Tzvetan Todorov, 77

Tzvetan Todorov, Literary Theorist and Historian of Evil, Dies at 77
by Sewell Chan, The New York Times, February 7, 2017

Irwin Corey, 102

Irwin Corey, Comedian and ‘Foremost Authority,’ Dies at 102
by Ron Wertheimer, The New York Times, February 7, 2017

Alec McCowen, 91

Alec McCowen, British Actor Who Played Saint and Fool, Dies at 91
by Robert Berkvist, The New York Times, February 7, 2017

Richard Hatch, 71

Richard Hatch, Who Starred in ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ Dies at 71
by Christopher Mele, The New York Times, February 7, 2017

Sanctuary: George Emilio Sanchez and BAX's Marya Warshaw on upholding free speech

First Amendment Sanctuary Spaces is an initiative that aims to create a network of performance and cultural spaces, as well as places of worship, that pledge to uphold the foundational elements of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment at a time when enforcement of these fundamental constitutional guarantees is not assured.

A statement from

George Emilio Sanchez, 

writer, performer, director, educator

and the creator of the First Amendment Sanctuary Spaces project

Almost overnight, we have found ourselves in a threatening time with little light. Almost overnight, ways of life, the questions of citizenry, the avenues by which people identify who they are and where they come from, our racial and gender identities, and the reality of the 1% v. the 99%, have suddenly arisen to become the signifiers for "authentic" Americans.  As a way to move forward, to continue to create, to find ways to connect one story to another, one person to another, to meet indifference, fear, and ignorance at the crossroads, this initiative, First Amendment Sanctuary Spaces, offers one alternative to create a narrative that brings stories, cultures, faiths and people together under the umbrella we call the Constitution.

The First Amendment articulates the foundational elements essential to any free and open society.  The arts and expression, a free and open press, and the exercise of religious beliefs, all are key ingredients of a democratic society.  Each strand of this quilt, the arts, the press and religion, individually and collectively, function to create the practice of freedom.  All are essential to the life and soul of this country.  But they are all in jeopardy under El Trumpo's administration.  We have awoken to a dark time with little light.  But this project aims to be pro-active, to be one step ahead, as we carve a way forward where we can affirm our place in this country.  Frederick Douglass, who has been cited by our president to be doing amazing things, once said, "Power concedes nothing without a demand.  It never has and it never will."  Rights, and subsequently our freedom, are not passively given to people.  Laws are meaningless without the passion and fervor to make the word flesh.  The challenges every one of us faces individually, or as members of the myriad communities we find kinship and solace with, stare us in the face today.  But dark times are also the windows of opportunity we can take up to bring us the light we demand.  Through the arts, we can nurture the strength and commitment of affirming who we are in the face of these challenges.  The arts are the human-made gifts that can bring us joy, can throw us to the depths of our fears, and still ignite celebrations and declarations of how the nuances of our commonality present us with years and years of newfound understanding.  The arts are the ultimate form of non-violent resistance that express the eloquence of the human spirit.

This network is committed to upholding the tenets of the first amendment.  We are sanctuaries that will protect and keep safe the freedom of speech, of the press, of the people to peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.  In perpetuity, which colloquially means....to keep on keeping on!

For more information on First Amendment Sanctuary Spaces and to find out how you or your organization can participate, visit the Facebook page here.

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Update on Eiko Otake at Cathedral of St. John the Divine

Eiko Otake at New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine
November 2016
(photos: William Johnston)

Ask master dancer Eiko Otake about her experience of being an artist-in-residence for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine's Dignity Initiative and, among other things, she will speak of keen feelings of outsider identity. Not US born, not white, not Christian. And yet this grand, historic institution on New York's Upper West Side--with its well-known commitment to the arts, the environment and social justice--has become a space for her to connect with people from all over the world and all walks of life, most by happenstance.

Eiko's residency at the Cathedral from Eiko and Koma on Vimeo.

