Davalois Fearon: dancing for C.J. and so many others

Davalois Fearon wearing a costume from For C.J.

Davalois Fearon Dance
For C.J.
BAAD!
March 29-30

When dance artist Davalois Fearon lost her nephew to asthma, she turned mourning into action. Her work, For C.J., represents a cry against the dire health outcomes for communities--predominantly, Black and Latinx people--doubly-impacted by urban pollution and inadequate health care. Fearon, a Jamaican immigrant who grew up in the Bronx, created The For C.J. Initiative to raise awareness and spur city policymakers to address these life-threatening conditions. But she also created a dance to honor her nephew, set to music played live at BAAD! by her husband, composer Mike McGinnis (wood winds), Elias Bailey (tuba) and Jeff Hermanson (trumpet). For C.J.'s resolute symbolism even carries over into instrumentation which requires expert and sustained use of breath.

Without careful reading of Fearon's program notes, it might be tricky to figure out at first look, but her performers represent not only an asthma victim (Mikaila Ware) but also the engulfing forces of her doom (Morgan Anderson, as the medical system, and Njeri Rutherford as the environment). The minute you grasp it, though, the symbolism feels heavy and obvious. All three are dressed in extraordinary wearable art--like hair-coverings made of whole and broken plastic hair rollers--and glittery makeup, blurring distinctions between high and low, pretty and poisonous. The set, unusual costuming give the work the heightened aura of tribal ritual.

The audience gets drawn in, too. Before the piece begins, we're invited to inscribe the names of deceased loved ones on cut-out leaves and tie the stems to ropes that play a significant part in this dance. Those leaves, then, will accumulate and remain for all future performances of the piece.

Like the visual display--including Ware's grotesque, bulbous headdress constructed of something mysterious and, frankly, nauseating--choreography alternates oddity with poignancy. We end with the vision of Ware's body folded forward in yoga's child's pose, covered in a glittery, earth-dark wrapping that now kills her.

To lift the energy, then, the choreographer and her dancers return to celebrate the life and spirit C.J. with the exuberance I remember of forceful, high-flying Fearon dancing for choreographer Stephen Petronio.

Concept, choreography and artistic direction: Davalois Fearon
Collaborating dancers: Morgan Anderson, Njeri Rutherford and Mikaila Ware
Costumes, wearable sculptures and makeup: Jasmine Murrell
Set Design: Myssi Robinson

For C.J. concludes this evening with an 8pm performance. For information, click here and scroll down.

BAAD!
2474 Westchester Avenue, The Bronx
(map/directions)

******

DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve as Senior Curatorial Director of Gibney. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

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Kyoung's Pacific Beat presents "PILLOWTALK"

JP Moraga and Basit Shittu,
the stars of Kyoung H. Park's PILLOWTALK
(photo: andytoad)

If PILLOWTALK were a streamable series, I would so binge-watch it. This short two-hander written and directed by Kyoung Park (Kyoung’s Pacific Beat) has that all-essential factor that gets me every time--people I can give a damn about. That would be Buck (JP Moraga), an Asian-American journalist just fired from the job he hates anyway and who avoids telling this news to his super-practical husband Sam (Basit Shittu), a Black man and former competitive swimmer now working for a bunch of Republicans, the only job he says he was able to find. From beginning to end, and even through the inevitable tension and dissension, Moraga and Shittu subtly radiate the genuine, consistent humanity and appeal in their characters. The romance of Buck and Sam, two contemporary Brooklynites, reflects true complexity and sweet affection in equal measures. I believe in them and root for them.

Co-presented by Park's company and The Tank for The Exponential Festival, the show delves into issues of racism--even inside relationships between people of color--as well as economics, gentrification and political strategy. Most notably, Park probes the issue of how the fight for marriage equality might have robbed queer marginality of its unique, revolutionary bite. His tight, energized writing, deftly linking political and personal issues, contains no waste material. It's all hard at work all the time, and keeps both the actors and us viewers on our toes.

Setting up in the smaller of The Tank's two spaces contributes to our sense of the couple's vulnerability. The tiny black box space and its ingenious, minimalist decor (by Marie Yokoyama) suggest the cramped existence of real-life New Yorkers similar to Sam and Buck. When challenges emerge in this marriage, the men retreat to an even narrower slot of territory on opposite sides of the space, or one might flee the space entirely. Their apartment's un-cozy spatial constraints are as real a worry as the external, invading pressures from community and society. But we also feel the spirit of love in the air. And that's underscored by the final sequence, a pas de deux choreographed by Katy Pyle (of Ballez fame).

