Live Ideas presents Radouan Mriziga's "~55"

Radouan Mriziga
(photo: Benjamin Boar)

Fascinated by an artisan’s gestures in which movement is organized to serve production, Mriziga uses his body like a tool to play with perspective and audience expectations. What emerges is an ancient symbol bearing new meaning, questioning our fundamental attachment to symbols and their ability to transgress meanings over time. In the artist’s own words: “The starting point of 55 is: how can I be as functional as possible on stage? As a dancer you constantly ask yourself questions: Is it sufficient? Is this what I want to convey? Is this the right form? What exactly am I doing? What am I making? What do I express? I set out in search of functionality and the form functionality may adopt. It is an almost architectural approach. I question myself as a performer and as a creator.”

--from promotion for Radouan Mriziga's ~55 

Someone recently asked me what I look for when I look at a dance. It's an impossible question. Isn't every dance different? And, anyway, I'm not supposed to be looking for anything. I'm supposed to be looking at something. I'm supposed to be present with whatever's there and, with luck, connect and communicate with it in some way. At least, that's the way I see how I'm seeing. Just to be clear, that doesn't mean that I'm always going to connect or, if I do not, no one else can.

Radouan Mriziga's ~55 solo--a US premiere at New York Live Arts--kept hitting me in the intellectual chakra, you know, the one that detects checklist items like counting, repetition, geometrics, workmanlike gesture. Stuff I get. Performing in NYLA's upstairs studio, Mriziga, dressed simply--black jeans, casual black shirt--made his way within a perimeter of onlookers. Hailing from Belgium, born in Morocco, he looked and moved like he would have been right at home at a showcase at Judson Church.

Every now and then, we would hear individual, ragged outbursts of unidentified music that sounded classic (as in really old), each lasting perhaps a few seconds. Everything about the movement construction seemed snapped together, like a Tinker Toy, and everything about this intermittent soundscape seemed rudely snapped apart, shredded, flying past the audience at unpredictable moments. I was more taken by the source--five ancient cassette decks--and the integration of layers of past-ness in this present-day event in a festival devoted to futurity (Live Ideas 2016: MENA/Future – Cultural Transformations in the Middle East North Africa Region). I was reminded of how, here in the States, we like to bulldoze and obscure the past--whether it be old neighborhoods or old social traumas--as opposed to other places in the world where the past is either rightly treasured or still sadly inescapable.

Anyway, those were my thoughts. And here I was with Mriziga who has his own thoughts and questions and something that, we would learn, building in his head, in the air and, ultimately and most carefully, on the ground. As his moves and gestures became more familiar to me, either I received them better or--and this could be true--he seemed to relax more, enough for me to see and connect with the human artist at work. Maybe, maybe that was because he knew he was closing in on something he felt sure about and we had yet to see.

~55 concludes with a performance tonight at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.

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

If you like what you're reading,

subscribe to InfiniteBody!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Infinitebody

Egypt's Hafez and HaRaKa bring the future

Adham Hafez Dance Company in 2065 BC
at New York Live Arts
(photo: Ian Douglas)

Part political summit, part multi-media opera, part protest Hafez’s 2065 BC is a displaced and revisited re-enactment of the infamous ‘Berlin Conference’ of 1884 presenting a complex set of questions around the ethics of occupation in a manner that is dark, comic and politically ignited. In the year 2065, a conference of African scientists, politicians and diplomats gather in Berlin to announce the new world order. 2065 BC is the result of a two-year research process on politics and aesthetics, developed and directed by the Adham Hafez Company and the platform HaRaKa. The research took place in Cairo, Berlin and New York, and continues to unfold its many products in the form of a performance triptych and publications series.

--promotion for Adham Hafez's 2056 BC

In 1884, the colonial powers of Europe, invited by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, met in Berlin to organize and step up their occupation and pillaging of the African continent. With 2065 BC, Egyptian choreographer Adham Hafez flips this history, envisioning sprawling realms of victorious African queens--"Her Majesty the Queen of Liberia and the American West Coast" is heralded, for instance--in the wake of World War III. In what must have been one hell of a systemic global collapse, shoes are now firmly on the other foot.

This week, 2065 BC is making its U.S. debut at New York Live Arts as part of Live Ideas 2016: MENA/Future–Cultural Transformations in the Middle East North Africa Region, an ambitious, multidisciplinary festival co-curated by NYLA's Tommy Kriegsmann and Hafez.

