Annual Between the Seas festival explores dance

Between the Seas Festival 2014 offered a "preview performance" of a solo by Nejla Yatkin (Turkey) who has forged a broad international career in dance and choreography. What dreams may come, its title sampled from Hamlet's meditation on death, bears Yatkin's stylish stamp. Even at its most mystifying and overextended, it is inhabited by an expressive performer who grasps the visual power of the stage even when she chooses to leave it for a curious walkabout in audience space.

When she first appears, backed by a cavernous soundscape of amplified exhalations, Yatkin can barely be recognized for the low lighting and the stretchy, jet-black cloth that wraps her upperbody. (We're left to ponder the contradiction of this piece of fabric that evokes an anonymizing chador while its bearer goes barelegged.) She pulls against the fabric, which is attached just beyond a doorway onto the stage, and its shadow and hers expand and loom across the back wall. Sometimes star-like flecks skitter across these inky masses. She writhes, twists, folds to the floor, lunges, bends her spine like a bow, makes wings and snakes of her arms to a gentle flow of Near Eastern-sounding melody. Eventually, she frees herself from the restrictive length of cloth, which snaps back into the doorway. The dervish spins, which soon come, seem pat, but if making a lovely impression is what the incredibly striking Yatkin is after, she succeeds.

Does "preview performance" mean that this solo is a work-in-progress or planned as part of a larger work, or that its premiere will happen elsewhere? That's not clear, but brevity would heighten its impact. The segment where where Yatkin appears to test out some potential dancing partners before twining herself around a few unfortunately seems tacked on, coming late in the piece. These interactions--tentative at first, then more comfortable, and finally generously flowing in a duet with a female dancer obviously planted in the audience--convey feeling and a growing desire to connect and be known.

Italy's ASMED-Balletto Teatro di Sardegna presented the world premiere of ARAGOSTA (Lobster), a trio by the Sardinian-born, London-based choreographer Moreno Salinas. Danced in the nude from start to almost finish by Francesca Assiero Brà, Anna Paola Della Chiesa and Rachele Montis, it's a fashion show, of sorts, introduced as such--which creates a bit of a shock when the first "model" strides out completely bare. The models stroll towards and away from the audience, drawing even more attention to their nakedness with nearly continuous (and increasingly monotonous) polyrhythmic body percussion. Variations include poses, gestural and facial expressions and occasional speech in Italian. Like Yatkin's solo, the piece feels overlong but benefits from its performers' focused strength. Salinas' inspiration, designer Elsa Schiaparelli--she who collaborated with Salvador Dalí on her famous Lobster Dress--would be tickled by their moxie and audacity.

Between the Seas, New York's summer festival of performing arts based in the diverse cultures of the Mediterranean, continues through Sunday at The Wild Project. For a schedule and ticketing information, click here.

The Wild Project
195 East 3rd Street (between Avenues A and B), Manhattan
(map/direction)

Wild "Seas" at Wild Project

The annual Between the Seas Festival, directed by Aktina Stathaki, creates opportunities for performing artists from the Mediterranean region to show work as well as connect and collaborate with their counterparts in New York. Now in its third season, the festival runs through Sunday, July 28. On last evening's shared program at a little Lower East Side gallery and performance venue called Wild Project, two dark, intense dance productions made use of the tiny stage space to varying degrees of effectiveness.

D R T or possible other titles!--a world premiere by the Turkish artist Korhan Basarn for Brooklyn's Mari Meade Dance Collective-overcomes its awkward title as well as its copious program notes/manifesto/open letter through fervent performance. One sentence--set off from the rest and rendered in boldface--contains what might be a flash of specific intention: "#brokenangel will be there as an elegy to the ones we recently lost as a victim of violence." This likely alludes to Taksim Square, but audiences must still grapple with the enigma of the dance itself.

D R T opens in silence, with a ritualistic vision: four long-skirted women cupping votive candles close to their hearts, aligned in a row in front of four strapping men in bikini briefs, crouched low with the tops of their heads planted onto the floor. The women advance, carefully stepping off the stage's edge, coming to nestle between the viewers and the stage as they quietly watch the men shamble forward.