Moraga, whose character longs for a new career as a ballet dancer, more clearly resembles someone with ballet training (those feet, that line). I don't know about Shittu, and neither man's bio reveals a history with dance. But Pyle's work as the creator of the inclusive, queer-friendly ballez approach to classical dance upends what we expect, re-purposing and opening up all of ballet's strengths, beauty and fun to people of all genders. Her sequence for Sam and Buck strips away all the external and internal static and reveals what matters and what endures at the heart of this relationship.

Live music: Helen Yee
Sound design: Lawrence Schober
Scenic and lighting design: Marie Yokoyama
Costume design: Andrew Jordan

PILLOWTALK’s Long Table Series is curated by Shannon Matesky and Kyoung H. Park and each event will follow 15 minutes after each listed performance date. Last Long Table:
LOVE’S POWER/MICROINVISIBILITY (Thursday, January 25, 8pm) sheds light on the aggressions and invisibility of QPOC love. What are the spiritual and material dimensions of QPOC love? What are our acts of radical love? Facilitated by Stephanie Hsu with Guest Speakers Nic Kay, Kirya Trabor and more to be announced.

PILLOWTALK continues through Saturday, January 27. For information and tickets, click here.

The Tank
312 West 36th Street (between 8th and 9th Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)

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Don Hogan Charles, 79

Don Hogan Charles, Lauded Photographer of Civil Rights Era, Dies at 79
by Niraj Chokshi, The New York Times, December 25, 2017

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Upcoming Long Tables: Abrons, Gibney, Dance/NYC

Eva Yaa Asantewaa
(photo: Deneka Peniston)

Upcoming Long Tables


A Long Table conversation--as first conceived by theater artist Lois Weaver--is initiated by an invited core group of participants who "set the table" with food for thought, but it is open, throughout, to other folks, sitting around the perimeter, who can come up and take seats at the table to share their experiences, ideas, questions and insights in a non-hierarchical, non-panel/Q&A setting. They are not so much "audience members" as a listening and contributing community.

So, please join us! Listen in and/or pull up a chair at our table to share your thoughts and questions. Admission is free, except where noted.

***

Thursday, November 30 (7-9pm): DISCOMFORT: A Long Table. Presented and hosted by Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand Street, Manhattan. Curated/facilitated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa/EYA Projects. Core participants: Ash RT Yergens, Dan Fishback, Joya Powell, NIC Kay. DISCOMFORT makes space for dance, performance and other artists to talk about the place of discomfort in our lives, processes, practices and relationships with collaborators, audiences, our society and world.

Wednesday, February 7 (6:30-8:30pm): Long Table: Sexual Harassment in the Dance Industry. Presented and hosted by Center Line, Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, 280 Broadway (enter 53A Chambers Street), Manhattan. Curated/facilitated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa/EYA Projects. Core participants: Gabri Christa, Katy Pyle, Nicole Wolcott and Siobhan Burke

Sunday, February 25 (time tbd): Decolonizing Dance: A Long Table. Presented and hosted by Dance/NYC Symposium 2018 at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, 280 Broadway (enter 53A Chambers Street), Manhattan. Curated/facilitated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa/EYA Projects. Core participants (list in formation): André M. Zachery, Ayodele Casel, J Soto, Layla Zami. Admission with Dance/NYC Symposium 2018 registration. Click here.

Wednesday, April 25 (6:30-8:30pm): Decolonizing Dance: A Long Table. Hosted by Center Line, Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, 280 Broadway (enter 53A Chambers Street), Manhattan. Curated/facilitated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa/EYA Projects. Core participants: (list tba)

Community Long Tables are also in the works for BAX (Brooklyn Arts Exchange) and Dancing While Black in 2018. Keep watch for more information!

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Debra Chasnoff, 60

Debra Chasnoff, Whose Films Redefined Gay Families, Dies at 60
by Sam Roberts, The New York Times, November 14, 2017

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"Confusing times" call for clarity: Discuss!

