Identifying makers of Native American art

At Denver Art Museum, American Indian Works as Art

by Judith H. Dobrzynski, The New York Times, February 3, 2011

"Oh, do not look at me that way!"

"Am I boring you?"

No, not for a minute, Victoria Libertore...that is, er, Countess Erzsébet Báthory! And even if you were, I would be too terrified to say so.


Victoria Libertore in Girl Meat(photo: Paula Lobo)



In her theatrical solo Girl Meat at Dance New Amsterdam, writer-performer Libertore assumes the persona of the notorious Blood Countess, the 16th Century Hungarian noblewoman and military hero's wife accused of the physical abuse, sexual torture and murder of hundreds of young women and girls. Libertore's program notes tell us that Báthory got away with, yes, murder--roughly 650 times, mind you--only when she confined her activities to the poor and to young women in her employ. When she developed a taste for the lovelies in the aristocracy--"whom she invited to her castle for etiquette training"--things no longer went so well for her and for her co-conspirators.



There are two other interesting details. The countess's ultimate punishment was to be confined to a few bricked-up rooms in her favorite castle, where she died in 1614 and, "until recent interest unearthed her story, Báthory's infamous name was largely obliterated from historical record." But, thanks to Libertore, who stalks the intimately narrow space between two rows of audience, Báthory has returned from obscurity, from banishment, an unholy creature dredged from the darkest regions of the collective unconscious.



She's a small woman, Libertore. But you don't sense that at the outset--and not merely because we first see her standing astride a metal throne, her eggplant-colored velvet gown puffed out around her legs. Libertore's a skillful actress, commanding attention at once and never relinquishing it for the following hour-plus. Slowly raising a hand mirror towards her face, she draws it past her head then cocks it back like a club and holds it there just long enough to leave the impression that she will bring it down hard on the first one of us who gets out of line. 

And suddenly a voice sings out a sleazy, corrupted version of "Thank Heavens for Little Girls."



Libertore/Báthory slides the mirror across her curdled face, and she introduces herself by telling us what she has been called but is not (werewolf, tigress, vampire) and what she is (clearly a woman who's frightened of aging, although she certainly doesn't say so in those terms). She has a musical, vaguely Eastern European accent and a tone more confiding and insinuating than, for a woman of her station, haughty. With one or another lethal-looking metal object in hand, she will drift around and prowl the space, gliding close to us, recounting her history, telling stories in a narrative voice that readily slides from romance novel to soft porn to snuff film with alarming facility. Aside from gentle chuckles, the audience is pin-drop silent, completely in the snare of this slick and compelling, power-mad woman.



I was first introduced to Libertore's work in 2008 when she presented another solo piece, My Journey of Decay, at Dixon Place. She's a smart, gifted performer, confident in voice, timing, and movement in space, an actress with the wiliness of a shaman in the underworld and the surefootedness of a goat on a thin ledge.



Direction by Rosalie Purvis. With costumes by Jeff Sturdivant; scenic and prop design by Jono Lukas; and lighting by Amanda K. Ringger



Last chance to see Girl Meat: today at 3pm! Hurry! Click here for information and a brief video. For tickets, click here.

Dance New Amsterdam

280 Broadway, 2nd Floor, Manhattan

Entrance on Chambers Street

(directions)

212-227-9856

Student designer wins Limón competition

Sheryl Liu (scenic design, UC Irvine) has been selected to create the new sets and costumes for the Limón Dance Company’s upcoming revival of Limón’s 1956 masterwork The Emperor Jones, scheduled to premiere April 29 in Culiacan, Mexico, birthplace of Limón, followed by a tour of Mexico and presentation during the Company’s June 7-12 New York season at the John Jay Theater.

The Competition was sponsored by the Limón Dance Company and the National Endowment for the Arts as part of American Masterpieces for the purpose of bringing a fresh point of view to this acknowledged dance classic, on the occasion of its first restaging by the Company in 25 years. An invitation was extended to a select group of visual arts institutions in Mexico, Canada, and across the US , who invited a small group of their most talented students to apply. The Company received applications from young designers around the country, including Tennessee, California, New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, and 10 finalists were chosen.

