See ya later!

InfiniteBody blog and Body and Soul podcast are on hiatus for a few weeks while I take a much-needed birding vacation! See you all in March!

"Tomorrow's Legs" last night

There's a lot to admire in Tomorrow's Legs--a new ensemble piece presented by well-regarded choreographer Tiffany Mills this week at Danspace Project. Foremost, it's blessed with performances with courage, resonance, and an air of mystery. Jeffrey Duval, Luke Gutgsell, Whitney Tucker and Petra van Noort are versatile, appealing dancers who deepen and mature into the piece as we watch. Naoko Nagata has contributed some of her most flattering--while still quite quirky--costumes for the two women. And Mills's flashy visual style and rough-hewn movement attack make an irresistible mix. This woman doesn't just use space. She takes charge of it.

I was less convinced by Tomorrow's Legs as an intention and a whole package--an enigmatic collage pieced together from the fragmented fabric of memories associated with various cities--than I was by substantial swatches that felt like they could come from nobody else but Mills. Watch what unfolds when Duval begins to tug Gutgsell's arm; the entire process of getting to the resulting gutsy, risky sequence bursts and reveals itself in your mind. That sequence simultaneously drew me in and distressed me. Likewise, a charged duet involving Duval (obsessed with a science article) and van Noort (glamourously engrossed in dancing the memory of lost teenage love) lucidly articulates their differences and difficulties.

The work, running 60 minutes without intermission, can be seen again tonight and tomorrow, Saturday, at 8:30pm. Click here for ticketing and further information on Mills's Danspace Project season, and here for her company's 2009 calendar.

Can I get a SoundCheck?

Delightful Body and Soul interviewee and annual Tap City producer-MC Tony Waag has done it again! His American Tap Dance Foundation launches a new series--Soundcheck--tonight at dance-historic Judson Memorial Church. Read on for details!

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SOUNDCHECK

February 12, 13, 19, 20 at 8pm

ATDF Benefit, February 18 at 7 PM

Judson Memorial Church
55 Washington Square South, Manhattan

800-838-3006
Online ticketing and further information

Why a new tap dance series? The ever innovative director of American Tap Dance Series, Tony Waag, felt the need for new tap works based on theatrical concepts, noting that for more than a century, tap has fought for its place on the legitimate stage. In a feature article in Backstage entitled "Good News for the New Year," Waag remarked that "there is a consensus among tap artists today that there's a need for more production opportunities for conceptual pieces. We need to show that there's more to tap dance than just a line-up of soloists improvising. A lot of tap dancers have been working on making more conceptual work--pieces the involve a more theatrical process, that use story lines or dramatic themes, and include singing and acting." (Lisa Jo Sagolla, Backstage, January 1, 2009).

The groundbreaking new series will feature new works by both artists well known in the tap world:

February 12: "W-L-U-V" by Christopher Scott, performed by Kendrick Jones, Michaela Marino-Lerman, Baakari Wilder, Carson Murphy, Melinda Sullivan, and Scott in "rhythms of love." They share the evening with "Stop Look Listen" choreography by Katherine Kramer and music by Lanzallamas. A playful journey in a dangerous world for 4 dancers and 6 musicians performing "afro-brazilian-gypsy" music.

February 13: "Heeling Powers--rhythms of the left brain"--a collaboration of tapper, filmmaker, vaudevillian Joshua Hilberman and young pianist Paul Arslanian, and"Primordial Memories," choreography and performance by tap legend Brenda Bufalino, joined by Tap City Youth Ensemble.

February 19: "Stages," choreographed by Barbara Duffy, performed by her company, exploring love, friendship, self-doubt and the courage to express one's true identity; and "Time Step," by Ryan Kasprzak, Brent McBeth, and Derek Roland, known as Parallel Exit, the story of three hoofers!

February 20: "Tapsploitation," Michaela Marino-Lerman and partner in a search for meaning and personal identity in 1970's urban America; sharing the evening with"RumbaTap," Max Pollak's international group of tappers, musicians, and vocalists that merges tap with Afro-Cuban music and dance.

February 18 Benefit: A fabulous line-up of artists in a grand evening to benefit the Gregory Hines Youth Scholarship Fund and ATDF's ongoing education programs. New works and performances by: Chloe Arnold, Barbara Duffy & Company, Derick K. Grant, Kendrick Jones, Parallel Exit, Melinda Sullivan, Jason Samuels Smith, Dormishia Sumbry Edwards, and Tap City Youth Ensemble.

Volunteer with Remember The Triangle Fire Coalition

Performance artist Annie Lanzillotto sent the following interesting announcement and appeal. As an ILGWU baby, I also feel strongly that this is an important commemoration.