Judy Hussie-Taylor
Exective Director and Chief Curator
Danspace Project
(photo: Michael Kirby)

In these confusing times, why and how do performing arts presenters and curators decide what work to present in their season? What is the interplay of determining factors – sociopolitical climate, curatorial vision, audience trends, diversity, the bottom line?

--publicity text for "Commissioning and Presenting in Confusing Times," an Open Spectrum Community Dialogue presented by New York Live Arts and co-curated with Brian Tate of The Tate Group

"For some reason, I kept calling this panel Presenting in A Crisis," said moderator Judy Hussie-Taylor, introducing Commissioning and Presenting in Confusing Times, hosted by New York Live Arts last week. Her alternate title made more sense, really, since most of us in the arts are not at all confused. We're clearheaded enough to be damned angry.

That sense of specific, political outrage seemed elusive at this gathering of five of New York's most powerful curators and presenters--Lili Chopra (French Institute Alliance Française), Tim Griffin (The Kitchen), Kamilah Forbes (Apollo Theater), Jay Wegman (NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts) and Hussie-Taylor herself, an innovator who has made space for award-winning "Platform" programming at historic Danspace Project.

Referring to our current American moment as "a crisis, the turning point in a disease," Hussie-Taylor suggested that her panelists might tackle four questions:

• What needs to be explored?
• What or who needs to be honored?
• What or who needs to be challenged?
• What needs to be jettisoned?

Relatively new to their positions, Forbes and Wegman are both clearly still researching, experimenting and seeking their best path at institutions with, respectively, formidable cultural legacy (the Apollo) and conventional, somewhat muddled programming (NYU Skirball). Wegman--formerly, and famously, artistic director of Abrons Arts Center--was forthcoming about challenges he faces in replacing stodgy Skirball fare with something actually attractive to NYU students. To do so, he has let go of familiar acts that, as he put it, tend to do little but recycle their material. The 2016 election re-energized his focus, inspiring him to produce more adventurous events such as an appearance by author Ta-Nehisi Coates and the U.S. premiere of a controversial Palestinian play, The Siege.

All the panelists expressed, to one degree or another, dedication to supporting artists and putting artists' needs and concerns at the center of operations--with all the practical complications that can entail. Forbes argued that the job of the institution is to be the locus of transformation and a vehicle for creating the "21st Century canon." But, for the most part, I must say I walked away still questioning how this might be achieved, not just at the Apollo, but elsewhere in what is arguably the arts capital and most progressive city of our nation.

Even in New York's dance and performance community, we are still looking at citadels of power in need of the knowledge, skill, insight and visionary courage of more women and more people of color. The expertise and talent, which I witness regularly, are out here in abundance....and not in the least in a state of confusion. 

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Sharing, surviving: Black men dance at Danspace Project

Damon Green performs at Danspace Project in
Working on Better Versions of Prayers: Volume 1
by Chicago dancemaker J'Sun Howard
(photo: Ian Douglas)

Ricarrdo Valentine, above,
and below with Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr.
of Brother(hood) Dance!
in how to survive a plague
(photos: Ian Douglas)

Demonstrations, marches, sit-ins/die-ins/love-ins, rallies, prayer: are there alternatives to these forms of protest that we can employ to generate positive change? 

For his presentation at Danspace Project, Chicago's J'Sun Howard asks this question and offers a possible answer in a trio for Black queer men entitled Working On Better Versions of Prayers: Version 1. Is Howard's result actually a better version of prayer?  Of protest? That's never clear but, choreographically, this dance is easy on the eyes.

Dancers D. Banks, Damon Green and Will Harris mark off an uncluttered space in which, from the start, we can focus on the lyrical fluidity of their movement--a flowing reach and unfurling, a cursive squiggling and twirling and twining that, while accelerating or embracing flourishes of basketball or hip hop or voguing or West African movement, never loses control or its through line. Howard writes with an aesthetically conservative hand. He is a lover of beauty and of the beauty in these dancers, presenting them subtly, sympathetically and with utopian vision--the world he wants to see.

One moment alone appears disruptive--a dancer's brief, frustrated interaction with part of the decor and his partner's intervention. This second dancer's role presents interesting questions: Is he helping his mate? Or is he restraining him? And then, near Howard's conclusion, comes the mystery figure (Green) emerging with face obscured, head enveloped in a leafy bush strung with Christmas lights--a remarkable, if cryptic, image.