Four women actors portray the royalty, diplomats and scientists of this New World Order--Mona Gamil, Alaa Abdellateef, Salma Abdel Salam and Charlene Ibrahim, exacting in their roles. Inside their sterile-looking and echoey environment, whether sitting around a table strewn with thick legal documents, declaiming from a podium or performing frosty approximations of cabaret acts, they exude manipulative command. Assurances of safety and benevolence should not be taken seriously. Mockery comes easy and, everywhere, there's a current--calling it "undercurrent" would not be quite accurate--of sexuality firmly in women's control like weaponry. So who's the Venus Hottentot now? Listen and learn.

Hafez and 2065 BC's team have created an extraordinary look and sound; that sound--like rage compressed and parceled out with clinical accuracy-- can punish and takes its sweet time doing so. Despite a brief intermission, there's no let-up from this two-hour experience. It's difficult to receive and bear, yet brilliant in design and performance. Might as well pick up your "Arkisa passport" and enter.

2065 BC continues through Saturday, April 2 with performances at 7:30pm. For information and tickets, click here.

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

If you like what you're reading,

subscribe to InfiniteBody!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Infinitebody

Radhouane El Meddeb: He's Everywoman

In Sous leur pied, le paradis ("under their feet, heaven"), Tunisia-born Radhouane El Meddeb dances to rapturous music and crowd cheers from a live performance by Umm Kulthum, the Egyptian vocalist who died in 1975 after a long, world-renowned career. Costume El Meddeb in satin brocade and glitter, and he might look quite a bit like this beloved singer, substantial of face and body. But in his hour-long solo--a U.S. premiere presented at Alliance Française's Florence Gould Hall for the World Nomads Tunisia festival--the dancer wears a loose black t-shirt and black shorts and sometimes slips behind or between folds of heavy black drapery.

Through a minimalist, schematic approach to both self-presentation and movement, El Meddeb pursues not self-camouflage but revelation of a state of consciousness, sourced in women's experience, existing beyond gender. His bare feet and limbs, the casualness of his attire, eschew glamour but do not preclude regality. He allows the tangy, shimmering, low-rumbling music and the singer's dark, earthy voice to entrance him into stark, iconic postures and gestures. Despite difference in language, that voice and that music, both unsparing in passion and torment, reach right into the listener's chest.

"Under their feet, heaven" refers to the Islamic saying, "Paradise is found under the feet of mothers." Choreographed by the performer in collaboration with French dancemaker Thomas Lebrun, the solo presents a lens through which we are invited to see the condition and striving of women of the Arab world and Arab Spring. It is a dance of recognition, of honor, of celebratory ululation and encouragement to action--just as Umm Kulthum's bitter love song, the famous "Al-Atlal" ("The Ruins"), can be read as a sly indictment of any form of seduction and betrayal, from intimate dyad to oppressive societal hierarchy.

My heart, don't ask where the love has gone/It was only a mirage that collapsed....

Give me my freedom, release my hands/Indeed, I've given everything and have nothing.

We woke up, ah if only we did not awaken/Wakefulness ruined the dreams of slumber....

Perhaps one day our fates will cross/when our desire to meet is strong enough.

As El Meddeb's hour nears its end, he gradually sheds his meager clothing. Shorts off. A little later, bikini briefs off. Then, the t-shirt--tugged down in front and behind before it, too, gets pulled away. In themselves, these are acts of rebellion, modest only in the quiet, matter-of-fact manner of their execution. The dancer's broad back gleams at us under the lights before he draws a train of filmy, white fabric around his lower body and sinks into the floor. The singer's voice rises to crescendo, and the trance is done.

For more on El Meddeb, read this account of a journey of the senses in another work, I Dance & I Feed You, reported by Neil de la Flor in Miami for Knight Arts.

For information on remaining World Nomads Tunisia 2013 events and exhibits, click here.

Sonia M'barek performs at World Nomads Tunisia fest

Tradition Performed With a Twist
Sonia M’barek at the French Institute Alliance Française
by Jon Pareles, The New York Times, May 7, 2013

UKanDanz...the night away

UKanDanz, based in Lyon, France, made its US debut at Lincoln Center Out of Doors last evening before a sparse but increasingly impressed audience. Earlier rain, and the threat of thunderstorms, had kept initial attendance down. But the deepening night sky stayed dry, great music kept coming from this French/Ethiopian quintet and two other bands over the next few hours, and more people arrived to partake and enjoy.

