Bush and Helstroffer: To dream without cease

The Himalayan imagery on display in Chelsea's classy Rubin Museum of Art has found a champion in Nadine Helstroffer, a French-born dancer-choreographer with a Ph.D. in Philosophy. Helstroffer's commissioned solo, Absence Presence, was premiered in the Rubin's special exhibition gallery, surrounded by Eternal Presence: Handprints and Footprints in Buddhist Art. The record of that performance--filmed by John Bush, edited with exquisite sensitivity by Brent Felker--received its world premiere last night at the Rubin along with another Bush film scored by Felker, the quite enchanting Dream on Me.

Helstroffer's snaky dancing evokes the couple's shared spirituality and pleasure in nature; her perpetually inward expression gives a poetic, even solemn flavor to her work. But she is not just Bush's ethereal muse but also his anchor. Like the hyper-energized, exalted beings at the center of the Tibetan images that flicker through Absence Presence, Helstroffer acts as the radiant core from which Bush's loveliest light can flow in the dream-inspired Dream on Me. The ripples of reflections in water; the deep, resonant clang of super-saturated color; the languorous bobbing of blossom-laden trees in lingering moments of drowsy beauty and gentle humor: They all seem sourced and grounded in this iconic performer.

A flowing composite of the four seasons, Dream on Me hits a jarring, undreamy note only when surf-side passages too closely resemble slick, New Age magazine ads for yoga retreats. But, overall, strategies for overlapping color-bearing dancers with natural or manufactured environments speak to the complexity of notions of permanence and impermanence. What is eternal? What is fleeting? Rigid skyscrapers? Mounds of snow? Wafting saffron banners? Elusively drifting bodies of flesh and bone?

A Q&A followed the screening in which Helstroffer and Bush were joined on stage by Michael Vincent Miller, PhD, a Buddhist psychotherapist. Miller offered thoughtful insights--about engagement with and consideration of art, about empathetic surrender in the moment, about the similarities between wellness in health and in art--that he made me wonder if the future of really useful dance criticism might not actually lie in Buddhist psychotherapy!

For more information on the work of John Bush and Nadine Helstroffer, click here and here.

For more information on the Rubin Museum of Art and a schedule of upcoming events--including the impressive BRAINWAVE series, pairing artists with neuroscientists and astrophysicists--click here.

Becoming Intimate with the Body: Awareness in Stillness and Motion

I'm happy to pass along the following announcement for one my Body and Soul podcast interviewees, Nadine Helstroffer. To hear my interview with Nadine, click here.

--Eva

****************

New York Insight Meditation Center presents a day-long retreat with Nadine Helstroffer and Sandra Weinberg--Becoming Intimate with the Body: Awareness in Stillness and Motion.

Saturday, February 16, 10am–5 pm
Fee: $40
28 West 27th Street, 10th floor, Manhattan
Phone: 212-213-4802
E-mail: nyinsight@earthlink.net

This day is an opportunity to enjoy getting to know yourself in your body. As we tune into the spaciousness inside and outside the body, we come closer to our true nature. Building on the foundation of mindfulness practice, we will engage in a joyful and challenging form of inquiry in both stillness and movement. We will shift our awareness from concepts about the body to the arising and falling of each moment to moment experience. The four postures of body--sitting, standing, moving, and lying down--will be the place of exploration of our grasping and letting go.

NADINE HELSTROFFER

A Buddhist practitioner and a New York-based dancer-choreographer, Nadine Helstroffer has directed workshops in France, Canada, Korea, and the United States. In 1998 she founded the Resonance Body workshop, which explores the link between meditation and movement. She has been presenting her workshop at the Zen Center of New York City, the New School University and Bowling Green State University, Ohio. Vajra Realm, a dance pilgrimage with Nadine filmed in Central Tibet, was released in January 2007 and distributed by WGBH Boston/PBS as a special feature on the DVD Vajra Sky Over Tibet by John Bush. In collaboration with John, she is preparing the feature-length dance art film Schimmer, a meditation on impermanence.

