Skakespeare as we like it: out in the parking lot

"Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown
more than your enemies."

Jane Bradley plays Rosalind in As You Like It.
(photo: Lee Wexler/Images for Innovation)

In its new home, outback of The Clemente, The Drilling Company's popular Shakespeare in the Parking Lot summer series brightly powers ahead with a Victorian steampunk As You Like It. This en plein air, in-the-round romantic comedy--with its multiple lovers and lasses--has tasty delights, chief among them detailed and zestful performances from Jane Bradley (Rosalind), Elaine Ivy Harris (Celia), Emmanuel Elpenord (Oliver) and Alessandro Colla (Touchstone). Of these, Bradley and Colla seem particularly resourceful--Colla remaining comically inventive and an unsinkable Bradley at sharp physical and vocal energy from start to finish.

Of course, this Lower East Side Forest of Arden has--for its adaptable players and equally adaptable audience--some unique features. Shakespeare's wit and Clancy's motley crew must compete with sirens and churning helicopters and Mr. Softee trucks, odd smells from takeout dinners and the occasional SUV driver scattering viewers as he attempts to back into the street.

Getting to the lot in a tardy fashion means you might have to peer around heads and bodies as you strain to follow the speaking actors. The rare, welcome cool breezes of a mid-July evening carry away the cast's less-robust voices. And if an actor turns the other way or speaks into his partner's neck....well, what did he just say?

But all of that is to be expected, part of the Shakespeare in the Parking Lot homemade fun. Quick costume changes behind a handy car. Simple strings of lights to relieve the dark when night settles in. Creatively shabby costuming and sometimes balky props that add to a feeling of intimacy, of something wonderfully weird and kind of sweet gifted to a neighborhood. And it's all free.

As You Like It runs through July 26 with performances at 8pm. Running time: Two hours. Bring your own chair, if you'd like. And--wonder of wonders!--Shakespeare in the Parking Lot now has its own Port-O-San!

Parking lot behind The Clemente
(The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center)
114 Norfolk Street (between Delancey and Rivington Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Other Shakespeare in the Parking Lot productions this season:

Macbeth, directed by Hamilton Clancy, at The Clemente parking lot, July 30-August 15

Romeo and Juliet at Bryant Park, directed by Dave Marantz, July 17-August 2

The Taming of the Shrew at The Clemente parking lot, directed by Alessandro Colla, September 4 to 20

Click here for complete information and schedules.

Workshops: Dance Without Walls (the nia love underground)

Dance Without Walls (the nia love underground)

co-facilitators:

Nia Love, Jesse Phillips-Fein and Benin Ford

Nia Love
(photo: Nia Love)

Gestures are atoms that make up the sheets of our memory...tissue that travel with us from light years away...traveling on our trajectory biding us both greetings and farewells! 

-- Nia Love

Jesse Phillips-Fein
(photo: Jeca Rodriguez)

Benin Ford
(photo: Nia Love)

This movement-based, multimedia living art workshop creates space where “we the people” can study ways to perform meaningfully, powerfully and truthfully through improvisations at the intersections of dance, nature, and urban structures. With movement, discourse, journaling, drawing, and building small ecological sculptures, we manifest new ideas about about ourselves from which communal and global solidarity can radiate. This work is built on foundation of deep support and trust; we help each other to fertilize our thoughts clearly and to use our bodies as both a landscape and a tool that excavates our power as a people, activates our well-being, and engenders collectivism. Our aim is to create malleable networks that bond and aid us in on-going practices of liberating and reclaiming what lies dormant in our mind-bodies. 

Friday July 17, 6-9pm

Saturday, July 18, 10am-1pm

Sunday July 19, 10am-1pm

$50/1 day

$95/2 days 

$135/3 days

Sliding scale for parents available

Sign up a friend and receive a 25% discount!

We are especially interested in “non-dancers.”

Multiple outdoor locations throughout New York City:

Day 1: River Bank State Park, 145th and Riverside (Manhattan)

Day 2: 98 4th Street between Hoyt and Bond (Brooklyn)

Day 3: Ball Field at 214 Street (The Bronx)

To register, email: undergroundstudiesnyc@gmail.com

Note: the underground is a seasonal event.
there will be a Fall Edition, dates TBD.

