I love Two-Headed Calf. Brendan Connelly, Brooke O’Harra and their rotating cast of collaborators are always making work that is adventurous, challenging and usually pretty fun. For “You, My Mother” they’ve brought together some super-duper stars of downtown including Bessie-winning playwright/choreographer Karinne Keithley Syers, Obie Award-winning composer Rick Burkhardt and Obie-winning playwright Kristen Kosmas to make what is sure to be a fascinating adventure in contemporary opera. Performed by the talented Yarn/Wire + Strings ensemble, this should be very compelling stuff.

“You, My Mother” is a chamber opera project in two parts exploring the elusive and ever-shifting relationships between mothers and their adult children. The piece is performed by Two-Headed Calf regulars Laryssa Husiak and Mike Mikos, along with new music vocalists Kate Soper (Wet Ink Ensemble) and Beth Griffith (musical affiliations include John Cage, Morton Feldman and Karlheinz Stockhausen). Accompanying them is the acclaimed new music ensemble Yarn/Wire + Strings, consisting of Ian Antonio (percussion), Laura Barger (piano), Russell Greenberg (percussion), Joshua Modney (violin), Mariel Roberts (cello) and Ning Yu (keyboard).

Here’s a sample of the music:

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The creative team also includes Barbara Lanciers (Choreography), Ahram Jeong (Projection Design), Chris Kuhl (Scenic and Light Design), Yoonkyung Lim (Projection Design), Alice Taverner (Costume Design) and Justin Townsend (Scenic and Light Design).

You, My Mother runs Off-Broadway from February 9 – 20, 2012 in a limited engagement at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre, located at 66 East 4th Street between 2nd Avenue & the Bowery in New York City. Performances are Thursdays – Sundays at 7:30pm, along with Saturdays matinees at 2:30pm and an additional performance on Monday, February 20 at 7:30pm. Tickets are $25 for adults and $20 for students/seniors and can be purchased online at LaMaMa.org, in person at the box office or by calling 212-475-7710.

The running time is 70 minutes.

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It is Sunday night and time to recap this past week’s adventures in performance.

WEDNESDAY took us to The Jazz Gallery to see John Ellis and Andy Bragen’s jazz opera (that’s what I’m calling it, anyway) Mobro. First off, I’ve lived in NYC since 1995 and can’t believe I’ve never been to The Jazz Gallery! It is a cozy loft space on Hudson just below Spring and it is fantastic. It definitely reminds me of what NYC was when I first got here, when you could still taste the bohemian, downtown history of Manhattan in a tangible way. You walk up the stairs to the loft and check in at the door, there’s a table with some bottles of wine and plastic cups with a donation jar, the walls are covered in posters and paintings of jazz greats, there are a bunch of benches and folding chairs in front of a tiny stage. For Mobro, the stage was packed with 9 musicians and 4 vocalists. I started sitting in the front but was soon overwhelmed, eventually going to stand in the back. But even from the back the space has this wonderful warmth and intimacy – you can really hear the music well and you can see the musicians getting into the music, communicating with each other and riffing off of each other as they launch into this dynamic, swinging, complex composition.

The story of Mobro is this: In March 1987 a garbage barge, The Mobro 4000, set out from Islip, New York with 3,168 tons of industrial waste headed for a methane farm in North Carolina. North Carolina rejected the cargo and the Mobro set out for New Orleans, Mexico and Belize, rejected each time, before finally returning to Brooklyn where the garbage was incinerated and returned to Islip. The journey took 5 months and covered 6000 miles.

Composer John Ellis and playwright Andy Bragen approach the story as an epic journey, an Odyssey that unfolds across twelve sections moving from Anticipation to Doldrums and culminating in Celebration. I don’t know a whole lot about jazz, so I don’t feel qualified to critique it in that framework. But as an audience member and music lover, I was bowled over. Ellis is facile in a number of different forms and style – Mobro starts out in a kind of traditional modern jazz mode, moves into a more musical/song genre and into this really interesting electronic/computer/noise section before returning to jazz mode and culminating in a New Orleans-style jazz epilogue. It is kind of a jazz opera that you want to dance to. And the musicians were fantastic – a really interesting multiculti ensemble of great players all of whom took a turn soloing and just blowing our minds with their talent and inventiveness. The space-y noise jam during the Doldrums section was created by Roberto Carlos Lange and it was freakin’ great. I don’t know if it was coincidental, but I saw him sitting at his laptop rocking a Grateful Dead t-shirt, and his electronic composition definitely reminded me of the trippy feedback “space” section that was the centerpiece of every Dead show. Ellis is also a dynamic bandleader, getting out there and bopping along to the music, giving direction and every once in awhile stepping front and center to solo.