The men bear patches of white feathers on their shoulder blades. Streaks of fake blood crust at the base of these vestiges of wings. The men's propulsive movements are heavy, wrenching and torturous. They grapple, sometimes alone, with one another or with a wall. Meade's dancers seize this rough material with eagerness and competence. We might not fully comprehend what's going on here--something about the confinement of embodiment and imperfection, perhaps-- but we understand the dancers' commitment.

The notion of endless struggle gets upended, though, by a reversal of roles and a radical change in tone. The men watch from the edge, and the women regain the stage, the women's interactions leading to frequent catfights and audience amusement. Stranger still is the conclusion--the appearance of an additional wounded man--a dancer not listed in the program but, apparently, the choreographer. His long, spastic thrashings extend an already protracted piece.

Portugal's Pedro Goucha Gomes
(photo courtesy of the artist)

Amongst Millions
Photo by Flavia Zaganelli

By contrast, Pedro Goucha Gomes offers no lengthy manifesto, no compatriots to share the burden. And, in fact, he stands naked before his audience. At the beginning of his solo, he barely moves.

His US premiere work, Amongst Millions, does have strong social justice intent, clearly stated. A few lines of notes refer to Europe's crisis and "feelings of frustration, alienation and fear" among the people of his homeland, Portugal. The notes continue, "The stylized, polite, urban and civilized body is replaced by ...crude expressiveness." True enough, yet that description does not sufficiently convey the extraordinary achievement of this singular and challenging performance.

In everyday life, Gomes has the form, visage and bearing of a knight. He has danced with some of Europe's most notable ballet troupes. Yet the extreme physical tensions in this solo give him the appearance of a man writhing with starvation or suffering torture. His stretchy face grows gaunt. His head morphs into a skeleton's skull with an alternately desperate, manic or lewd grimace of gleaming, terrifying teeth. The soundtrack, starting in a barely perceptible rumble, might issue from inside this frightening head. At times, it blares in volume, complexity and force.

The work, though profoundly disturbing, exerts a hypnotic pull and must be experienced. Gomes performs again on the festival's Thursday performance at 9:30pm, in a program shared with Meade's troupe and Vanessa Tamburi/FLUSSO Dance Project.

For complete program, schedule and ticketing information for Between the Seas, click here.

Wild Project
195 East 3rd Street (between Avenues A and B), Manhattan
(map)

This week, journey "Between the Seas"

Between the Seas Festival, produced and directed by Aktina Stathaki, offers New Yorkers a diverse menu of performers and arts disciplines from all around the Mediterranean region. This year--the festival's second--Italy, Greece, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey and Albania, among other nations, are represented. It's a smashing idea, even though New York's glut of arts festivals--let alone individual arts and entertainment programs--makes it tough for a relative newcomer to establish a toehold.

Ido Tadmor in the Rachel Erdos solo, And Mr. (Photo by Gadi Dagon)

Tonight, it's worth the trip "between the seas"--or almost to Avenue C--for the chance to watch Ido Tadmor, a magnificent Israeli performer, dance in And Mr. (the choreographer's cut) by the British-born, Tel Aviv-based choreographer Rachel Erdos. Having seen this piece last evening, I'm not convinced that the original solo, And Mr., really needed to be expanded into a duet with Stefan Ferry. Stretching that initial half-hour of oddity into an externalized interaction brings out an unwanted preciousness, and it is simply too long. There seems enough Jekyll-and-Hyde duality and gnarliness within the tousled Tadmor alone as he interprets Erdos' stark, lacerating tangles of movement. It's a brilliant performance and, to my mind, Tadmor should be the end of the matter.

Vanessa Tamburi (Italy) and her FLUSSO Dance Project will open the evening again with Lost Rights, an ensemble piece inspired by the work of the late Italian journalist, Maria G. Cutuli, who was killed in Afghanistan. A well-intentioned piece, it nevertheless displays a disconnect between Tamburi's choreography and her stated theme of African women and children suffering poverty, disease, exploitation and abuse. Although the quartet of performers, who learned the piece in just two weeks, give it their all, the projected text and larger-than-life photo portraits--which carry the only connection to the serious theme--distract the eye and overwhelm the dancing.

Between the Seas Festival continues through Sunday, August 26, at Wild Project. Get complete programming and schedule information here.

Wild Project
195 East 3rd Street (between Avenues A and B), Manhattan
(map/directions)