Tapilosophy: A dialogue on tap

(Photos: Jane Goldberg; Greg Hines, photo by Greg Gorman)

With her new blog series, Tapilosophy: Gregory Hines to Jane, tap's champion, Jane Goldberg opens her trove of email correspondence with the late, great Gregory Hines. Goldberg describes Tapilosophy as "emails to be read, inspired by, and discussed in your tap lives as you travel the world."

So, was Greg Hines a PC guy? Or a Mac guy?

Definitely a Mac guy, and he had people figured out PC or Mac-wise, too. Like the beloved tap master Buster Brown:

Buster was a Mac. Very attractive to look at and to spend time with. Easy to know. Rarely crashed. Displayed a very intuitiveness about his dancing and made it look easy. Anyone who got to spend time with him loved Buster. Oh yes….. Buster was a Mac.

I grieve that we do not have Hines's voice in the mix today. And certainly his tapping feet.

Thanks for bringing us Tapilosophy, Janie!

Pavel Zuštiak and Storyboard P take early Bessie honors

The New York Dance and Performance Awards (The Bessies), New York City's premier dance awards honoring outstanding creative work in the field, today announced the nominees for the 2014-15 season at its annual press conference. The 37 nominees were selected by the Bessies Selection Committee, an independent committee of 39 dance industry professionals. Produced in partnership with Dance/NYC, Bessie Award categories include Outstanding Production, Outstanding Revival, Outstanding Performer, Outstanding Music Composition or Sound Design, and Outstanding Visual Design.

Dance artist and awards selection committee member Walter Rutledge (left)
greets nominee Storyboard P before press conference.
(c)2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Craig Peterson (Gibney Dance Center Director of Programs and Presentations)
welcomes the crowd at Gibney's Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center.
(c)2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Choreographer and jury member Susan Marshall
reads citation for the 2015 Juried Bessie Award,
presented to choreographer Pavel Zuštiak.
(c)2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Zuštiak accepted his award in a video statement from Minneapolis
where he is preparing a new work for the Walker Arts Center.
(c)2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Award selection committee member Kay Takeda
reads citation for the Outstanding Emerging Choreographer Award,
presented to flex dance artist Storyboard P.
(c)2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Storyboard P accepts his
Outstanding Emerging Choreographer Award.
photo (c)2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Bessies director Lucy Sexton
photo (c)2015 Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Dance artists and award selection committee members
Edisa Weeks and Gus Solomons Jr.
read the remaining categories and names of nominees.
The 2015 New York Dance and Performance Awards (The Bessies)
will return to Harlem's Apollo Theater for its fifth presentation
on Monday, October 19, 7:30pm.
 photo (c)2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

The 2015 Bessie Nominations

Outstanding Production:

600 HIGHWAYMEN
Employee of the Year
FIAF/Crossing the Line

Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca
Antigona
The Joyce Theater

Dorrance Dance with Toshi Reagon and BIGLOVELY
The Blues Project
The Joyce Theater

Neil Greenberg
This
New York Live Arts

Roger Guenveur Smith
Rodney King
BRIC

Xavier LeRoy
Retrospective
MoMA PS1 and Crossing the Line

Shwe Man Pwe
Music and Dance from Myanmar
Asia Society

David Neumann/Advanced Beginner Group
I Understand Everything Better
Abrons Arts Center co-presented by The Chocolate Factory

Justin Peck
Rōdē,ō: Four Dance Episodes
New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center

Lemi Ponifasio/MAU
Birds with Skymirrors
Next Wave Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music

Pam Tanowitz
Broken Story (wherein there is no ecstasy)
The Guggenheim's Works & Process

Vuyani Dance Theatre Project
Umnikelo
Fall for Dance, New York City Center


Outstanding Revival:

Alexei Ratmansky
The Sleeping Beauty
American Ballet Theatre


Outstanding Performer:

Alexandra Albrecht and Andrew Champlin
in Polly Pocket: Expansion Pack by Jillian Peña
Danspace Project

Michelle Boulé
For her body of work with Miguel Gutierrez

Lawrence Cassella
Sustained Achievement in the work of Ivy Baldwin

Talya Epstein
in Star Crap Method by Larissa Velez-Jackson
The Chocolate Factory

Robert Fairchild
in An American in Paris
The Palace Theater

Ellen Fisher
For Sustained Achievement in Performance in the work of Meredith Monk

Lauren Grant
For her overall body of work with Mark Morris

Ryan Haskett, Daniel Price, and Lil Buck
Live Performance following NYC premiere of Pharaohs of Memphis
DAMN! Film Series
TheaterLab Annex

Juan Ogalla
in Antigona by Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca
The Joyce Theater

Amar Ramasar
New York City Ballet

Ryoji Sasamoto
in OQ by Kota Yamazaki
Japan Society

Melissa Toogood
For her body of work during the 2014-15 season in the work of Kimberly Bartosik, Merce Cunningham, Rashaun Mitchell, Stephen Petronio, Sally Silvers, Pam Tanowitz, among others.