In a “reverential gesture to lost ancestral artistic dreams,” Hunter and Valentine seek to venerate the Black African bodies that were exiled from the urgency of care and shunned by their communities and government [during the HIV/AIDS pandemic].

Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr and Ricarrdo Valentine--the Black gay couple who are Brother(hood) Dance!--now have built how to survive a plague, a popular feature of Danspace’s Platform 2016: Lost & Found, into a work of enhanced, operatic proportions. Their aesthetics call for so much sensory engagement--and, yes, overload--you might expect the generous sights and sounds to be joined by offerings of food and libations. No such luck. But we did get to sample the aromatherapeutic artistry by Nicole Wilkins. I thought I caught a waft of something minty at one point, and then something else, pleasant enough but unidentifiable.

Ultimately, the sexy and ecstatic ritual of how to survive a plague is, I think, an invitation to take what we need by way of self-care. In that context, what works for one, in one moment, might not work for another, and many things will compete for your attention. You will find exuberant dance (with superb technique, always) overlapped with poetry and humor and glorious singing and visuals and kooky-fun costuming and booming voiceovers and, for a precious few, a chance to get up and shake your body. Trickster Eshu and Mother Kali share and dance this Carnaval, neither exactly shy and retiring types. I thank these deities--and more--for the audacity of Hunter and Valentine and look forward to whatever they bring us next.

Vocals: Starr Busby
Costume design: Shane Ballard
Lighting Design: Carol Mullins

Shared Evening: Brother(hood) Dance! & J'Sun Howard continues tonight and tomorrow at Danspace Project with performances at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.

SPECIAL NOTE:

Nicole Wilkins recommends arriving hydrated for the best possible experience [of the aromoatherapy]; water will also be available during the show. If you have any questions or concerns please call the Danspace Project office at (212) 674.8112.

Danspace Project
St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street (at Second Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Clancy Sigal, 90

Clancy Sigal, Novelist Whose Life Was a Tale in Itself, Dies at 90
by Sam Roberts, The New York Times, July 21, 2017

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William M. Hoffman, 78

William M. Hoffman, Who Wrote the Pioneering AIDS Play ‘As Is,’ Dies at 78
by Sam Roberts, The New York Times, May 2, 2017

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Artists come together for global human rights at Dixon Place

This weekend, Dixon Place hosts a new arts festival dedicated to global issues around human rights. The International Human Rights Arts Festival has been launched by DP and producer Tom Block's Institute of Prophetic Activist Art, an educational venture drawing from a spectrum of mystical philosophies, from Martin Buber to Black Elk, for creative engagement with societal concerns. Last evening's opening ceremony was introduced by the venerable television writer, producer and progressive activist Norman Lear. Richard Nixon, he reminded us, derided his groundbreaking All in the Family as a show for and about "queers, fags, homos and hippies."

Well, "queers, fags, homos and hippies," frequently make up the audience at Dixon Place and might well enjoy much that's on tap at the IHRA fest now through Sunday. And there's certainly a lot with 2016 Bessie-winner Joya Powell (Outstanding Emerging Choreographer) showing work today at 1:30 with her troupe, Movement of the People Dance Company, on a bill with Spilling Ink Dance Company, a troupe devoted to the arts of India and the Indian diaspora. Another up-and-coming dancemaker, Jessica Chen has commissioned works for a 10pm show tonight featuring her J CHEN PROJECT troupe, Tom Tsai, Karla Garcia and Heather Robles. Edisa Weeks (Delirious Dances) and Jacqueline Dugal (Dugal Dance Projects) share tomorrow evening's 9pm slot.

And, whew! That's just the dance part!

With performance, film, poetry, theater, music, visual arts, kids activities, discussions, lounge performances and the ever-handy Dixon Place bar, there's truly something for every interest. Get a schedule of events and ticket information (including day passes) here.

Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street (between Rivington and Delancey Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Re-membering Black lives with Taja Lindley

This Ain’t A Eulogy: A Ritual for Re-Membering (9:58) is a stunning film by Brooklyn-based visual and performance artist Taja Lindley, based on her solo healing performance ritual This Ain't A Eulogy (premiere: La MaMa's SQUIRTS, 2015). Co-directed with and edited by Ellen Maynard, the film was premiered on February 16 at the 5th Annual Black Artstory Month (Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership).

