ANCHISES, a collaboration between choreographer Jonah Bokaer and the design firm Harrison Atelier, receives its U.S. premiere this week at the Abrons Arts Center, inspired by the story of Anchises – the father of Aeneas (the epic hero of Virgil’s Aeneid), who is carried out of the burning city of Troy on his son’s shoulders.

Jonah Bokaer is at once ubiquitous, driven and remarkably humble; he answered questions for Culturebot amidst preparations for ANCHISES, a tour to Miami for his recent work, Replica, and who knows how many other things.

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CB: Jonah, you’re one of the busiest, most successful, most multifaceted people I know.  You’re just shy of 30, you’ve got an amazing performance career, established two important creative institutions (Chez Bushwick and Center for Performance Research) and are deeply involved in new performance technologies.  How do you juggle all of this?

(Surely you flatter me! It’s not all that special.)

Currently, I work over 90 hours per week, and try to apply equal vigor to all of my cultural pursuits. Where I’m most satisfied is in technical rehearsal, and working with three key people who make my work possible: Aaron Copp, lighting designer; Julie Seitel, stage manager; and Samuel Stonefield, company manager. I feel at home with these people, and experience a focused, understanding bond that is non-verbal, and occurs through working intently on the same project. Being on the same page with people in collaboration is invaluable.

It’s also very valuable to work with mature performers, and in ANCHISES, the pleasure of being onstage with Valda Setterfield, Meg Harper, James McGinn, and Catherine Miller is highly rewarding.

CB: How do you take care of yourself, both in life and in art?  With so much going on, how do you spend the few hours that are yours?

Each day, I try to swim, which is where the most satisfying creative thinking occurs.  My family is also very important to me: I have 5 siblings, and multiple neices and nephews.  Collaborators tend to be some of the closest and most long-lasting friendships.

CB: It seems like you’re generally pretty collaborative in terms of your creative process.  Can you talk about how you identify the people you want to work with, and how they are involved?

All of my works begin with a visual collaborator, prior to any staging or movement research.  The visual design is used as a fundamental principal for the organization of choreography, which makes works which are synthesized, and fused, rather than operating independently.

Working with a visual designer or collaborator generally takes 12-18 months, and it an intensive and vigorous process. Normally the designer is present at nearly all rehearsals, which is a demanding way to work.

The design firm Harrison Atelier (with whom I am collaborating on ANCHISES) was co-founded by Seth Harrison and Ariane Lourie Harrison, whom I have known since 2005. Our collaboration has been highly involved, and developed over the course of 13 months.

CB: I’m interested in how things get from the grain of an idea to a full commissioned premiere.  Can you tell us what the life of this piece was for you?

In February, 2009 I met a talented and rare curator of dance named Eckhard Tiemann in Bangalore, India. Eckhard took an interest in my choreography, and later in 2009, set up a site-visit, lecture, performance and tour of Bournemouth, UK, under his artistic leadership as the Curator of Pavilion Dance.

Eckhard informed me of a community in Bournemouth with an audience question: most of the town was either elderly, or retired.

Over the course of a year, Eckhard designed a two-part commissioning program which involved a new media work called Double Feature, in response to the new construction site which would host Pavilion Dance upon the completion of its new facility, and a new choreography for stage, to premiere there.

In collaboration with Harrison Atelier, the production ANCHISES was formed. This was in large response to the problem of the aging body proposed in dance, which is a theme I have addressed in two past productions.

ANCHISES also experienced four production residencies, which I see as integral to making a full and mature work:

-rehearsal space in NYC at CPR, at $15 per hour
-lockout residency/design period in Hudson, NY
-theatrical residency for the set design at Abrons Arts Center
-10-day technical period in the UK, onsite in the theater

CB: I saw a recent performance of yours at Movement Research, and it was mentioned in your bio that your work is rarely seen in New York.  What do you attribute this to?