Sheryl Liu was selected by the panel of judges that consisted of Carla Maxwell, Artistic Director of the Limón Dance Company; Roxane D’Orleans Juste, Company Associate Artistic Director; lighting designer Carol Mullins, and Clay Taliaferro, who learned the work directly from José Limón, danced the leading role, and will reconstruct and direct the revival.

SHERYL LIU is a third year scenic design student at UCIrvine. Her assisting credits include working in Alexander Dodge’s studio during the summer of 2009 on projects at the Old Globe, the Lansburgh, and the Roundabout Theater Company. Last summer she assisted Christopher Acebo at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Her designs for Salome and La bohème have been selected to be part of EMERGE: 2011 at the Prague Quadrennial, the world’s top international stage design exhibition. Design credits at UCIrvine include The Wild Party, The Laramie Project, Little Women, Cyrano de Bergerac, Into the Woods, and The Crucible.

THE EMPEROR JONES
Premiered July 12, 1956 at the Empire State Festival, Ellenville, New York
Choreography: José Limón
Commissioned Score: Heitor Villa-Lobos
Reconstructed and Directed by Clay Taliaferro

In the classic Eugene O’Neill play, Jones, a fugitive from a chain gang, sets himself up as emperor of an island domain. He becomes a tyrant, and his mistreatment of his subjects causes them to rebel, hunt him down, and bring him to an ignominious end. The dance makes no attempt to adhere to the play’s sequence, but rather seeks to give it another dimension. The various episodes which concern Jones’ encounter with visions and hallucinations encompassing his own personal, and later, his racial memories, are juxtaposed within the necessarily brief duration of a dance.

For further information on the Limón Dance Company and its upcoming programs, click here.

Anna Schon: Spirit in the dance

Why I Dance

by Anna Schon, Dance Magazine, February 5, 2011

You've got CLASSCLASSCLASS!

Hang on, New York! Spring will come...eventually...and with it, CLASSCLASSCLASS!

Classes ($10) and workshops ($15) will run 14 weeks from March 7 - June 12.

Teachers include: Hilary Clark, Chase Granoff, Chris Peck, Elizabeth Ward, luciana achugar, Melanie Maar, Walter Dundervill, Ana Isabel Keilson, Irfana Jetha, Lindsay Clark, Diana Crum, Madeline Best, Colin Gee, Mariana Valencia, Elizabeth Giron, Justine Lynch, Beth Gill, SKINT, Will Rawls, Marjani Forte, Tatyana Tenenbaum and Jen Rosenblit.

For more information, click here or contact classclassclassdance@gmail.com.

CLASSCLASSCLASS nurtures a continued future of dance pedagogy in New York City by engaging and developing a new generation of dance and performance artists as they teach their craft, while simultaneously making the act of taking and teaching class affordable to all.

Movement Research is partnering with CLASSCLASSCLASS in order to enable a fertile space for newer teachers to experiment with their craft under the umbrella of an established organization. In this partnership, CLASSCLASSCLASS maintains its own mission, goals and modus operandi.

Job opening at Evidence, A Dance Company

Evidence, A Dance Company - Managing Director

Their favorite Elizabeth Bishop

ELIZABETH BISHOP AT 100

presented by Poetry Society of America

Tuesday, February 8, 7:00pm

Free admission

The Great Hall, Cooper Union
7 East 7th Street at 3rd Avenue, Manhattan

(directions)

Twenty contemporary poets read a favorite poem by Elizabeth Bishop in honor of her centenary year, framed by excerpts from the new volume of correspondence, Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker. Featuring Paul Muldoon, Alice Quinn, and Maria Tucci reading selections of letters by Elizabeth Bishop and her New Yorker editors, and the following poets reading: Elizabeth Alexander, John Ashbery, Frank Bidart, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Tina Chang, James Fenton, Jonathan Galassi, Kimiko Hahn, Richard Howard, Yusef Komunyakaa, David Lehman, Robert Polito, Katha Pollitt, Marie Ponsot, Vijay Seshadri, Tom Sleigh, Mark Strand, Tracy K. Smith and Jean Valentine.

Co-sponsored by the Academy of American Poets; Farrar, Straus & Giroux; the National Book Foundation; Poets House; and the Unterberg Poetry Center, 92nd Street Y.