The film draws "parallels between discarded materials and the violent treatment of Black people in the United States," Lindley writes. "People in the African Diaspora have a long history of repurposing, remixing, and transforming oppressive systems into valuable cultural practices." Through the surreal, eye-catching artistry of her film, Lindley invites the viewer to "imagine how we can recycle the energy of protest, rage, and grief into creating a world where, indeed, Black Lives Matter."

Taja Lindley

Taja Lindley is a writer and artist based in Brooklyn, New York. She is the founder and Managing Member of Colored Girls Hustle, and a member of Echoing Ida and Harriet's Apothecary. Lindley considers herself a healer and an activist, creating socially engaged work that reflects and transforms audiences, shifts culture and moves people to action. She uses movement, text, installation, props, ritual, burlesque, and multi-media to create performances that are concerned with freedom, healing and pleasure. She is currently developing a body of work recycling and repurposing discarded materials. Her artwork has been featured at the Movement Research at Judson Church series, Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX), the Gallatin Arts Festival at New York University, WOW Café Theater, La Mama Theater, in living rooms, classrooms, conferences and public spaces. In 2014 she was a Create Change Fellow with the Laundromat Project and a participant in EMERGENYC, an artist activist program of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at New York University. In 2015 she was a Fall space grantee at BAX. This summer (May-August 2017) she is an Artist in Residence at Dixon Place. Her writing has appeared in Rewire, EBONY, Feministe, Yes! Magazine and Salon. www.TajaLindley.com

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Urban Bush Women to preview "Hair and Other Stories" at Baruch

Urban Bush Women
previews Hair and Other Stories next month
at Baruch Performing Arts Center.
(photo: Jennifer Lester)

Baruch Performing Arts Center, in partnership with the CUNY Dance Initiative, welcomes choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and her renowned Urban Bush Women troupe on March 31 for a preview of Hair and Other Stories. Developed with director Raelle Myrick Hodges, writer Keisha Zollar and the company, this multidisciplinary, evening-length work deals with issues of race, gender identity and economic inequality in the lives of African-American women. Hair and Other Stories will have its world premiere in April at the Virginia Arts Festival.

The Baruch PAC performance--open to the public with free admission for Baruch students--will be followed by a discussion with the artists.

Urban Bush Women

Hair and Other Stories (preview)

Baruch Performing Arts Center at Baruch College

March 31 at 7:30pm

For information and tickets, call 646-312-5073 or click here.

Baruch Performing Arts Center

55 Lexington Avenue (enter 25th Street between 3rd and Lexington Avenues), Manhattan

(map/directions)

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"What Will Be Different?": Who do I stand with?

It has been a month since the US presidential election and--as we watch the president-elect steadily arm himself for assault on every aspect of our society's progress, any hope that our democracy might be a true guiding light in the world--many of us continue to struggle to process, on mental, emotional, even visceral levels, just what has happened.

Last Monday, New York Live Arts opened its doors for a gathering, Open Spectrum: What Will Be Different?, conceived by marketing consultant Brian Tate and curated by Tate and NYLA's Associate Artistic Director Janet Wong in alliance with MAPP International.

The forum examined issues of concern to women, a demographic with complex effects upon the course of this election. Program notes set forth the following questions:

The election is over. Now the future awaits, and the lives of women--of us all--will be transformed. What shifts of policy and culture can we expect for women under President Donald J. Trump? How should we respond as citizens to advance the cause of justice and equal opportunity for women from today forward? To meet that challenge, how will we ourselves change?

[I take full responsibility for that strikeout, by the way.]

Tate noted three other questions to guide each of as we each find our best response to the challenge of this time:

What do I stand for?
Who do I stand with?
What am I ready to do?

It was the second question that interested me most as I looked around the studio and noted the striking predominance of white women of professional/upscale appearance. And although there were some dance artists in attendance, this apparently was not an event with much draw for the dance community. Although the excellent panel featured notable performing artists (Adrienne Truscott, Susana Cook), cultural scholars and critics (Catharine R. Stimpson, Margo Jefferson) and Brooklyn Museum chair and arts activist Elizabeth A. Sackler along with human rights activist Rana Abdelhamid in a venue historically grounded in the art of dance, it was fascinating that the crucial role of the arts and of artists scarcely came up for consideration.

