Underexposed at Dixon Place...for now

Artists from Dixon Place's Under Exposed program
Above: Breeanah Breeden (left) with Kathleen Kelley
(photo: Andy Ribner)
Below: Sari Nordman
(photo: Shane Solow)

The Dixon Place performance series Under Exposed, curated by Doug Post, offers emerging choreographers opportunities to show work at various stages of development. New York dance watchers might discover one or more up-and-coming artists who should be on our radar. Any such testing-ground programming will be eclectic and likely uneven but not without rewards.

The following artists showed work last evening at Dixon Place:

Kathleen Kelley and Breeanah Breeden

Justin Faircloth and Maddie Schimmel

Liz Charky

Sari Nordman

Ranardo-Domeico Grays

Grays's three excerpts from Roots--performed by members of his VISIONS Contemporary Ballet--is the kind of big-hearted ensemble deployment that would benefit from more space to spread out in and more distance from the audience than Dixon Place can offer. A praise dance steeped in traditional ballet and modern techniques, it finds its life in the elegant technique and conviction of Wesley McIntyre, the one performer who reflects the roaring fire of devotion right down to the cellular level. He is a joy to watch.

I also enjoyed the chance to see a duet by Kelley--my Montclair State University colleague--and Breeden. In Orbicular, the two women--one white, one Black--start out silently, warily eyeing each other as they begin a shifting, growing interaction. Near the end, each dancer takes turns slipping behind the other in a braid of imagery that could mean any number of things. I perceived a newfound bond against external threat, a protective alliance between the two.

Charky is the artist I'll be most excited to track in the future, and you should keep up with her, too. Her funny/scary I'm Afraid of Everyone--a sort of celebrity gossip game played out as interrogation--proved to be the perfect vehicle for four performers capable of droll humor. The two Chris Isaak songs she drops are a big bonus. Dancer Elizabeth Furman's ebbing, flowing, desperately vulnerable solo set against Isaak's "Wicked Game" makes her another distinctive artist to look for again and again.

Under Exposed is closed for the season. For information on this and all Dixon Place programming, click here.

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

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Of dance and men...at Dixon Place

Jonathan Royce Windham's
Creatures of Habit
(photo: Nir Arieli)

It's a sorry start to the weekend. All grey out there. So, if you need some zest and some fun, make dance your ticket tonight.

I recommend Creatures of Habit, a program featuring the clever work of that title, choreographed by Jonathan Royse Windham, and a couple of energetic works-in-progress showcased by boomerang and Danté Brown/Warehouse Dance. About 90 minutes, all men dancing all the time.

Why do you want to see that?

Well, in each of these pieces--finished or not, and it's hard to believe there's much more work to be done on those two unfinished ones--these guys go all out. I mean, really all out, whether it is nonstop physical exertion and risk--as in Kora Radella duet, For the Toward, for boomerang's Will Arbery and Matty Davis--or the extremes of comic absurdity in Windham's rambunctious ensemble or the exuberant bromance of three frat brothers so well depicted in Danté Brown's Package by Brown, Michael Abbatiello and the radiant Chafin Seymour.

Choreographer Danté Brown
(photo: Naré Ghazarian)

Each choreographer works with this full-out male energy, in different ways, to challenge and complicate our surface understanding of masculinity and, in the case of Windham with his seven over-the-top archetypes, to wickedly satirize how male performers behave around each other. Windham pushes things about as far as they can go--and sometimes too often or over too long a stretch--but his performers are great at morphing into and sustaining their physical/ psychological roles. Radella draws an erotic and sometimes surprisingly tender intimacy from the connection between her two dancers, all the while threatening them, life and limb, with the heavy metal props they toy with and maneuver quite recklessly.

Tonight's program at 7:30 repeats last night's opener with the three aforementioned companies. See below for programming details for the two upcoming weekends of works.

Creatures of Habit, along with two works in progress*, will run on Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30pm. Remaining shows are on October 4, 10, 11, 17 and 18.

*Schedule of companies and choreographers showing works-in-progress:

October 4: boomerang and Danté B/Warehouse Dance
October 10 and 11: Ephrat Asherie and LAVA
October 17 and 18:  Christopher Ralph and Raja Feather Kelly

Get tickets here.

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

Behind the scenes with LMCC and Enrico D. Wey

Great new art doesn't just auto-magically appear during Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's popular River to River Festival (various sites, June 15-July 14). It has to be made, and making it takes space and a fair amount of time. LMCC provides both to artists like Enrico D. Wey, now working on a dance project with a company of four in LMCC's Process Space residency at 125 Maiden Lane. Yesterday afternoon, a small group of visitors got a chance to look under the hood and see how Wey works.

Wey's work-in-progress, targeted for premiere later this year or in 2014, is conceived to be responsive and adjustable to multiple outdoor and traditional indoor venues. In his sample showing, each dancer twisted, slouched and seamlessly flowed through a connected sequence of moves of his or her own or adopted his colleagues' moves. Wey continuously shuffled and recombined dancers and number of moves--"Jeremy, can you learn Mary's 20," "Simon, go to your 75." In a later passage, dancers executed patterns of bending and swaying that, like gazing out at a wind-rustled meadow, made my breath slow down. All of this seemed an ideal way to hook audiences on the notion that contemporary dance can be welcoming and even fun.

To find more opportunities to visit Open Studio showings, and for complete information on River to River's "over 150 events in 30 days at 28 sites," click here.

Brave the cold tonight: BRINK at Dixon Place

Last night's frigid cold was not enough to keep progressive dance luminaries--from Movement Research, Chocolate Factory and the like--from turning out in support of Kathy Wasik and Stacy Grossfield, both choreographers showing works-in-progress at Dixon Place. These pieces couldn't be more different.

Wasik's low-key Real things, things, and ghost things (whose title might slip over onto Grossfield's dance without doing it much violence) utilizes a nearly bare space and two casually be-jeaned dancers (Wasik and Cara Angela Liguori) colliding in competition over attempts to build a house of cards. (Speaking of which, check this out.) As you might guess, the arc of Real things rises and falls on the two women's often tickling runs at and avoidance of building a personal connection. I most enjoyed watching Wasik's face--big, dark eyes full of potential warmth peering at Liguori, mouth sometimes evenly set, registering faint but detectable amusement, restrained sarcasm or genuine interest. If nothing else, this is a dance that proves that faces--and their gazes--dance.

For Grossfield's Red, Pink, Black, the audience gets displaced from its front-on arrangement--mainly, as far as I could tell, so drummer Anders Griffen could commandeer one of our seats and, also, so we could catch a good view of the theater's balcony. A nightmarish and interestingly childlike drama unfolds--visually and aurally overblown, like a pretend medieval carnival with ratty, makeshift costuming--performed by Grossfield, Nicole Daunic, Rebecca Warner and a hyperactive, amusingly menacing Joey Kipp.

DP's BRINK program, curated by Kim Brandt conclude this evening with a show at 7:30pm. Check in here for complete details and ticketing.

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