Dual identities, dual explorations

Mayuna Shimizu in Tom Pearson's Ceremony
(photo: Corrine Furman)

I was honored to be asked to moderate Dance New Amsterdam's post-show Q&A for choreographers Tom Pearson (Third Rail Projects) and Donna Ahmadi (Mantis Dance Theater) last evening. Listening to artists share their experiences, their concerns and their own questions draws us closer in empathy to the human being behind the phenomenon that we have just witnessed. Tom and Donna, as people of mixed ancestry (Euro- and Native American) seem so keenly tuned into the complexities of history, heritage, environment and contemporary context, that listening as they talk about their lives and work opens us up to a network of treasures beyond their immediate selves, stretching into the past and the possible future. The Third Rail Projects family of artists are not only collectors of quaint and quirky artifacts, as they assemble for their installation works, but also collectors and connoisseurs of the living spirit within places, things and people.

Choreographer Tom Pearson
(photo: Corrine Furman)

Now through Sunday, as part of its Heritage Series, DNA is presenting "Walking in Two." The show features Pearson's landmark solo, Ceremony (re-set on Third Rail's Mayuna Shimizu, who brings to the role her sensibilities as an immigrant from Japan); the world premiere of Ahmadi's powerful trio work, Scalp Lock; and the world premiere of Pearson's site-specific ensemble, Walking in Two, which messes with the showbiz roots of America's "cowboys and Indians" myth and delves into Pearson and Ahmadi's own roots as Native performers. DNA's galleries are hosting Pearson's visual art installation Kissing the Gunner's Daughter, part of which you may touch and explore. (Gallery admission is free, 9am-10pm, Monday-Sunday.)

Choreographer Donna Ahmadi (left)
with Rebekah Morin and Marissa Nielsen-Pincus
in Scalp Lock
(photo: Corrine Furman)

For more information and tickets for Walking in Two, click here.

Walking in Two

Dance New Amsterdam

280 Broadway, 2nd Floor, Manhattan (entrance on Chambers Street)

Also see this interesting exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, now through January 16, and look for the photo portraits of Pearson and Ahmadi!

Bill T. Jones tells all! (NEW DATE)

UPDATE from NJPAC:

The following event has been rescheduled from December to February 19. Bill T. Jones has been selected as one of the recipients of the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors (The Kennedy Center Honors). He will receive his award with other luminaries, such as Oprah Winfrey and Sir Paul McCartney at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. The presentation will be televised nationally and President and Mrs. Obama will be in attendance. Tickets already purchased will be valid for the February 19th discussion. Patrons with questions should contact NJPAC Ticket Services at 1-888-GO-NJPAC  (466-5722).

*****

New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), in downtown Newark, welcomes award-winning choreographer-director Bill T. Jones to its Alternate Routes "tell-all" discussion series Legacies and Legends.

Saturday, February 19, 7:30PM in The Chase Room (event description)

Legacies and Legends is a series of intimate conversations with artists, authors, scholars, entrepreneurs, filmmakers and others who have contributed to the cultural, educational, social, political and spiritual contexts and landscapes of society. All discussions are led by Baraka Sele, Producer/Curator of NJPAC’s Alternate Routes. In its inaugural season, the series hosted discussions with Susan L. Taylor and Judith Jamison.

For ticketing, directions to NJPAC and more information, call 1-888-GO-NJPAC (1-888-466-5722) or click here.

Puppet theater of the damned

If you've never seen Phantom Limb's brilliant, acerbic marionette show The Fortune Teller, HERE Arts Center is giving you through December 4 to find some place to slap this on your calendar.

Premiered in 2006 at HERE through its Dream Music Puppetry Program, this smartly-written, compact piece--about 50 minutes--recounts the tale of a fateful gathering of seven men who believe they might inherit money from a deceased millionaire, one Nathaniel Ax. Each of these men represent "a rogue's gallery of our city's finest lowlifes," says the narrating crocodile (wonderful urbane voice by Gavin Friday). As you might suspect, they're all in for the surprise of their lives.

Instead of a reading of the will, each of the attendees is subjected to a reading by a mysterious fortune teller who doesn't mince words. Each vignette offers a view into the life and character of one of the seven and a certain little forecast. A hunter, a miser, a snoop, a self-absorbed actor and more--all of these grotesque, creepy guys have it coming to them. Revenge is a dish best served by a persistent butterfly or a manic roasted chicken or...what? Okay, well, if you go, you'll see what I mean.

Creator/directors Erik Sanko (who also designed the outstanding marionettes) and Jessica Grindstaff lead a crackerjack team including puppeteers Honey Goodenough, Anne Posluszny, Ian Sweetman and Sabrina D'Angelo who, in short order, make some of the weirdest, least-lovable puppets come alive in convincingly off-putting ways. Sanko also teamed up with famed film/television composer Danny Elfman for the score--a suitably over-the-top mix of florid oompah-pah and chiming tickytock. Kudos, in particular, to Andy Green for his chillingly rich sound design. It's dreadful--and I mean that in a good way!

Phantom Limb's The Fortune Teller, now at HERE through December 4

HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Avenue, Manhattan
Entrance on Dominick Street (directions)

Schedule and ticketing

Famed jazz fests need new sponsor

Company Ends Its Sponsorship of New York and Newport Jazz Festivals

by Ben Sisario, The New York Times, November 4, 2010

Dance in flight

How starling flocks create their aerobatic displays

by Matt Walker, Earth News, BBC.co.uk, November 11, 2010

The poetry of photography

Highly recommended: A visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exquisite new photography exhibit--Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand. Open now through April 10.

Exhibit information

Museum visitors information

Maybe not HERE

Soul Leaves Her Body, running now at HERE Arts Center, would benefit from relocation. No disrespect to HERE, but this piece--co-directed by Peter Flaherty and the dance artist Jennie MaryTai Liu, who also choreographed it--seems ready to bust its sheath. 

At 75 minutes, it's a biggish kind of multidisciplinary work which, unfortunately, often moves at a ponderous, earnest pace. But there are some very good big things about it, too--like set designer Peter Ksander's tall, adjoined glass panels that cleverly serve as video screens and create dramatic entranceways. Of the four live performers, including Liu, the work is best served by dancer Leslie Cuyjet's vivid, delicately-detailed performing and actress Wai Ching Ho's beautiful warmth. These two possess an assured subtlety and conviction that tug at one's attention.

The piece, inspired by a story from China's 13th Century Yuan Dynasty, overlaps and merges ancient and contemporary narratives in a way that is sometimes intriguing, sometimes drawn out and not quite fresh. The point of it all--which, according to press materials, is something about love and family and distance and digital communication--wanders about and gets lost at times. But its visual elements--especially the larger-than-life imagery of characters in period theatrical garb and makeup--are knockouts.

Soul Leaves Her Body feels not only stuffed into its space but, with the maneuvering of the glass panels or the deployment of the video, shoved into our laps and faces. I imagine it, instead, in a more generous setting where its virtues can perhaps be reconsidered and better appreciated.

Soul Leaves Her Body continues through November 23. Ticketing information and directions

HERE Arts Center

145 6th Avenue, Manhattan 

(entrance on Dominick Street, one block south of Spring)