Currently, to premiere a new work, it takes 30 hours of technical rehearsals minimum.  I find that in NYC, facilities, theaters, staff, and presenting organizations generally expect very slim productions, and offer only 1-2 days of preparation. I’ve also found that I can no longer work in that way: to do a production correctly, I need 30 hours to prepare the work. This has to do with a method of working that uses the elements of technical theater in a full and integrated manner.

One aspect of the NYC performances which will be special, is that we are using LED (light emitting diode) lighting for certain aspects of the production.

CB: Anchises takes as its central idea that of aging, and the conflict between filial loyalty and the progress of the self.  How did you become interested in the story? What is your relationship to the classic myth?

My knowledge of Greek mythology stems mainly from the body of work Anne Carson has created over the past two decades.

I think there are gaps in the historical and mythological record: for example, Anchises dies an ambiguous death, and there are few details of his passing. Did he die at sea? During the fall of Troy? Abandoned/deposited in Sicily? It’s ambiguous, and in a sense, forgotten, which I find fascinating.  Aeneas, the son of Anchises, moved on to found the city of Rome after the fall of Troy, and effectively, this details the transition from antiquity to classicism.  Having personally developed and co-founded two buildings in NYC during an extremely challenging real estate climate – I find the problem particularly intriguing.

CB: What is your ideal for the future of performance?  What do you love in dance, opera, theater, music – and how do you see it developing?

Here is an excerpt from an essay I wrote called “On Vanishing”…

“Choreography is an act that vanishes. This is what drew me to the themes of Anchises – a character who vanishes, both from the historical record, and from public consciousness. Anchises has not received the forms of homage bestowed on other, younger archetypal figures: only remnants of him are recorded, including an ambiguous disappearance. This relates to choreography: we witness movements reproduced, but rarely the original event. As opposed to dancing, which is communally shared, or publicly viewed, the act of choreography is often private. It occurs, is transmitted, and disappears, through performance. This also relates to the form and figure of Anchises, and how he vanished.

As a choreographer working in 2010, it is treacherous to approach Greek subject matter. But language offers an important key, as the Greek language refers to choreography as “dance writing” from the words χορεία (circular dance) and γραφή (writing). It is still possible to design movements, without anxiety, in a specified form. This art form is on a continuum that is advanced by many participants, simultaneously, and over time: choreographers participate in this continuum, by moving the art-form in a variety of different directions

Choreographers, too, are vanishing. Within the past year, Pina Bausch, Merce Cunningham, Michael Jackson, and Kazuo Ohno all passed away, to varying degrees of public awareness. Their participation in new choreography has expired. This disappearance presents a problem, the implications of which are unexplored. And there is a parallel between overlooking the value of choreographers, and overlooking the value of the elderly.”

CB: You have worked extensively with some major giants in modern performance: Merce Cunningham and Robert Wilson.  Can you tell us some of your most fulfilling moments with each?  And, addressing ANCHISES, what we derive from the old is gleaned from their experience, knowledge, and past mistakes…what have you learned from your artistic elders?

ANCHISES is an accumulation of changes among five performers of mixed generations, whose ages span more than 50 years. The choreography refers to a multidimensional process of physical, psychological, and social aging among five bodies. Some dimensions expand over time, while others decline: reaction time, for example, might slow with age, but world wisdom might expand. Working with Merce Cunningham taught me that physical, mental, and technological growth can occur late in life. Similarly, Robert Wilson taught me that the body holds unstoppable forces of perception, defying limitation. And working with my father, recently, taught me that parents are often interdependent on their children.

It is difficult to summarize the experience of working with Merce Cunningham, as we worked together for 8 years, and traveled to 200+ cities in over 30 countries during that time. A fond memory is of being at the Blue Lagoon with him in Iceland, in the dead of winter, and watching him enjoy himself floating in the sulfur ponds – he seemed very joyful in that moment.

My working relationship with Robert Wilson is far closer and more collaborative than I experienced with Merce who, in my experience, did not collaborate closely with others. Working with Bob subsequent to the experience of dancing in the Cunningham Company was a relief: the director spoke, talked, joked, directed, and otherwise interacted with the creative team in meaningful ways. Bob and I continue to enjoy an ongoing collaboration, and are well-matched because we work formally, through abstraction, and with a large focus on the technical and design elements of a theatrical event.