It took me a couple of songs to warm to UKanDanz, with its raucous collision of high-pitched, passionate Ethiopian melisma and hard-charging rock. But vocalist Asnaqé Guèbrèyès served as a magnetic center to keep all the components from flying off in different directions. After awhile, it just worked.

Oumar Konate (photo by Darial Sneed)

Due to the ongoing conflict in her country, Mali's esteemed vocalist Khaira Arby could not join her band in New York, but guitarist-singer Oumar Konate took up the leadership role, bringing the funk and the rock with a majestic glide. These guys--especially Konate--really rock out in the classic style on their beautiful guitars and do so without losing the slightest degree of crystal clear precision.

I stayed for only half of the last set--Yemen Blues, fronted by an electrifying Israeli-Yemenite vocalist, Ravid Kahalani--but I was glad to hear that much.

Ravid Kahalani (photo by Darial Sneed)

These musicians play trombone, trumpet, flute, viola, cello, violin, oud, gimbri, percussion and keyboards. I hear blues, funk, North and West African rhythms and Latin jazz influences threaded through the fabric, a big, colorful, sophisticated sound, powerful enough to rattle your chest. Kahalani's sexy exuberance carries the Life Force; in fact, his first utterance, upon taking the stage, was to cry "Adonai!!!" Audience members flocked to empty spaces near the stage to sway and dance in complete enchantment. All in all, a sensational night at Lincoln Center.

Here's a taste of Yemen Blues from a 2010 trailer:

Get a schedule of remaining Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival events here.

The story of the Grand Mosque of Paris

How a Paris Mosque Sheltered Jews in the Holocaust
by Elaine Sciolino, The New York Times, October 3, 2011

Tapping the world

Roxane Butterfly (tap), Yoel ben Simhon (ud, vocals), Peter Basil (cajon), Damon Banks (bass). Women of The World series at Dance Sampler 2008

Zohar Fresco and Roxane Butterfly in Israel

Percussionist Zohar Fresco (frame drum) and tapdancer Roxane Butterfly mix it up at the Janana Rhythm Festival in Israel.

Roxane Butterfly’s Worldbeats at LC Out-of-Doors

Roxane Butterfly rocks out at Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors. Background, left-to-right: Graham Haynes, Sinan and Arturo Martinez (Photographer: Rowshan!)

Not for nothing did the great Jimmy Slyde give French tapper Roxane Butterfly her unusual last name. Typically dressed in something colorful and funky that sets off her slim, wiry frame, she appears to skim the earth, touching down frequently but briefly, lightly and musically. Tap has always been quite diverse in styles, and hers is one of the styles I dearly love. Her dancing is virtually calligraphic. She has ease in the knees, an ability to make fleet, precise sounds, not just bash and pound away. It takes refined control to express this much joie de vivre.

Butterfly brought her troupe–now called Roxane Butterfly’s Worldbeats–to the Josie Robertson Plaza for an early evening gig at Lincoln Center Out-of Doors. The current lineup includes two effervescent tapdancing sidekicks, Claudia Rahardjanoto and Ali Bradley, the latter a real powerhouse who grooves deep into the music without losing accuracy. Sol, a flamenco dancer from Buenos Aires, solos as well as occasionally weaving among the tappers. This juxtaposition could look contrived but never does.

Butterfly’s band, with the fantastic jazz cornetist Graham Haynes, her longtime collaborator, leading the charge, reflects her rich cross-cultural background and taste: Venezuelan percussionist Tony De Vivo, jazz bassist Damon Banks, flamenco guitarist Arturo Martinez (“Espiritu Gitano”) and guest oud player, Sinan. American jazz and the heady rhythms of Spain, North Africa and the Middle East sound pretty good to me. I like them separate or together. I just plain like them.

“You know, in jazz we have ‘1 and 2 and you know what to do.’” Butterfly said. “I decided I didn’t want to know what I was doing for a change!” And so she gives us a kind of Mediterranean tap fusion–featuring excerpts from works-in-progress–with fresh rhythms and fresh takes on the familiar. In keeping with this approach, the show ended with a Worldbeats-style revisioning of the Shim Sham Shimmy--the beloved dance routine that every tapper must know–here dubbed the Shim Sham Gypsy and powered by Turkish rhythms.

What a world-class party!

© 2007 Eva Yaa Asantewaa