance department--brings students together with some of the foxiest choreographers around. The artistic residency program culminates in a season of new and developing works at DTW, and this year's lineup features pieces by Morgan Thorson (Minneapolis), Nora Chipaumire, Susan Rethorst and Nicholas Leichter.

Thorson's Monuments and Other Points of Interest: A Revisionist Construction of Closeness deploys an ensemble of bare-legged, skittering, sloshing women in bonnets that look like a soft-blue version of what the Sisters of Charity nuns wear in Doubt. There are also long tables wrapped in blue ruffled skirts, and I really can't tell what's going on here, but I enjoyed the tickling, eccentric musicality of the movements. Chipaumire's bismillah (which means, "in the name of Allah") evokes a tight-knit community of women. Among its subtle graces is the way the choreographer--herself, an extraordinary performer--has taught her young dancers to articulate the muscles in their torsos. Rethorst has shaped her corps of dancers into an ecosystem in a piece marred only by a tendency towards cutesiness. All three of these choreographers seem to be dreaming up societies and have shaped respectable, if not yet exciting, works out of these imaginings.

And then there's Leichter's Waltzes, Wonder and First Choice--made "with additional choreography and assistance by Aaron Draper"--which is a little bit different.

For one thing, it has a high-charged pop soundtrack--Mariah Carey and John Legend's "Born Again," Alicia Keys's "Falling," First Choice's "It's Not Over" and more. It has young men in business shirts and ties paired with women in--uh-oh!--midnight-blue party dresses. And you know exactly what's going on when it starts off with two of these dancing at--instead of with--each other, coldly missing opportunities to touch, hold and connect.

As the businessmen confront their dates--and, sometimes, one another--the mood becomes hectic, desperate and sometimes downright mean. The movement--broad and often awkward to a cartoonish extent--challenges each member of the hardworking corps with the speed and complexity of its isolations. I think Leichter, in working with these fledgling dancers, got the project precisely right. His work always strikes me as raw, almost like outsider art. He tosses street and club and folk stuff in with the fact of doing theatrical dance on a stage, and he refuses to smooth it back. I think these young Barnard dancers click with something there and grab hold and go with it.

The Barnard Project continues this evening at 7:30 and concludes with 2pm and 7:30pm performances on Saturday. Click here for information and ticketing.

Nothing sweet about this salon!

The ladies of Sugar Salon invite you to a...heh-heh..modest, little tea party at Abrons Arts Center, tonight at 8pm. Come see what a trio of freethinking women choreographers can do when given time, space, practical support and the mentorship of Bessie Award-winner Donna Uchizono. Tasteful entertainment will include a wild new theatrical cornucopia from Heather McArdle/BLUEPRINTVIOLATION and a reprise of luciana achugar's Franny & Zooey, one of the bravest dances in memory, which premiered at Tere O'Connor's The Nothing Festival in 2007. (Click here to listen to my podcast interview with achugar and Barnard Dance Department chair Mary Cochran about Sugar Salon.) Reneé Archibald offers a peek at Curtain Wall, a developing work, and one hopes that the brilliant company she's been keeping will keep her moving.

As Apollinaire Scherr would say, just GO!

Information? Click http://www.henrystreet.org/arts
Tickets? 212-352-3101 or click here.

Luciana Achugar and Mary Cochran: Body and Soul podcast

Today, we’ll hear from Mary Cochran (Chair of the Dance Department, Barnard College of Columbia University) and Luciana Achugar (2007 Bessie Award-winning choreographer) about Sugar Salon, a program dedicated to mentoring, commissioning and presenting women at the forefront of contemporary choreography.

GUEST BIOS:

Luciana Achugar

Luciana Achugar is a Brooklyn-based Uruguayan choreographer. After moving to New York upon graduation from Cal Arts in 1995, Achugar danced with several choreographers, including Chameckilerner and John Jasperse. From 1999 to 2003, she worked in a close collaborative relationship with choreographer Levi Gonzalez. Their work was presented in New York by Dixon Place, Movement Research at Judson Church, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Dance-in-Progress at The Kitchen, and at Dance Theater. Achugar has also worked collaboratively with visual artists Marcos Rosales and Michael Mahalchick.

Mary Cochran

Department of Dance Chair and Associate Professor of Professional Practice at Barnard College of Columbia University, Mary Cochran has performed and taught on every continent except Antarctica. A renowned soloist with Paul Taylor Dance Company from 1984-1996, Cochran continues her association with Taylor to this day having completed 19 restagings of his masterworks and as Director of the Paul Taylor School’s Summer and Winter Intensives. Cochran has taught at numerous colleges and conservatories including Mills College, the Juilliard School, University of Michigan, Harvard University, and the North Carolina School of the Arts. She received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee in May of 2005.

UPCOMING EVENT:

See Sugar Salon's performances at Abrons Arts Center (February 15-16), featuring works by the 2007-08 residents: Luciana Achugar ("Franny and Zooey"), Renée Archibald ("Curtain Wall") and Heather McArdle/BLUEPRINTVIOLATION (excerpt from "Ballad of Arrivals & Departures"). Choreographer mentor Donna Uchizono will moderate a post-performance discussion with the artists on Friday, February 15. For full schedule and ticketing details, call 212-352-3101 or visit http://www.theatermania.com.

INFORMATION LINKS:

Department of Dance, Barnard College: http://www.barnard.edu/dance

Williamsburg Art NeXus (WAX): http://www.wax205.com

Abrons Arts Center: http://www.henrystreet.org/arts

Body and Soul is the official podcast of InfiniteBody dance blog at http://infinitebody.blogspot.com. Subscribe through iTunes or at http://magickaleva.hipcast.com/rss/bodyandsoul.xml.

(c)2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

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