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Remember The Triangle Fire Coalition Get involved in this living history project:

• Join the Facebook group: Remember The Triangle Fire.
• Sign your organization on as a participating group.
• Attend the brainstorm launch this March at The Judson Church.
• To donate food, drink, cash or skills for the event, contact: ruth@streetpictures.com
  

We are organizing a launch for the creation of a fitting memorial for the March 25, 2011 centennial of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire victims. We aim to get 146 organizations involved, one for each of the folks who perished. The Triangle Fire is very relevant today in terms of labor safety; its history is Jewish and Italian immigrant women who sewed in the sweatshop and got locked in fire.

Immediately we seek organizations to sign onto the project for our launch at The Judson Church, NYC this March (date and time TBA). This will be a gathering of the minds, where New Yorkers and organizations come together creatively to plan for the future. Participating organizations already include: CityLore, Gotham Center, MALIA Collective of Italian American Women, Calandra Institute for Italian American Studies (CUNY), The Reliquary Museum, Street Cry Productions. We are actors, agitators, artists, educators, descendants of the victims, writers, filmmakers, historians, organizers, and photographers joined together to honor the memory of the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911 and to keep the spirit of their sacrifice alive. Of the 146 deaths, three sets of sisters died in the fire: Bettina and Frances Miale, Lucia and Rosaria Maltese, and Sara and Tessie Saracino. Their deaths ignited the labor movement and fire safety laws. The disastrous factory fire led to some of the first city, state, and federal laws dealing with workers safety and the growth of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. The "Factory Investigating Commission" was formed pushing through sweeping labor and safety laws that would transform the workplace. The new laws focused on protecting human beings over buildings. We are working toward the Centenary Memorial event March 2011.

The Triangle Fire Remembrance Coalition
Facebook Group: Remember The Triangle Fire
Street Pictures

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For instructions on how to submit your own request for arts volunteers, please click here.

Art down under(ground)

Courtesy of MoMA, Riding the Subway and Rubbing Shoulders With Picasso
by Randy Kennedy, The New York Times, February 9, 2009

"Carmen & Geoffrey" doc opens March 13

Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob open their documentary Carmen & Geoffrey at New York's Quad Cinema on March 13. The film traces the career and love story of Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder, dazzling stars of concert dance, Broadway, television and film.

The film contains rare dance footage from the 1950s and 1960s, both solos and duets, featuring Alvin Ailey, Herbert Ross, Lester Horton, Joe Layton, Duke Ellington and Josephine Baker in Paris, among others. There are also contemporary works, including Carmen’s on-going partnership with Gus Solomons jr and Dudley Williams and a sampling of Carmen’s and Geoffrey’s current choreographies.

Filmmaker Bios

Filmmaker Linda Atkinson first met Carmen and Geoffrey while studying acting at the Yale School of Drama. She graduated with an MFA, having won the Carol Dye Acting Prize. She has performed around the country at theatres including The Old Globe, the Yale Rep., the Indiana Rep., the Folger, and the Alaska Rep, New York’s Playwright’s Horizons, Manhattan Theater Club, The Public, and with Lyn Austin’s Lenox Theater Group. She began directing theatre in 1983 and worked at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, the Indiana Rep, the Peterborough Players, WestBank Theater Bar and for NBC’s Another World. Working with her husband, Nick Doob, she produced a prize winning series of health-related documentaries for high school students. She has recently directed an original play, FINEPRINT, at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. She is currently producing a film based on Robert Coles’s Women of Crisis.

Nick Doob has been a director, cinematographer and editor on numerous award-winning films. He has shot four Oscar nominated films including From Mao to Mozart, which won the Oscar. He directed Down from the Mountain with D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, and Elaine Stritch at Liberty, which won an Emmy. He has shot a number of Pennebaker-Hegedus films, including Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1973), The War Room (1993), and directed with Chris Hegedus, Al Franken: God Spoke. In 2000 he won an Emmy as a producer on American High, the acclaimed verité TV series. For HBO he co-directed A Boy’s Life with Rory Kennedy and is currently directing and producing a film about Alzheimer’s Disease for HBO.

CARMEN & GEOFFREY
2006, 80 Minutes, Color, Digital Beta, 4:3, Stereo
A Film by Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob
With: Carmen de Lavallade; Geoffrey Holder; Boscoe Holder; Leo Holder; Gus Solomons jr; Dudley Williams; Judith Jamison; Jennifer Dunning; Alvin Ailey; Josephine Baker
Photography: Nick Doob
Additional Photography: Leo Holder; Ron Gray
Sound: Linda Atkinson
Editing: Nick Doob

Quad Cinema
34 West 14th Street (east of Sixth Avenue)
Manhattan
Advance sales: 777-FILM #636 or MOVIETICKETS.COM

Eva's Book Club (2)

Dance folks, what are you reading?

Latest on my nightstand:

How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken by Daniel Mendelsohn (HarperCollins, 2008)

Well-reasoned and instructive, lucid and illuminating critical essays across artistic disciplines. Highly recommended.

Just completed:

Spiral Jetta: A Road Trip through the Land Art of the American West by Erin Hogan (The University of Chicago Press, 2008)

Use the Comments feature to tell us what you're reading!