Last November, I wrote of Otake's engagement there in The Christa Project, a visual arts exhibition centered on images of female divinity (see post). Her unique residency continues through early March when she will join with anthropologist Marilyn Ivy (Columbia University), photographer-historian William Johnston, videographer Alexis Moh, performance artist John Kelly and other speakers and participants to commemorate the six-year anniversary of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, the most severe nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

Remembering Fukushima: Art and Conversations, presented in partnership with Asia Society and Danspace Project, will explore the relationship of body, place and history. Participating artists and speakers include:

Eiko Otake

William Johnston

Marilyn Ivy

Thomas Looser

Mark McCloughan

Alexis Moh

Nora Thompson

Megu Tagami

John Kelly

Carol Lipnik

DonChristian Jones

Geo Wyeth

Ronald Ebrecht

Ralph Samuelson

Elizabeth Brown

Jake Price

Nona Faustine Simmons

NYC iSCHOOL

Remembering Fukushima: Art and Conversations

Saturday, March 11, 1pm-5pm

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine

1047 Amsterdam Avenue (at 112th Street), Manhattan

(directions)

All are welcome. A donation of $10 is suggested but not required.

For information and updates, click here.

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Gillen's Vim Vigor presents "FUTURE PERFECT" at Baruch

Jason Cianciulli and Emma Whiteley
of Vim Vigor Dance Company
in FUTURE PERFECT
(photo: David Bazemore)

I'll say this for choreographer Shannon Gillen: She's got wicked imagination. And you might want to think twice about going camping with her. Or taking a swig of whatever she's got in that thermos. I'll say that, too.

Anyway, VIM VIGOR DANCE COMPANY is running the New York premiere of Gillen's FUTURE PERFECT at Baruch Performing Arts Center. The premise is a wilderness trip that's as wild as they get, where this dance artist plays loose and fast with time, identity, sex, death--everything but taxes. Taxes you can do yourself. Leave the rest to Gillen and her un-matchable performers whose near-acrobatic skills give this roughly hour-long dance drama its wow power.

Hooking up with beer-swilling, shifty-looking strangers under the stars? To be avoided at all costs. But who, actually, are the dangerous ones? Everyone in the show and watching it will be saying the same thing: "Your guess is as good as mine." I only dare tell you that great care has been taken--with the set, the sound and the now normal, now eerie, now garish lighting--to give this landscape just the right combination of realism and pumped-up, laughable artificiality, which is to say, to make it a nightmare waiting to happen.

L-r: Martin Durov, Laja Field, Shannon Gillen,
Emma Whitely, Rebecca Diab and Jason Cianciulli
of VIM VIGOR DANCE COMPANY
(photo: David Bazemore)

The wonderful cast of Jason Cianciulli, Martin Durov, Laja Field, Emma Whiteley and company apprentice Rebecca Diab could have been recruited from (or might easily be recruited for) one of those online series we all love to binge watch. The only problem I see is the way Gillen's movement--rough handling, tumbling and whirling, with dancers sailing around and over fake boulders and one another--stretches to fill nearly every development in the piece. It's a hoot when you first see it, a holler when you see it again but, after a while, you might have seen it too much, and it veers close to looking like a gimmick.

Best to ignore the press release's claim that the characters "confront their place in the universe," and the piece "wrestles with our desperation for a spiritual sign and asks: What magic is left?" At what point in the making of FUTURE PERFECT were these ideas floated and, I wonder, at what point were they left to float right out to sea? Because I don't know that I see any of that here--or need to.

Concept, Direction, Writing, Set Design: Shannon Gillen

Choreography: Shannon Gillen in collaboration with VIM VIGOR DANCE COMPANY 

Sound Score: Martin Durov

Lighting Design: Barbara Samuels

Costume Design: Joseph Blaha

FUTURE PERFECT runs Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30pm through February 11. For tickets and further information, click here.

Baruch Performing Arts Center

55 Lexington Avenue (enter 25th Street between 3rd and Lexington Avenues), Manhattan

(map/directions)

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