Influences on my work include:

-Sarah Jane Bokaer, director
-Tsvi Bokaer, filmmaker
-Daniel Arsham, visual artist
-Anne Carson, writer and classicist
-Aaron Copp, lighting designer
-Anthony Goicolea, photographer
-Liubo Borissov, media designer
-Narciso Rodriguez, designer
and many others

Working with Merce Cunningham and Robert Wilson has likewise been very formative, intense, and profound in terms of the development of my own career, and my own work.

What I’ve learned from my artistic elders is that they, too, are still exploring, struggling, pushing, and searching for new directions.

CB: In an interview with Jonathan Cott, composer John Adams talks about some artists receiving creative energy from turning their backs on the past – he describes it like a primal scene with the father – where the act of artistic patricide is one of self-survival.  I thought this was particularly resonant with the themes of ANCHISES, and wonder how this might have meaning to you in relation to your own artistic past with Merce.  Do you ever feel in your creative process that you’re trying to eliminate that past?

The themes of ANCHISES involve saving, or salvaging, a parent during a time of crisis, and placing greater value on familial care than on material wealth. There is also an ethical and ecological component to the work: what happens to the aging body in our society?

I continue to move forward on creating original works without any anxiety over past influences.  I simply move on, with my own aesthetic signature.

ANCHISES
Jonah Bokaer and Harrison Atelier
Abrons Arts Center
November 17-21 | 7:30 pm
TICKETS: $20, $15 students/seniors

Popularity: 3% [?]

Kathryn O’Shields is the documentarian for the 2010 Steampunk Haunted House and has contributed this essay to Culturebot.

Photo by Chad Heird

It began with a horrified scream.

In front of us, a woman thrashed furiously in a bed, trying to wake up from a nightmare. But instead of opening her eyes, she sank into—and literally through—the middle of the bed. As soon as she disappeared, the bed flipped up vertically and the dreamer walked out of it. And we had to follow her.

Suddenly, I found myself alone, in a different room. Silvery music-box chimes were playing “Beautiful Dreamer” in the darkness around me. There was a small lantern in my hand. I was in a room with a display of dolls’ heads and carnations in a case. As I passed my lantern’s light across the floor, I saw that it was littered with fabric and paper. I felt lost, disoriented. Then people began to float past me—anachronistic ghosts in a trance, whispering, humming, dancing, and struggling with each other. They sped past me as if I weren’t there, but I instinctively backed away, until I heard a close voice in my ear. “Be careful what you covet.” I gasped and turned to see a young Victorian man, who began to hum and lilt away.

I then saw a few others with lanterns like mine and remembered that we could roam freely around the house. I stumbled into the theatre, where zombie-like creatures were crawling over the seats. In the stage was a hole, out of which a bluish-white light pierced upward into the haze of the room. Someone sat above it, slowly operating a pulley that fed a rope into the hole. I crept closer toward it, avoiding the man with a gas mask and bobby’s stick. Looking down inside, I saw the rope disappear into a bright light. Only later, at the end, would I see what was really there. It was the engine of the dream: the three Furies themselves, weaving the dream like the Fates with their thread.

After we emerged from this dream world, I spoke with some fellow audience members. They mentioned the great attention to detail: “I loved the little secrets, like when you go up the stairs and see a little display, when you thought nothing was there.” Another said he liked the fact that the haunt “wasn’t linear; you could just explore it on your own.” And another person said she loved the Steampunk elements: “Artistically it was fabulous!”

What is truly scary? There are unconscious, deep fears we all share, like darkness, being alone, irrationality, and incongruity. These are the things that haunt us in our dreams. The Steampunk Haunted House harnesses the power of these primal elements. It doesn’t just cause fear; it creates it.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Kathryn O’Shields is the documentarian for the 2010 Steampunk Haunted House and has contributed this essay to Culturebot.