Cook's experience of growing up under military dictatorship in Argentina offered insight into how the unacceptable gradually transforms itself into the norm. It would have been good to hear more about how Argentinian artists, forced to work under the radar, managed to carry on their struggle. Jefferson--one of the panel's most searching speakers--cited King Lear:

The weight of this sad time we must obey. Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.

And yet what hung over the room was a sense of shock, grief and apprehension still so raw that perhaps everyone, artists included, are still figuring out how to balance that weight and how to shape feelings into effective action.

The question was raised: Who are our models for responsible civic engagement? From the perspective of the arts and artists, the answers called out were revealing: Cecile Richards, president, Planned Parenthood Federation of America; activist and scholar Angela Davis; German Chancellor Angela Merkel; filmmaker Ava DuVernay, my first choice; and Sylvia Rivera, the late trans-activist veteran of Stonewall, whose name was not familiar to most of the audience. I kept thinking, a downtown arts audience would know Rivera's name right away.

Who do we stand with?

Future Open Spectrum gatherings will address the post-election concerns of other demographic groups, including people with disabilities, Black youth and immigrants. For information, contact New York Live Arts here.

See the video of Open Spectrum: What Will Be Different? here.

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The Fierce Urgency of Now: A Space to Process the Election

The Fierce Urgency of Now: 

A Space to Process the Election

Tuesday, November 29

7pm to 9pm

FREE/OPEN TO ALL

Initiated by Jill Sigman and Co-Facilitated by Marguerite Hemmings, Joshua Hall, Mary Suk, David King, and other artists and thinkers 

Hosted by Gibney Dance

FREE and open to people of all races, ethnicities, ages, and nationalities, artists and non-artists

The Fierce Urgency of Now is a public dialogue event for artists, activists, friends, colleagues, and affiliates. Many of us are still feeling the need for space and community in which to process the election and its ramifications. Artists and activists are simultaneously part of multiple vulnerable populations; now more than ever, we are concerned about racism, sexism, visas and immigration, access to healthcare, rights and safety for queer and trans people, disability access, affordable housing, financial stability, and so much more. This loosely structured public event creates a “temporary commons” in which to think, talk, wonder, question, imagine, and brainstorm. It is conceived as an open dialogue (not a strategy meeting or a place to determine actionable steps, although if those emerge, we’ll welcome them too). One event can’t do everything. The Fierce Urgency of Now is intended to be part of a collective beginning, which hopefully leads to future dialogues, more focused groups, strategy building, task forces, etc.

For more information, click here.

Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center

280 Broadway (enter at 53A Chambers Street), Manhattan

(map/directions)

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New World Disorder: Nothing Normal Here

Why the Art World Must Not Normalize Donald Trump’s Presidency

Since the election, many people have called for a return to business as usual and pledged their support for the president-elect, but these attitudes are dangerous for artists, arts workers, and many, many others. (click to read)

by Noah Fischer, Hyperallergic, November 15, 2016

Agnes Nixon, 93

Agnes Nixon, Who Injected Social Ills Into Soap Operas, Dies at 93
by Robert D. McFadden, The New York Times, September 28, 2016

Please begin again: Edisa Weeks/Delirious Dances at Gibney

Ricarrdo Valentine
of Edisa Weeks/Delirious Dances
in To Begin The World Over Again
(photo: Julie Lemberger)

Dear To Begin The World Over Again,

That's right. I'm addressing you. It feels weird to be writing a letter to an entire theatrical production. I've never done this before. So please excuse any awkwardness.

Where to begin?

I must admit I wasn't quite sure I was up for a work about American democracy, one asking these questions: "How are freedom and democracy packaged and promoted in America? What does it mean to be free in America? As America becomes more consumer-driven, polarized and disenchanted, is America living up to its promise?"

Not after grueling months of our cringe-worthy pre-election process. Not after the shock of Brexit, across the pond, with its ugly, racist roots that mirror our own shame. Not after Orlando and the reminder of what horror can come of so much unrelenting political dysfunction, opportunism and irresponsibility.

But I took up Edisa Weeks's invitation to see you at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, and I encountered you--a collaboration in dance and music that feels so much like a living, breathing person that I must write you this letter.