SANDRA WEINBERG

Sandra Weinberg is a co-founder, member of the Teachers Council, and Board of Directors of NYI. She has studied and practiced mindfulness meditation for over 25 years and is a graduate of the first Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leaders Program. Sandra has taught insight meditation at NYI, the New York Open Center, City University of New York and elsewhere. She is a psychotherapist in private practice in New York City.

Nadine Helstroffer: Body and Soul podcast

Nadine Helstroffer is one of dance's treasures--a poetic, luminous performer whose choreography reflects her insight into life, nature and spirituality. She has been a good friend for many years, and I'm pleased to present an interview we recorded in the summer of 2007 in the home she shares with filmmaker John Bush. Among other things, Nadine and I talked about their experiences filming in Tibet, and I urge you to follow the links for more information about all of John and Nadine's projects.

GUEST BIO

Nadine Helstroffer, French-born, has been presenting her choreography in the U.S., Canada and France since 1981. Her work includes “Clock Lock,” “Threshold” and “Earthbound.” She has taught dance and directed workshops in France, Korea and the U.S. Since 1998 she has been leading the BodyResonance Workshop which explores the link between meditation and movement. She has been presenting her workshop at the Zen Center of NYC, the New School University, New York Insight Meditation Society and Bowling Green State University.

Ms. Helstroffer obtained a doctorate in philosophy under the direction of Daniel Charles of the Sorbonne (Subject: An Innovative Approach to Dance) at Nanterre University/Paris-X, France, in 1980. Her academic interests in Eastern philosophies and her exposure to the East through her dance career have guided her toward an integration of Eastern philosophies and Western movements. She collaborated with composers Yas Jaz from Sankai Juku Company, Philip Fraser (devotee of Shri Shri Ravi Shankar) and David Hykes, founder of the Harmonic Choir.

In New York, the Rubin Museum of Art commissioned her 30-minute solo piece, “Absence Presence,” performed in the gallery of the exhibition "Handprints and Footprints of Buddhist Art" in 2005 and filmed by John Bush. She was also invited by the museum to dance her choreography as part of a performance by Hykes's Harmonic Choir.

She has worked in collaboration with filmmaker John Bush on a 40-minute dance film-- “Shimmer”--shot entirely outdoors in New York City. An excerpt--"Portal"--has been screened at Galapagos Art Space, curated by the experimental film group Ocularis, and has had a special screening at the 2006 High Falls Film Festival.

“Vajra Realm,” a dance pilgrimage with Nadine Helstroffer filmed in Central Tibet, was released in January 2007 as a special feature on the DVD “Vajra Sky Over Tibet,” the third film of the “Yatra Trilogy” by John Bush. It is distributed by WGBH Boston.

For additional information on “Vajra Realm” and all of Ms. Helstroffer's work, visit Direct Pictures at http://www.directpictures.com/.

LINK:

http://www.directpictures.com/


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

MP3 File

Franceoff! Danceoff!

Only a smidgen of my memory of Franceoff!Danceoff!--presented last night at PS 122 in conjunction with Crossing the Line: FIAF Fall Festival--survived a good night's sleep. I'm a fan of curators Terry Dean Bartlett and Katie Workum, but this was not their finest hour-and-a-half.

I did enjoy filmmaker John Bush's opener--Zephyr--with its altered-state clarity of color and depth and its breathless, innocent whimsy. Choreography by French-born Nadine Helstroffer--danced by Helstroffer, Patti Bradshaw and Celeste Hastings--featured a trio of sleepy, wind-ruffled blossoms in the green soul of the city.

Franceoff!Danceoff then veered off into the hyper, the slight and the murky--except for Laura Peterson's Security, a piece I almost dismissed on first sight as a trifle. Katie Harris, Christopher Hutchins, Kate Martel and Peterson--all clad in black-and-pink striped costumes, pale panties with rows of ruffles across the butt, and serious kneepads--entered the space on all fours and began to crisply pad to and fro across the floor to the sound of an Eartha Kitt tune, moving their limbs and heads as if they were little mechanical dogs. I was prepared to file this under Cutesy, and it was cute but not without actual humor--a big distinction these days. In a little doggy interaction--sometimes flirtatious, sometimes standoffish--between Peterson's and Christopher Hutchings's mercurial facial expressions have genuine sly humor. Guess that title refers to the most recent airport security concerns, huh? Timely!