Outstanding Emerging Choreographer (*indicates award recipient):

Yve Laris Cohen

Moriah Evans
For Social Dance 1-8: Index at Issue Project Room

Troy Schumacher

Storyboard P *


Outstanding Music Composition/Sound Design:

Tei Blow
for I Understand Everything Better by David Neumann/Advanced Beginner Group
Abrons Arts Center co-presented by The Chocolate Factory

Robyn Orlin | Compagnie Jant-Bi
At the same time we were pointing a finger at you, we realized we were pointing three at ourselves... by Robyn Orlin | Compagnie Jant-Bi
Peak Performances at Montclair State University

Ublado Perez Conde
for CAMBUYÃN by Enlace S.C.
The New Victory Theater

Kate Valk, Bobby McElver and Max Bernstein
for Early Shaker Spirituals by The Wooster Group
St. Ann's Warehouse


Outstanding Visual Design:

Reid Bartelme in collaboration with Harriet Jung
For body of work

Kathy Kaufmann
for Bloowst windku by Rebecca Davis
HERE Art Center

Lemi Ponifasio and Helen Todd
for Birds with Skymirrors
Next Wave Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music

Design Team: Geoff Sobelle (Creator), Steven Dufala (Scenic Installation Designer)
Christopher Kuhl (Lighting Designer), Nick Kourtides (Sound Designer), Jamie Boyle (Integrated Archive Designer), Rachel McIntosh (Specialty Props Designer)
for The Object Lesson by Geoff Sobelle
BAM Fisher

For complete information 

on The New York Dance and Performance Awards, 

see About The Bessies.

For information about and tickets for

the Monday, October 19 presentation 

at The Apollo Theater, 

click here.

Mass Live Arts launches performance program for college grads

Mass Live Arts (MLA) is a festival of experimental theater and performance at the Daniel Arts Center [Bard College at Simon's Rock] in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

MLA is proud to introduce our new educational initiative: The Mass Live Arts Institute. 

Class with Phil Soltanoff
at Live Mass Arts
(photo: Seth Roseman)

It is a program designed for recent college graduates looking to advance their career as performing artists. Throughout July, Institute fellows will participate in daily workshops and master classes, working hand in hand with festival artists. They will also create and perform their own work under the guidance of internationally renowned director and educator Phil Soltanoff, who will direct the institute show presented as part of the MLA/15 summer offerings.

MLA Institute participants in tech
for Andrew Schneider’s YOUARENOWHERE
(photo: Seth Roseman)

Our goal is for the Institute’s fellows to become intimately familiar with the rigors of making cutting-edge contemporary performance, establish personal relationships with a network of award-winning artists – and, above all, gain real-life experience producing large-scale contemporary works. Over the past two years, MLA has been successfully connecting freshly minted young artists with renowned performers and companies, giving them a chance to participate in hands-on, face-to-face training that has translated into real, professional opportunities. Many of our participants garnered work performing, designing, and some found entry level positions at our partner organizations in NYC.

Soltanoff envisions this production as a form built from fragments — pieces of choreography, text, lights, sound, etc. The emphasis is placed on the theatrical vitality of each fragment and what they do, not what they mean. “Meaning is created through juxtaposition, and meaning isn’t known until something happens next to something else.” – says Soltanoff. In creating this show institute fellows will immerse themselves in the process of using juxtaposition as an essential tool for building work.

Three questions 

for Phil Soltanoff

EYA: Phil, what do you have planned for this summer's eight participants?

PS: We’re aiming for a performance on July 26. Five to six days a week we (the Institute fellows and myself) rehearse with a particular notion in mind—what does something do as opposed to what it means. For instance, we might introduce a simple choreographic gesture (like walking or sitting) then double it, speed it up, do it in unison, etc. to see what that produces in the space.

We care only if the gesture produces something interesting right now--free of preconceived associations and ideas. And then we make more gestures, not exclusively choreographic--also gestures of text, sound, lighting, voice, etc. We keep doing this until we have a whole encyclopedia of what I call theatrical “fragments.”

