William P. Kinsella, 81

William P. Kinsella, Author of ‘Shoeless Joe,’ Dies at 81
by Christopher Mele, The New York Times, September 17, 2016

"Tyson vs. Ali" knocks out 2014 COIL opening

Scene from Reid Farrington's Tyson vs. Ali
(photo by John Hurley)

Reid Farrington and his extensive creative and technical team deliver, yes, a decisive knockout punch with the world premiere of Tyson vs. Ali. And since Farrington's COIL Festival run at 3LD Art & Technology Center has been extended to January 26, you'll have more chances to get your ringside seat.

 

Tyson vs. Ali is a PS 122 commission, produced by
3-Legged Dog and co-presented by PS 122 and 3-Legged Dog.

Less a conventional play about two titans of boxing, Tyson vs. Ali deftly squeezes into one hour, through extraordinary live action, video imagery, text and sound, a visceral encounter with The Boxer as looming archetype and intriguingly complex individual.

At the heart of the work's sensory dazzle are four gifted performers--Dennis A. Allen II, Roger Casey, Femi Olagoke, Jonathan Swain--through which the personalities, words, speech patterns, body language and fighting styles of Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali and others endlessly shift. In other words, no one "fighter" portrays and embodies a stable identity, and you are along for the ride.

The surrounding boxing ring (set by Simon Harding, who also created the video) is similarly fluid with continuously projected imagery, some of it massive, close-up and disturbing. It plunges us into history--through clips from famous matches or from television interviews with the champs--and yanks us back into the present as we gaze upon video images of the actor/dancers' beat-up faces, swollen eyes and bloody gashes. (Shenna Vaughn's special effects makeup is frightfully convincing.)

The various "rounds" and transitions offer, for our contemplation, considerations of boxing style and strategy, the genesis of each boxer's attraction to the sport and, the psychology of champions and, of course, issues of power, sexuality and race.

Although I've seen a few televised matches and have the typical American's awareness of boxing and its celebrities, I do not follow the sport. But you need not be a boxing fan to appreciate Tyson vs. Ali. Farrington's team has achieved a coherent and powerful beauty.

With choreography by Laura K. Nicoll, script by Frank Boudreaux, performances by Dennis A. Allen II, Roger Casey, Femi Olagoke, Jonathan Swain and Dave Shelley; sound design by Juan Aboites

Tyson vs. Ali has been extended through January 26. For complete information, including schedule details, click here. To purchase tickets, click here.

3LD Art & Technology Center
80 Greenwich Street (near Rector Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Juan Villoro: lessons from Mexican soccer

Mexican Writer Mines the Soccer Field for Metaphors

by Randal C. Archibold, The New York Times, October 25, 2013

Bring a camera and just add water

The Amazing Grace of Underwater Portraits
Photographer Henrik Sorensen takes a fluid approach to the body in motion
by Paul Bisceglio, Smithsonian Magazine, June 2013

Maxine Sheets-Johnstone and guests discuss "Life and Movement"

The Helix Center for Interdisciplinary Investigation of NYPSI 

presents

Life and Movement

Friday, October 26 (7pm-9pm)
Free and open to the public
Information

How does the study of evolution, coordination dynamics, sports, social interactions, and aesthetics help us understand movement and life? In this roundtable, we will explore: movement and objects as distinctively different "things" to study; coordination dynamics and intrinsic dynamics and tendencies; kinesthesia; the evolution of social coordination; how, in the living company of others, we are both challenged and supported; the value of nurturing and pursuing a moving life with all its risks and challenges.

Moderator: Maxine Sheets-Johnstone
Panel: Linnda Caporael, Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza, and J. A. Scott Kelso
 
Participant bios:

Maxine Sheets-Johnstone (moderator) is a philosopher whose first life was as a dancer/choreographer, professor of dance/dance scholar. She has an ongoing Courtesy Professor appointment in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Oregon where she taught periodically in the 1990s. She has published numerous articles in humanities, science, and art journals. Her books include The Phenomenology of Dance; The Roots of Thinking; The Roots of Power: Animate Form and Gendered Bodies; The Roots of Morality; The Primacy of Movement; The Corporeal Turn: An Interdisciplinary Reader. She received an M.A. in Dance and a Ph.D. in Dance and Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin where she also studied for but did not complete a second doctorate in evolutionary biology.

