Thinking with/talking back to Lemon's "Scaffold Room"

Above: April Matthis
Below: Okwui Okpokwasili
performers in Ralph Lemon's Scaffold Room at The Kitchen

musings...about how B/black artists choose quilting/sampling where materials--visual, verbal, aural; humble or dear--are many and close to hand. moms mabley and kathy acker; ben webster and david bowie (totally pimped out on soul train and wasn't even embarrassed). when you unroll and stretch this fabric out its seams run thick as scars. does cold, unforgiving space crush art? or does it set it off like jewels on velvet in vitrine? what's up with footwear for women here: white nursing clogs? patent leather red spike heels? or none at all, just barefoot? admitting guests to nearly-barren space where most must stand for two hours...or so they think. actually starting the performance first and then interrupting to pass out folding chairs? what...hostility? inhospitality? chaos? how is performance like a scaffold--for exhibition, for execution? what is B/black womanhood? janis sang baby i know just how you feel in little girl blue? did she? know just how you feel, i mean? did amy know? what if beyoncé--whose teeny screen image one must bow to see--is actually not the vortex of every last person's universe? which universe are we talking? subtle pauses and tilts of the head, matter-of-fact voice...is okpokwasili artificial, a simulacrum, an impersonation of an impersonation folded in upon herself like nested alternate universes? april matthis singing and mumbling to herself in a distracted, helium-ated voice or screaming in different registers for what seems like ten minutes or six centuries...has she found freedom in the body, meeting it on its own terms...freedom shockingly beautiful and also dreadful?

*****

Conceptual artist Ralph Lemon opened Scaffold Room (multimedia installation, readings and performances) at The Kitchen on October 30 in collaboration with Kevin Beasley, Jim Findlay, Paul Hamilton, Malcolm Low, April Matthis, Roderick Murray, Naoko Nagata, Okwui Okpokwasili, Omagbitse Omagbemi, Katherine Profeta, Marina Rosenfeld, Mike Taylor and Philip White. Performances and readings concluded yesterday, November 10, but the installation remains open through Saturday, December 5  in the 2nd floor gallery. Hours are Tuesday-Friday 12-6pm, Saturday 11am-6pm. Admission is free.

For information, click here.

The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street (between 10th and 11th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Allen Toussaint, 77

Influential songwriter, producer Allen Toussaint has died
by Dominic Massa, WWL-TV, November 10, 2015

Brookie Maxwell, 59

Brookie Maxwell, an Artist and Curator, Dies at 59
by Sam Roberts, The New York Times, November 9, 2015

Is it too soon to be thinking about The Nutcracker?

Photos from Dance The World Nutcracker Festival
courtesy of JP Dance Group

Maybe, even though Rockefeller Center's Christmas tree is already in place!

But JP Dance Group wants you to start thinking about its Dance The World Nutcracker Festival, devoted to New York's exciting diversity.  Three programs (December 15-20) will present dance forms from a wide variety of cultures represented in our city--Chinese, Bulgarian, Middle Eastern, African, Caribbean, Mexican and Indian.

For a complete schedule of festival programs, click here. For tickets, click here.

The Secret Theatre
44-02 23rd Street, Long Island City, Queens
(map/directions)

Swallowing her whole: Volmir Cordeiro at Danspace Project

Volmir Cordeiro in Inês
(photo: Cristiano Prim)

One day, I met a woman named Inês. I wasn’t satisfied with just looking at her – I wanted to get closer. I immediately put aside my role as an observer and began to live with this “being of flesh.” It wasn’t enough to capture her; I had to swallow her whole.  -- Volmir Cordeiro

The figure you see in the photo above is Inês.

Or perhaps I should say it is Brazil-born dancer Volmir Cordeiro encasing the being of Inês in his rangy, barelegged body in a study named, Inês, presented by and at Danspace Project with Performa.

That's already a lot surrounding a woman who is not there, and this does not even take into account the audience also surrounding a woman who is not there.

Inêssssssss.  The cry of her name issues from Cordeiro's lips like an invocation of an orixá. Or a viper's hiss. Or a spray of rum from the mouth of a macumba priestess. Or all of these things at once.

Inês lives. Yes, an actual person, a sexagenarian and mom. By word of Cordeiro (and a useful post-show Q&A with Miguel Gutierrez and translator Patricia Hoffbauer), we know two other things: 1) She wants to get on a reality TV show. 2) She has had "a radical amount of plastic surgery," as noted by Gutierrez, to make herself a better candidate for elusive and likely ephemeral celebrity.

We must imagine what she looks like. What Cordeiro looks like borders on the wolfish. And when he strides right up to the edge of the audience's front row, right up to the eyeballs there, he can intimidate. Especially since he holds that place of dominance for a long time. Even when swiveling his limbs, or moving sideways along the row or venturing inside an aisle, he's a force that seems to want to pin you in your seat. You don't know what, in the very next second, could burst from him. And you don't want to know.

In your own head, you're walking on eggshells.

Is that Inês?

If so, she seems unbalanced enough to achieve the reality TV stardom she desires.

He/she is reckless with his/her body--especially when Cordeiro tapes his eyelids shut--in ways that make empathic/empathetic people like me cringe.

Is that Inês?

A useful tidbit from Danspace Project's material on Cordeiro (now based in Paris):

Volmir Cordeiro...is currently working on a PhD thesis on figures of marginality in contemporary dance at Paris VIII University. His studies and time spent in the favelas of Rio with Lia Rodrigues’ company reflect a desire to bring to life those who are “condemned to weaken, disappear, derail.” In previous works Cordeiro has explored the physicality of marginal and underprivileged figures.

Inês fascinates her observers, even as she scares them. How strange that her dream is such a flimsy thing, far flimsier than she herself must be.

Final performance of Inês: tonight at 9pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Danspace Project
St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street (at Second Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Melissa Mathison, 65

Melissa Mathison, ‘E.T.’ Screenwriter, Dies at 65
by Bruce Weber, The New York Times, November 5, 2015

Dance artists exploring new directions: Thank you!

Many thanks to my excellent guest panelists--Sydnie L. Mosley, luciana achugar and Sarah A.O. Rosner--who shared their experience and knowledge last evening at Gibney Dance. From the centrality of investing in sisterhood and partnering with community, to the courage to claim room in a city's public spaces for the practice of pleasure, to the challenges of funding and marketing an unusually multifaceted project, these three artists offered stories of adventurous questioning and questing that can inspire our own work and lives.

"The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House"

– essay by Audre Lorde, 1984

Artists share alternative philosophies and strategies for working in the dance profession – from making to marketing to surviving in a difficult economy and competitive city. How do we keep body and soul together, enjoy the creative process and move our work forward? Bring your own experiences and questions.

Each panelist will share a brief presentation (10-12 minutes) on an alternative philosophy or methodology that has worked for them or that they are currently exploring. After the presentations, we will open the discussion up to the audience for questions and further knowledge sharing!

Not the Master’s Tools: Dance Artists Create Alternatives will return to Gibney Dance on Monday, December 7 (6-8pm) with a new group of panelists to be announced here within the next several days.

Remember, these conversations are free and open to all. Your pre-registration--via a Gibney Dance site to come--will help us plan for the best space, but walk-ins are certainly welcome. Help us spread the word, and bring your friends and colleagues!

Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center

280 Broadway (enter at 53A Chambers Street), Manhattan

(map/directions)