Strange, isn't it? A dance company--say, Weeks's Delirious Dances--is certainly made up of individual people. Likewise, Numinous, the ensemble directed by Joseph C. Phillips Jr., your composer and conductor--is made up of real people, too. And yet, in over four decades of writing about performance, I have never had an entire event reach me and affect me with the sensitivity and focused power I'd normally associate with a single human being.

And I know there's a single human being at the root of your artists' concerns--philosopher Thomas Paine, a man of reason tapped by Weeks and Phillips in this age of irrationality. But it isn't Thomas Paine or any other founding father who comes through. It is you.

And you come through, first, in Phillips's music, especially the bright, brisk uplift of his opening, "Reel Liberty." In that music, your flutey, bell-toned, energized voice dances. You appear before us as a dance we hear in our ears. As you proceed, you will sing with different voices, bringing the words of Paine and more recent speakers to us. By the time you've finished--in "We Have It In Our Power"--your voice will echo like a hypnotic mantra, soothing yet also designed to ground, direct and inspire.

You are also in the voice of actor Michael Henry. I peg him in my notes as "the white man." And, of course, although other dancers--two Black men, one Black woman, an Asian woman from Singapore and a white American woman--gently greet us with baskets of fortune cookies and noisemakers, it is Henry whose forceful, crackling voice permeates the space with authority and no small measure of demand.

Everyone, for instance, absolutely must get a cookie, or he won't be satisfied. He throws them out at us. The woman to my left gets the "fortune" I'd wish for--"My mind is my own church. -- Thomas Paine."

Damn!  That's it exactly. Instead, I get something fairly obvious and dry but adopt my neighbor's "fortune" as my own, as an affirmation of my entire life. So, thank you.

You also appear through the energy of Weeks's five dancers, as mentioned before, a representation of diversity--Ardella Bang, Angel Chinn, Johnnie Mercer, EmmaGrace Skove-Epps and Ricarrdo Valentine. If there is anything here resembling the hoped-for "shining city on a hill," they are the ones who have built it. That's what their dancing shows me as their movements clear, carve, define and hold space. Their extensions, tumbles, runs, whirls, lunges, stretches and rolls, continuous and seamless, demonstrate labor and determination without which nothing would be here.

Weeks's choreography--here and in later sections--reveals your unfussy, transparent, accessible nature. You long to tell your bittersweet story and unburden your heart. For every time I've grieved that a good dance--or a great dance--will be seen by relatively few, I grieve harder to think that that could be your fate. You have been wonderfully made for the many. Please do not fade away.

I'm moved--eyes tearing--by how you sweep your audience into your story, your meaning, your humanity, teaching us and revealing us to ourselves. So much sweetness. Yes, the problems are old, hard, complicated, even perilous. But the feelings? Can we get to feelings that could help us begin anew?

At the end, I rise from my seat and catch a friend flicking something from her eyes. "You, too?" I ask.

"Oh, yes," she answers.

Thank you.

With great respect,
Eva Yaa Asantewaa
InfiniteBody

*****

With costumes by Sarita Fellows, lighting by Tim Cryan and live music by Numinous (Matt Aronoff, Mike Baggeta, Katie Cox, Maria Jeffers, Bogna Kicinska, Thomson Kneeland, Ana Milosavljevic, Adrian Sandi, Tammy Scheffer, Carmen Staaf and Emilie Weibel), conducted by Joseph C. Phillips Jr.

To Begin The World Over Again concludes with a Family Night performance tonight at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.

For Family Night, the company will offer free activities and care for children of all ages from 7:30-9:30pm. Space is limited for the free childcare, and the required RSVP registration was projected to end at 5pm Friday, but you can check to see if space remains: http://bit.ly/EdisaWeeksFamilyNight.

Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center

280 Broadway (enter at 53A Chambers Street), Manhattan

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Spiderwoman: "Material Witness" to violence against women

Gloria Miguel of Spiderwoman Theater
in Material Witness at La MaMa
(photo: courtesy Spiderwoman Theater)

I leave the door open for the spirits to walk about freely.

I welcome all the guardians to our space.

--Gloria Miguel in Material Witness

I never saw Spiderwoman Theater's original Women in Violence--the first production by this legendary Native American troupe, premiered in New York in 1976. But, last night at La MaMa, I got a good look at its rambunctious offspring, Material Witness, a piece designed to reach out to today's young women. It aims to remind them, and all of us, that physical, sexual and emotional abuse has not been eradicated from Native communities and that silence about it remains a deadly force.