In the last day or two, I organize a sequence of these fragments into a performance. I should add we’re working very lo-fi, with minimal resources. We’re creating big, cheap art. I love that!

EYA: What's the most valuable thing about the program for these young artists ?

PS: I want these young theater makers to grasp two big ideas. First, I want to help them understand what I call the creation of a still pond in space. If you toss a pebble in a still pond, you can really see the ripples it makes. This still pond becomes a starting place, something we (and the audience) can agree upon. I want each participant in the Institute to recognize what a theatrical still pond is, where it lives, in both themselves and in the space.

Secondly, I want them to grapple with the art of juxtaposition. How meaning can be created when different fragments happen next to each other. This is a tough notion for them to understand. They’re so used to absorbing and blending every gesture together into a narrative--before they’ve even explored what the gestures do. For me, this method of juxtaposition is like a multitrack audio recorder--choreography, sound, light, voice, text--they’re all running on separate tracks that converge and diverge during the course of the performance. Rehearsing with juxtaposition in mind--demands constant mentoring. It’s great to be able to offer such close guidance to the fellows here at the institute.

EYA: What's the most fun thing--for you--about this program?

PS: I’ve been working on these ideas for years (juxtaposition and the “still pond” concept) mostly in Europe with CIE111 of France. It’s rare that I get a chance to work with young American artists who are steeped in theater, but who want to do something different with their training.

It might sound corny, but opening new vistas, awakening possibilities--is really thrilling for me. I’m a hybrid artist drawing from theater, dance, visual art, technology and sometimes circus. All the artists at MLA are searching for their next steps--can we do this? Can we do that? What’s under that rock? I really enjoy that process of doing what I don’t know and being in an environment that supports that idea.

For more information about Mass Live Arts, click here.

Film review: Dean Hargrove's "Tap World"

New York-born tap star Jason Samuels Smith (left)
 and the late Kathak guru Pandit Chitresh Das forged an unexpected and electrifying
cross-cultural partnership, as noted in Dean Hargrove's new feature film, Tap World.
(photo courtesy of tapworldfilm.com)

Tap World's run at New York's Village East Cinema has been extended through next Thursday, July 23. Hooray, and let's talk about the important thing that this award-winning documentary from Tap Heat's Dean Hargrove does absolutely right.

No, Tap World does not offer an intellectual primer on tap history or tap technique or how hard tap dancers train, as the New York Times critic appears to have needed. It does allude to tap's origins in the African-Irish encounter in colonial America. And the mad skills necessary for its proper execution should be crystal clear to everybody--just try it--as should the discipline and loving dedication.

So if Hargrove's 72 minutes--largely derived from footage submitted by dancers from many nations--focus on how much joy, and soul healing, these dancers get from this art and how much joy they give, what of it?

Tap World does what the rest of U.S. dance could and should do. It shows why dance matters to this society and to our world. It reaches past the official arbiters of what's important about dance and instantly, solidly connects with the public. It moves people. Just like the best tap does.

"Rhythm is the language of life, the international language," says acclaimed dancer/actor Ted Louis Levy, one of numerous tap artists and teachers sharing thoughts and personal narratives here. "The simple things--rhythm and love--transcend difference," says Chloé Arnold, the dynamic performer and dancemaker who, along with sister Maud Arnold, is one of the film's producers. That philosophy informs the entire film. We're treated to a virtual world tour watching how this once uniquely American art form has enchanted and fulfilled dancers of one country after another--from France to Taiwan, from Brazil to India. Dancers the world 'round use tap to expand and express themselves.

Yet, as Kathak soloist Rachna Nivas lucidly explained in last evening's post-screening Q&A, tap remains itself, never blending in a "fusion" with other cultural forms. Hargrove includes a tantalizing sample of one such intercultural moment, an excerpt from a shared performance by two greats in their respective fields--Jason Samuels Smith and Nivas's teacher, Kathak guru Pandit Chitresh Das, who died this past January. When these two live wires connect, the energy will rock you right out of your seat.

See Tap World in New York City--now through July 23--
at Village East Cinema (directions).
Click here for times and tickets.

Now playing

at select theaters nationwide

Click here for scheduled screenings,
live performances and Q&As.

Watch for the DVD release this November.

Michael Masser, 74

Michael Masser, Composer Who Wrote Hits for Whitney Houston, Dies at 74
by Sam Roberts, The New York Times, July 13, 2015