Stephen Petronio Company at The Joyce [UPDATE]

Barrington Hinds in The Architecture of Loss
Stephen Petronio Company
(Photo: Steven Schreiber)

My guest and I spent entirely too much time scheming how one or the other of us would take possession of Stephen Petronio's shiny copper shoes by any means necessary. Then again, we had lots of time to dwell on this because Petronio was doing this queer-New Yorker-in-London spin on Steve Paxton's Intravenous Lecture (1970). Petronio turned Paxton's tale of censorship of nudity into an epic of wearing the wrong shirt at the wrong time in front of the wrong bobby and winding up in jail. Petronio talked to us while a male nurse hooked up to an IV drip and later drifted around the stage, dancing and gesticulating, as an assistant wheeled the IV pole just so and quietly gazed at him. Dancing Petronio--the Rubberband Man--was as amazing as his story's pacing and tone. And it turned out to be possible to stop coveting those shoes long enough to think how great it would be to force Rick Santorum to watch this man work.

Gia Kourlas writes an interesting assessment of Petronio's season in "Explorations of Loss, the Personal and the Public" (The New York Times, March 7), although I certainly don't agree with her preference for practice clothes over wearable art. It just wouldn't be Petronio without the sartorial drama. What's more, the new piece--The Architecture of Loss, scored by Valgeir Sigurdsson--presents the perfect integration of movement, scenic design and costuming. Even more than City of Twist (2002), The Architecture of Loss speaks to me of the atmosphere of 9/11. By that, I don't mean just the images of smoke smudging, and later billowing, across the three background panels, but also the strained, shredding and torn costumes (by Gudrun & Gudrun), as fragile as cobwebs, tinted in ash and charcoal, and the movement that seems to be all incessant, risky transition, even when one or another dancer does not move. This dance embodies insecurity. Nothing looks safe. Everything looks violated. And every action exacts more and more of a price.

In the Ethersketch I solo from Underland (2003), guest artist Wendy Whelan--in gleaming gold fringe and necklace and a crotch-high black skirt--seems to be colliding centuries in her costuming. As for her dancing, the sound equivalent of it would be a trumpet's blast--alarming, exciting and over way before you can ever settle down and get used to it.

UPDATE: Petronio has added three more performances of Ethersketch I--one tomorrow and two on Sunday.


Stephen Petronio and Company continues at The Joyce Theater through Sunday, March 11. Click here for schedule and ticket information.

The Joyce Theater
Eighth Avenue at 19th Street, Manhattan
(directions)

Baca's mission? Ballet

Local Soldier's Iraq Trek, From Bullets to Ballet
by Pia Catton, The Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2012

Zip the snark

To snark or not to snark? Why is that still the question?

I must respectfully disagree with my colleague, dance critic Robert Johnson, whose recent article--see "Shall we dance: in defense of 'snarky' reviews", NJ.com, March 2--seems to dignify the terms snark and snarky, as appropriate and helpful modes of critique, while sometimes sealing them away in quote marks of inconsistent ambivalence.

Johnson wrote:

In my opinion, snark is an especially appropriate gift for the High-and-mighty. It’s the pin-prick that makes over-inflated reputations shrivel and sputter. Dance is the most wonderful thing, ever, but let’s be clear about this: dances that are boring, derivative, tasteless, badly rehearsed, pretentious and/or willfully opaque do nothing to strengthen the dance community. They do not enhance its reputation, or win converts for the art form. If we say everything is good then nothing is good, depriving truly brilliant artists of the honor they deserve. Great dancers and choreographers, and not critics, set the standards; and without pruning, mediocrity will rise up to choke us.

Snark is not a dance critic's defense against mediocrity in choreography and performance; it is the weapon of the petulant.

If a critic sees something that displeases, he or she can say something without indulging the temptation to lash out and throttle.