Material Witness is directed by Spiderwoman co-founder Muriel Miguel, co-written by its six-woman cast with Miguel, and co-presented with Aanmitaagzi, an indigenous, interdisciplinary troupe from Nipissing First Nation, Ontario.

The 90-minute work bears all the hallmarks of Spiderwoman--communal, community-minded theater, story-based exposition, rollicking physical humor often reminiscent of vaudeville and slapstick comedy, and strong musical drive. The 1976 tune from AC/DC, "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"--its chorus cheekily woven into a narrative about deeds most dirty--meets up with Lady Gaga's "Til It Happens to You." But, of course. And its new generation--the radiantly charming and kickass Cherish Violet Blood, Penny Couchie (choreographer), Donna Couteau, Ange Loft and Tanis Parenteau--share the stage with veteran Spiderwoman Gloria Miguel who serves as witness to their struggles and stories, setting and holding the space for them, collaborating in their honesty and victories. The music is dance-club loud, Soni Moreno's costume and decor colors and combos are eye-popping, and the performers' energy rocks the house.

Let me issue a standard trigger warning:  Some stories related here can be uncomfortable for anyone, especially survivors of violence, to hear. But I must also leave you with this laughter trigger warning: Spiderwoman's commitment to humor as a disinfectant has not and will never quit.

Material Witness continues through May 29 with performances Thursday to Saturday at 7:30pm and Sunday at 2pm. Panel discussions are scheduled following certain performances. For information and tickets, click here.

La MaMa

74A East 4th Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenue), Manhattan

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Bob Fitch, 76

Bob Fitch, Photojournalist of Civil Rights Era, Dies at 76
by Sam Roberts, The New York Times, May 3, 2016

Alicia Grullón reenacts Wendy Davis's Texas filibuster at BRIC

Alicia Grullón performs Filibuster
at BRIC House
(all photos: Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

It began with a pair of pink Mizuno Women’s Wave Rider 16 Running Shoes. On June 25, 2013, Texas State Senator Wendy Davis stood for 11 hours in these pink sneakers, filibustering against a restrictive abortion bill and creating history. Bronx artist Alicia Grullón will recreate this piece of history in its entirety (in an identical pair of pink Mizuno shoes) from 10am until 9pm Wednesday, April 13 at BRIC House.

--posted by BRIC Art Blogger, March 25, 2016

When, with the anti-abortion bill HB60, a defiant Texas legislature wedged itself between women and their physicians, State Senator Wendy Davis took a stand--literally--hour by hour, speaking truth to power. Her 11-hour embodied act of principle was not a stunt, and neither was Filibuster, Alicia Grullón's reenactment of this historic and remarkable effort, presented as part of the BRIC House exhibition, Whisper Or Shout: Artists in the Social Sphere.

I spent just one half-hour, yesterday, seated in front of Grullón on the porch at BRIC, but each of those thirty minutes hit hard. One particular story cited in the letters Davis/Grullón read concerned an expectant couple told their baby was severely ill and would not survive. Day and night, the mother lived with anguish that her child might die inside her before she could ever see and hold her.

"I was petrified that my baby was going to die while I was asleep," she wrote. "We decided to have labor induced. We were informed that it really wasn't possible." Why? Because her health insurance was provided by her employer, a faith-based firm.

"Knowing that your daughter is dying is heartbreaking," she wrote. "It feels as if your soul is ripping apart."

But the legislators who heedlessly wandered in and out of the Texas chambers as Davis read these words and other testimony had no interest in real life, just the pandering politics of so-called "pro-life."

Grullón read from another protesting letter: "I've seen the 1950s, and I don't want to go back there."

I witnessed only a short part of Filibuster--neither Grullón's first reenactment nor her first filibuster, as you can read here--but I know the physical, mental and emotional discipline required to perform it must have been enormous. As a woman of color, Grullón committed to this challenge to underscore the impact of retrogressive social policies on women and families of color and the need for us to be at the forefront of movements for social justice.

The exhibition Whisper or Shout: Artists in the Social Sphere continues through May 1 in the Gallery at BRIC House. Click here for information.

BRIC House
647 Fulton Street, Brooklyn
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