Photo by Darla Winn (2009)

Last year, on October 28th, I found myself warily entering a dark historic theater downtown. Inside, I navigated narrow hallways with work lanterns hanging crookedly overhead. I entered a hazy theater full of ghosts in Victorian attire. I peered into glass cases that had living mannequins trapped inside. I passed an accordion player who seemed to be utterly lost in time. I encountered a huge half-woman/half-spider with beckoning metal legs. This was the eerily beautiful world of the Steampunk Haunted House, created by the talented artists at Third Rail Projects.

2009 was the first year of the Steampunk Haunted House, a disturbingly immersive experience that combined the terrifying with the sublime, living flesh with machines, Halloween with art. This totally unique experience did not go unnoticed by the press. NBC New York called it “visually stunning,” and the Village Voice urged people not to miss it. Bloggers (like Devon Petley and La Carmina) also raved about the house, even months after it closed for the season.

This October, the Steampunk Haunted House returns.

Photo by Darla Winn (2009)

As a Halloween enthusiast, I have attended countless haunted houses. So what makes the Steampunk Haunted House special? It is an art installation as much as it is a haunt, combining the beauty of the Steampunk aesthetic with the horror of Halloween imagery. The Steampunk Haunted House employs the use of incongruity and spectacle rather than shock value, eerie elegance rather than gore, dread and discomfort rather than cheap startles. And though these themes were evident in last year’s production, this year the creators will be taking them to new extremes.

Mastermind Zach Morris has described to me the unique vision for 2010: “The theme this year is “Beautiful Dreamer” (from Stephen Foster’s classic 19th century ballad). And, true to the subtitle, the house is indeed, designed like one giant beautiful, disturbing, terrifying nightmare—replete with dream logic, surreal images, and startling, stunning incongruities.

The experience of the Steampunk Haunted House, even last year, was very much like a dream: You wander through scenes that induce the alarming feeling that the reality enveloping you is askew, impossible, and disturbing. Yet the unusual sights you encounter are so intriguing, you want to linger and stare a bit longer. (Indeed, this was the most common request of many Steampunk Haunted House visitors last year.) Therefore, this October, attendees will have a chance to spend more time looking around. They will be guided into the building (which has about 17 rooms total), given a lantern, and allowed to walk anywhere within the three floors of the haunted house, with no set route—freely exploring this fascinating dream world.

Last week I visited the site for the haunted house, Abrons Arts Center (a.k.a. the Henry Street Settlement). The building is a historic theater built in 1915 (on the latter cusp of the Victorian age in the U.S. The venue has a haunting, antiquated inherent beauty, even without Third Rail Project’s set designs in place. The rooms within still display some of the fine architectural details of the early 1900s. The stage area also exhibits the modest-but-grand elegance of its time. The many surrounding staircases, hallways, and closets seemed to be longing for the ghastly embellishments that Third Rail Projects will soon bestow upon them. And the basement level, with its exposed pipes running along the ceiling and flaking paint, was frightening even with all the lights on. It’s easy to see how much of the haunted house’s design and planning takes its inspiration from this amazing establishment.

This year’s iteration of the Steampunk Haunted House will be a novel interpretation of the mysteries, horrors, and old-fashioned beauty of the Steampunk aesthetic—made even more terrifying by a new format, artwork, and characters. Soon we will know its secrets…

STEAMPUNK HAUNTED HOUSE
Zach Morris/Third Rail Projects
New York City
October 23, 29, 30 | 8-11:30 pm
October 24, 27, 28, 31 | 6-9:30 pm

TICKETS: Wednesday/Thursday
$20 adults/$10 students

Popularity: 2% [?]

Not too long ago I felt that the more theater I saw, the more I preferred dance. I was frustrated by what seemed like an overabundance of words. Too many words trying to explain too much and taking too long to do it. So it was refreshing to see the spare and compact Vision Disturbance, a new play by Christina Masciotti, directed by Richard Maxwell. Masciotti’s economical approach to language demonstrates how much you can do with less, drawing full portraits of complicated characters and telling a simple but profound story of human connection.

