Faustin Linyekula's "Banataba [new work]" at Met Museum

Dance artist Faustin Linyekula
is Crossing the Line's Mr. September.
(photo courtesy of FIAF)

Banataba [new work]'s world premiere at The Metropolitan Museum of Art yesterday afternoon launched a major series of events featuring acclaimed Congolese dancer-choreographer Faustin Linyekula as part of French Institute Alliance Française' annual Crossing the Line festival which runs through October 15. This month, Linyekula will also present events with FIAF's co-presenters NYU Skirball, Dancing in the Streets and 651 ARTS in partnership with several other organizations (catch up on all of it here). Clearly, it's the September of Linyekula...and of widespread collaboration.

Commissioned by MetLiveArts and inspired by the museum's Kongo: Power and Majesty exhibition (2015), Banataba [new work] is performed in the Met's Spanish Renaissance Vélez Blanco Patio. It employs visual, kinetic and verbal storytelling as we ponder the meaning of objects created in native cultures and appropriated by museums. An hour-long duet for Linyekula and his enchanting collaborator Moya Michael (South Africa), it includes video and photographic elements representing the forested earth, the waters and the people of Linyekula's homeland.

The confined yet fixed, linear setup of the space--several rows of audience seating facing forward; video projected on the not-so-broad base of a statue or against the wall; headshots of unsmiling villagers gazing directly into the camera--works against a possibility of effectively immersing observers within these visual elements. At the same time, it's also possible that the choreographer chose separation rather than an easier connection and familiarity. After all, this piece appears to be about his ultimate decision to withhold and protect a precious discovery.

Much of the live performance involves the toting and gingerly careful transfer of a cloth-wrapped parcel from dancer to dancer, each either gazing at the other or slowly, gracefully bending and turning away with the mysterious object cradled in his or her arms. We listen to Linyekula chanting, singing or (sometimes near inaudibly due to the room's muddying acoustics and his sweet, soft voice) relaying a tale about visiting his mother's village.

We watch the unwrapping and assembly of the parts of the wooden object on top of a platform and the way this revelation makes the dancers jerk, tremble and eventually shake violently. While it becomes clear that this object--which the dancers will labor to reassemble with poignant yet also comical difficulty--is not the actual one Linyekula saw in his village, it stands in for it. Eventually, it stands--quite literally--and they glide it forward, close to the edge of our front row. Arms stretched out wide to each side, it gazes at us.

Aspects of Banataba [new work] suggest human bodies as tuning forks, dowsing rods or formidable, spirit-inhabited objects of power (nkisi). And as supple branches on trees whose ancient roots continuously supply information and nourishment. Just as we need to understand the contextual significance of the crafts created and valued by a people, so too do we need to comprehend the people themselves within the living fabric of their own culture and environment.

Banataba [New Work] continues with performances today at 12pm and 3:30pm. Seating is limited. For information and ticketing, click here.

Gallery 534, Vélez Blanco Patio
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Sidra Bell Dance New York at The Met Breuer

Last evening, as part of its Theater of the Resist series, The Met Breuer hosted bass-baritone Davóne Tines (singing Julius Eastman's searing Prelude to The Holy Presence of Jeanne d'Arc), rapper Himanshu Suri (a.k.a. Heems) and Sidra Bell Dance New York. I don't know if the museum installed the metal bleacher and bench seating to keep us all on edge to the point of mind-alteration but, if so, the artists certainly did their part. Curated and MC'd by media/culture writer Kali Holloway--who, frankly, often seemed as stunned as her audience--the two-hour program offered various media and modes of artistic resistance to the ground, unholy and toxic, in which we currently find ourselves.

I was there, primarily, for Bell's Stella (2012), which you can see tonight at 6pm. The ensemble dances in a relatively shallow space across the gallery and gets up close to front-row folks in ways that heighten the persistent air of tension, risk and thrill. There are the crisp rhythms of street dance, the stark, deep-queer glamour of a fashion catwalk, the enigmatic drama that just does not quit. Bell calls upon a seemingly limitless supply of intricate movement ideas and shows no hesitation to share this largesse. And, from start to finish, her disciplined crew is ON IT.

Video closeups amplify the unfiltered anxiety with performers staring into the camera and repeatedly tugging or clawing at their own bare flesh for reasons that remain mysterious.

Sometimes you visit museums to see dance that addresses museum space (its design, contents, atmosphere and everyday functions) in harmonizing or questioning and possibly illuminating ways. Sometimes you go, and it's just another container for performance; the dance, not made for its surroundings, could have happened elsewhere. As for Stella, she simply blasts herself into The Met Breuer and makes her formidable presence felt.

Tonight and all Theater of the Resist programs are free with museum admission and run from 6pm to 8pm. For the best seating, make your way to the 5th Floor no later than 5:30pm. For information, click here.

Upcoming events 

in the Met Breuer's Theater of the Resist series
through August 12:

Saturday, July 29

For Living Lovers with Brandon Ross, and Stomu Takeishi, musicians, and poet Sadiq Bey

Sidra Bell Dance New York

M. Lamar, performer

Friday, August 4

Nicole Fleetwood, Associate Professor Department of American Studies, Rutgers University moderates discussion between Lifers Group members Maxwell Melvins, president, and rapper Picard "Original" Galette.