Linnda R. Caporael is a professor in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Her research concerns biology from a cultural perspective and culture from a biological perspective. She has written on a variety of topics including cooperation, group coordination, social identity, and the attribution of human characteristics to animals and machines. She is an associate editor for Biological Theory: Integrating Development, Evolution, and Cognition, on the editorial board of Psychological Review, and a fellow of the Association for Psychological Sciences (APS). Her published work has appeared in numerous journals and edited books including Science, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, and Social Psychology: Handbook of Basic Principles (2nd ed.). She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Linfield College (Oregon), received the 2011-2012 Samuel H. Graf Faculty Achievement Award and was the 2008-2009 Allen & Pat Kelley Faculty Scholar. Currently he serves as conference chair for the International Association for the Philosophy of Sport. He is the co-editor with M. Austin of Cycling-Philosophy for Everyone. He has published articles in journals such as Sports, Ethics, and Philosophy and Proteus, and written chapters for both scholarly and popular imprint anthologies on sports and risk, the Olympic Games, soccer, hunting, sailing, martial arts, childhood and sports, and literature. Pedalling and swimming are his favored ways of moving about in life.

J.A. Scott Kelso grew up in Derry, N. Ireland and was educated at universities in Belfast, Calgary and Wisconsin. He was senior research scientist at Yale's Haskins Laboratories for 7 years before moving to Florida Atlantic University in 1985 to take up the Glenwood and Martha Creech Chair in Science and found The Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences. He is also Visiting Professor of Computational Neuroscience at The University of Ulster's Intelligent Systems Research Centre (Magee Campus, Derry). Kelso's research uses a combination of non-invasive brain imaging techniques, measures of real-time behavior and the concepts, methods and tools of coordination dynamics to understand how human beings (and human brains)-individually and together-coordinate behavior on multiple levels, from cells to cognition and social behavior. Kelso is a Fellow of AAAS, APA, APS and SEP. In 2007 he was named Pierre de Fermat Laureate and in 2011 was the recipient of the Bernstein Prize. He serves or has served on the Editorial Board of 12 scientific journals and monographs, and is Founding Editor of the Springer Series Understanding Complex Systems.

Helix Center (Marianne & Nicholas Young Auditorium)
247 East 82nd Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

With art as your end goal

Dancer as Athlete (video; 5:07)
William C. Rhoden, The New York Times, February 9, 2012

New York Times sportswriter William C. Rhoden discusses dance as an athletic endeavor with Alicia Graf Mack, a dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Through thick or thin ice

What real dancers think of figure skating
Insiders reveal what they love and loathe about their balletic cousins on ice 
by Margaret Eby, Salon.com, February 16, 2010

Mr. Bojangles

When Bojangles Came to the Defense of the Yankees
by Ray Robinson, The New York Times, August 23, 2009

Muscles!

Show me your muscles
by Dorothy Snarker, Dorothy Surrenders, July 30, 2009

Figuring out safe skating

Science Takes to the Ice
by Pam Belluck, The New York Times, June 22, 2009

Eva's Book Club (4)

Dance folks, what are you reading?

Just completed:

Where The Mountain Casts Its Shadow: The Dark Side of Extreme Adventure by Maria Coffey (St. Martin's Press, 2003)

And now I'm very eager to read Coffey's more recent book: Explorers of the Infinite.

Use the Comments feature to tell us what you're reading!

Dance artists interviewed on WBGO sports show

For some fun and inspiration, go to the WBGO site and click down the podcast list for Doug Doyle's interviews with:

• Judith Jamison

• Savion Glover

on WBGO's Sport Jam with Doug Doyle (Jazz88FM--88.3FM)