In Vision Disturbance Mondo, a middle-aged Greek immigrant woman living in the small-town of Reading, Pennsylvania, is going through a divorce from her traditional Greek husband. The resulting stress manifests in an eye disorder that features a loss of depth perception among other perplexing symptoms. She seeks treatment from Dr. Hull who uses an unorthodox approach involving music therapy to help her regain her eyesight. Dr. Hull has his own problems, chronic back pain that has led him to abuse painkillers. Mondo is strong and forthright, a no-nonsense type who is not used to being incapacitated. Dr. Hull is less assertive, a lonely bachelor who lives with his mother and an aging cat. As their respective lives fall apart and become unstructured, Mondo and Dr. Hull find each other, and new meaning.

It is easy to see why Richard Maxwell was drawn to Christina Masciotti’s writing. They share an interest in regular people, in excavating the poetry of everyday language and experience. Masciotti has a gift for finding small moments and mining them for meaning:

“In the house, I had to wash my hands and I was looking at the sink. I couldn’t think how to touch the faucet to turn it. I never thought before, how do I turn the faucet? But looking at it, at that moment, there was nothing to grab, so I didn’t know how I was gonna turn the damn thing. Finally, I just closed my eyes and felt for it. With both eyes closed, I could feel a part of something. Only with my eyes closed. I felt like I could see better closing my eyes. I could see what I remember, and I could feel the rest. Most of the time that’s what I did. I just closed my eyes and pretty soon, I felt like I was part of the world again. But the world was black, so that became my world. The rest was somebody else’s pictures.”

Both Linda Mancini as Mondo and Jay Smith as Dr. Hull bring a gentle, humorous, pathos to the proceedings. They are gifted, understated performers that allow the language to do most of the work. They deliver their lines in the affectless style one associates with Maxwell’s work, but are simultaneously adept at conveying the inner lives of the characters.

With the notable exception of last year’s Ads, Maxwell’s recent outings as a playwright (Ode to the Man Who Kneels, People Without History) have been increasingly poetic, baroque and fantastical. This collaboration with Masciotti feels a little bit like a return to earlier work, with a focus on recognizable, contemporary characters and commonplace situations. And that’s not a bad thing. In my mind Ads seemed like a capitulation to the techno-trend in downtown theater – towards more video, more gizmos, more tricks and less meaning. It was refreshing and exciting to see a master of simplicity like Maxwell bring his talent to the work of a new writer who is exploring similar territory. Vision Disturbance is a thoroughly enjoyable evening in the theater and a reminder that, sometimes, all you need is a few chairs, strong actors and good, insightful writing.

Vision Disturbance plays through September 18th at Abrons Arts Center.

For further reading check out this interview with Masciotti in the Brooklyn Rail.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Downtown and uptown collide this fall at Henry Street Settlement’s Abrons Arts Center!

Britain’s Turner Prize-winner Mark Leckey, musical legend John Zorn, and the Paul Taylor Dance Company’s Taylor 2 rub elbows with Obie-winning Les Freres Corbusier, Poland’s Theatre of the Eighth Day, and gender-bent icons Justin Bond and Murray Hill. Off-Off-Broadway favorite Banana Bag & Bodice crosses paths with art-world luminary Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster. And to top it off, Bessie-winning Third Rail Projects transforms the Abrons’ landmark Playhouse into a steampunk-inspired haunted house for Halloween.  LOOKS LIKE FUN!

Full line-up after the jump…

Continue Reading

Popularity: 1% [?]

Okay the listing in the New Yorker says:

BEOWULF: A THOUSAND YEARS OF BAGGAGE

Shotgun Players perform a comedy with music derived from the epic poem. Written by Jason Craig, with music by Dave Malloy; Rod Hipskind directs. In previews. Opens April 5. (Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand St. 212-352-3101.)

The mistakes are – its not Shotgun Players. That’s the theater in Berkeley that co-comissioned the piece from Banana Bag & Bodice, a well-known, well-regarded and established downtown theater company. Secondly, it is not a “comedy with music” it is much more like a slyly humorous rock opera or something like that.

Of course, that is why Culturebot is here. to set the record straight. word.

Popularity: 1% [?]