Yes, part of the critic's role is to be a smart and reliable Consumer Reporter, especially if the critic is writing for the mainstream press and the general reader. But effective questioning--or even outright negative critique--rarely, if ever, requires snark. And deliberate snark in dance writing does nothing to correct the marginalization and underclass status of dance and dancers in American society. Nor does it further communication between artists and dance journalists to treat artists as if they are nothing more than hypersensitive children pleading for special protection from reality.

Johnson's article derived from a thread of discussion at the recent Dance/NYC State of Dance symposium where a panel--including Johnson, Dance Magazine Editor-in-Chief Wendy Perron, New York Times critic Brian Seibert and dancer-choreographer-critic/blogger Gus Solomons jr--took up the topic, among others. "Among others" becomes necessary here because, as far as I can tell, talk of snark and its worth was the only splash that created a ripple of continued discussion beyond that panel. That happened, probably, because whenever the dance community talks about mainstream dance critics, the Curse of Snark is the primary focus of complaint.

So, I want to know, at this late date, don't we all have something better to talk about? If talk about why snark is good is the only way to give sizzle to a panel on dance criticism--and that might still be the case--we all have huge amount of work to do.

Haring mural restored at LGBT center

A Joyful Mural, Born in a Time of Shame and Fear
by David W. Dunlap, The New York Times, March 6, 2012

We could all use a table like Zicree's

The Table (2011)
a documentary film by Ana Barredo
71 minutes

The Table is a group of writers, directors, actors, producers, editors and anyone else working or hoping to work in the entertainment industry. The group has been meeting every Thursday for almost 20 years to discuss their strategies on breaking into the exclusive club known as Hollywood. The Table's founder is Marc Scott Zicree, best known for The Twilight Zone Companion book. In 2010, part-time indie filmmaker Ana Barredo was invited to attend a Table meeting. Taken just after the first meeting, she decided to pick up her camera and follow the group for a year. The result is a heartwarming story about how these eclectic individuals provide support and inspiration for each other through the heartbreaks and triumphs of making it in Hollywood. -- synopsis, The Table

Couldn't we all use a table like Zicree's, a place where each each person could speak up and say, Here's who I am, here's what I have to offer you, here's what I'm working on, and here's what I need?

When I first learned about Ana Barredo's film--set for a NewFilmmakers screening a couple of weeks ago--I was immediately intrigued. I couldn't get to that event, so I requested a screener. But before I even sat down to watch it, I started thinking about what's lacking in my own area of the arts in New York, the precarious world of dance writing and dance journalism.

Where is our table, our space where we can put aside ego and ambition --and, yes, discouragement--long enough to offer support and practical aid to one another?

I also checked any underlying attitude about Hollywood people. As Zicree says in the film, the Hollywood he knows, through his relationships with his table mates for 20 years, is not the stereotypical one of backstabbers, the super-famous and the shallow.

Barredo, an indie filmmaker, uses a gentle curiosity about people to highlight the ordinary, and often sweet, humanity in the wide range of the thousands of people Zicree has brought together under the shadow of the Hollywood sign. Some of these folks you will recognize--such as Star Trek's Mr. Sulu, and now an out-and-proud LGBT rights advocate, George Takei. Others you will never have heard of, but they are part of the sensitive web of exchange that has made the entertainment industry a little less formidable for talented people gathering each Thursday night in the backroom of a restaurant.

The Table is also a lovely, amusing portrait of Zicree and his wife, Elaine--a couple of people who clearly believe that there's enough good stuff in this world that we can spread it around. It's all about giving.

See this film and think about the possibilities.

Web site for The Table

Tapping his way through college

On the Train, Tap Dancing to Pay for College
by Kristofer Ríos, The New York Times, March 4, 2012

Tobi Tobias sees Mark Morris

Tobi Tobias has been SEEING THINGS, and this time it's Mark Morris. Nice appreciation of the delightful Michelle Yard in Four Saints in Three Acts. It is worrisome to hear that Yard injured herself (torn calf muscle) in the Friday performance. We wish her well.

Fantasias
by Tobi Tobias, SEEING THINGS, ArtsJournal.com, March 3, 2012