Saturday, August 5

Stew, Singer-songwriter, playwright

Gina Yashere, British comedian

Friday, August 11

Film: Strong Island (2017)

with Q&A with filmmaker Yance Ford

Saturday, August 12

Maria Usbeck, Ecuadorian musician, traveler and diarist

Aparna Nancherla, introspective and outrospective standup comedian

DJ Mojo: Music is Life, directed by Lawrence Kim

(2017 documentary short, 5 mins.)

Live set by DJ Mojo

The Met Breuer
945 Madison (at 75th Street)
(map/directions)

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Play the floor: Dorrance and Young at the Guggenheim

Michelle Dorrance
(photo: Works & Process at the Guggenheim/Jacklyn Meduga)

Audience waiting for the opening
Works & Process: Rotunda Project performance
at the Guggenheim Museum rotunda
(photo: Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

Despite what you might have read, tap dance is not on its last legs. Nor is it at death's door. Not while gifted makers like Michelle Dorrance and Nicholas Van Young still craft new ways to put its legacy and possibilities, its fun and glories in front of ever-expanding audiences like the ones that packed Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum last night for three back-to-back performances for Works & Process: Rotunda Project, the museum's new residency and commissioning initiative.

The opening crowd, for the 6:30 show, was an eager and, it should be noted, overwhelmingly white audience--fairly easy to notice as people climbed and lined the museum's famous helical ramps, single-file, to view the museum's ground floor, the primary area for performance. Seeing the show required standing at the ramp's balconies for about 30 minutes plus the wait time before the show started.

According to a New York Times report, when Dorrance, Young and the troupe got their first go-round at the rotunda, they were shocked to discover its tap-unfriendly acoustics. Ooops.

Above: Claudia Rahardjanoto
Below: Dorrance and Young
(photos: Matthew Murphy)

Well, being smart people, they set to work on this formidable beast and, while perhaps not quite besting it, they created a playful sonic dialogue with it. From the opening boom, boom, boom of Dorrance's straddled drum, to angelic voices spiraling towards the skylight, to Young's body percussion and whistling, to the clack and rumble of batons on the floor, wooden boxes or balustrades, music was made by determined performers, and the audience got a lesson in music as a phenomenon of bodies in motion in space, any space. The charming Young even served as conductor, wordlessly training the audience in a complex score and drawing delighted laughter from us. Ephrat "Bounce" Asherie, the Bessie-nominated b-girl, paired with Matthew "Mega Watts" West to contribute hypnotic breakdance segments like jewels nestled inside settings offered by their colleagues and the gleaming white floor.

Gazing down on that floor for most of the performance gave watchers a view of dancers who resembled worker ants or a crisp marching corps as they executed elaborate geometry and braids of formations. Towards the end, the sixteen dancers strapped on tap shoes, bringing the thunder to platforms and planks of wood: We shall have tap!

And so, they shall. And so shall we.

Performers:

Ephrat "Bounce" Asherie
Elizabeth Burke
Warren Craft
Donovan Dorrance
Michelle Dorrance
Michael Landis
Aaron Marcellus
Carson Murphy
Gabe Winns Ortiz
Claudia Rahardjanoto
Gregory Richardson
Leonardo Sandoval
Byron Tittle
Penelope Wendtlandt
Matthew "Mega Watts" West
Nicholas Van Young

Lighting: Kathy Kaufmann

Works & Process Rotunda Project: Michelle Dorrance with Nicholas Van Young has concluded. For updates on future events in the Guggenheim Works & Process series, click here.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Four minutes are plenty: NDT at The Met Breuer

Chuck Jones and Parveneh Scharafali
of Nederlands Dans Theater in Shutters Shut
(photo:  © Joris-Jan Bos Photography)

My crazy dance-going life includes things like spending time and subway fare to run up to The Met Breuer on a Saturday afternoon to catch a dance performance lasting all of four minutes.

And then, on the way out, looking longingly from the elevator's open door at the Kerry James Marshall show, powerfully drawn to revisit it but knowing I had to hustle back downtown for a DraftWork showing at Danspace Project.

And then, with less time to spare than I'd hoped, having to abandon my already rerouted downtown bus when it finally could not make it past an anti-Trump demonstration streaming down Fifth Avenue. That's okay. Walking's good for me, and walking's good for our nation. Win/win.

A gallery space on Met Breuer's fifth floor hosted the clever Sol León/Paul Lightfoot duet, Shutters Shut (2003), performed by Chuck Jones and Parvaneh Scharafali of Nederlands Dans Theater. It was repeated three times on the hour, from 1pm to 3pm, before an audience seated on four forward-facing benches and floor cushions. Many people stood to see into the initially roped-off, horizontal and narrow performance area. At a few minutes to the hour, attendants unclasped the front rope, and the dancers backpedaled into their space, Jones followed by Scharafali.

Here's a snippet of the duet, inspired by Gertrude Stein's recitation of "If I Told Him: A Complete Portrait of Picasso" (1923), with its hypnotic, staccato Cubist rhythms so well captured here in physical movement.

NDT's performances of Shutters Shut were presented in conjunction with the exhibition Humor and Fantasy—The Berggruen Paul Klee Collection, on view at The Met Breuer, September 1, 2016–January 2, 2017. For information on the exhibition, click here.

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