The sound system was not totally up to the task of dealing with the vocals, so it was a little hard to understand the lyrics. But the vocalists all sounded great and, from what I could hear and understand, Bragen’s writing was evocative and compelling.

Sadly the run at the Jazz Gallery is over, but the piece could definitely translate well to a bigger venue in its present form. What would be really great would be for some savvy producer to pick it up, attach a director, dramaturg and some set/lighting/video designers and blow this thing up into a full-on show. It has, as they say, sea legs.

THURSDAY night took us to The Kitchen to see Kyle Abraham‘s Live! The Realest MC which was absolutely stunning. I already tweeted about it and wrote a short blurb on Facebook but I’ll expand a bit here.

On its most basic level, Live! The Realest MC is about trying to be gay in the ‘hood. But to reduce it to only that would be vastly understating the importance of the work and its remarkable technical and artistic accomplishment. Abraham’s investigations have frequently been about taking movement vocabulary from “street” and “hip-hop”, abstracting it, re-contextualizing it, and infusing it with contemporary choreography. This show takes this investigation to an entirely new level, getting into the emotional and cultural resonance of these movements, digging deep and coming back from the depths with vision, insight, passion and conviction. Abraham finds what these movements mean, how they are meant to represent power – or a relationship to power – and masculinity, social status, gender, psychology. He seamlessly interweaves and juxtaposes these movements in a way that we watch one simple gesture – a hip roll, for instance – transform from an expression of machismo and masculine privilege into a sensuous and effeminate expression of queer identity. All within one sequence.

I tried to track the exact series of sequences – the show starts with Abraham on the floor downstage right in a glittery shirt and glitter-trimmed Adidas track pants – but I didn’t want to look down too often to write. There are a series of interactions between Abraham and his two male dancers, Chalvar Monteiro and Maleek Malaki Washington, that could be read alternately as hetero “fronting” and gay cruising. The girls enter shortly after that: two African-American girls (Rena Butler and Elyse Morris), an Asian girl (Hsiao-Jou Tang) and a white(?) girl (Rachelle Rafailedes). The show alternates between group sequences and smaller trios and duets, punctuated with solos by Abraham. During one sequence Abraham comes up to the mic and has this incredible moment as an actor (a dancer who can really act!! OMG!) where he starts out posturing as a kind of thug or rapper, honing in on the phrase, “They held me down” and repeating it with different inflections until it shifts from being a statement against “the man” holding a brother down, to a brutalized gay boy who has been held down, beaten and abused by his peers. It is riveting and heartbreaking.

The whole show is not all pathos and heartbreak – there is a lot of humor in there. A particularly hilarious video sequence features an instructional video of a middle-aged southern white woman teaching a class in hip-hop dance. Funny and absurd but also remarkably sharp and insightful into how this movement has been decontextualized, commodified and misunderstood to the point of absurdity.

All of Abraham’s dancers are topnotch and they have the skills to really deliver his vision as a choreographer. Each has their own strengths and as the evening goes on I started to notice little distinctions between the dancers. Chalvar Monteiro seemed a little more sensitive where Maleek Malaki Washington seemed to be comfortable playing the tough. Rena Butler had the most intense and expressive gaze – her eyes were focused and wide and bright, almost supernatural. Elyse Morris brought a kind of grounded, humorous, sensual presence to all of her sequences – but one that seemed like it could go tough and angry at any minute. Hsiao-Jou Tang definitely rocked the “modern dancer” thing, very centered and fluid but with occasional flashes of the cerebral. And I may be a bit obsessive – or this may be because she was the only white girl – but I kept being drawn to Rafailedes’ point and extension. She must have been a ballerina at some point, because it was, like, crazy how far she could extend and how sharp her point was.

The multicultural casting brought a layer of sociological complication to the work, while the ability of each performer to embody Abraham’s movement while maintaining their individuality just made it deeper and richer and more engaging. The soundtrack, the lighting, the video – all of it came together perfectly.

That night I was with a friend of a friend who is a doctor in the Bronx. She works with disadvantaged teens, many of whom are struggling with their sexuality in a neighborhood and culture where homophobia is the norm. After the show she was in tears and she kept saying about the show, “Those are my kids! Those are my kids!”

Damn. That’s good stuff.

FRIDAY we went to Danspace Project to see Tere O’Connor‘s Cover Boy, a different take on gay identity. O’Connor’s work is a lot looser and lighter than Abraham’s. He has brought together four men - Michael Ingle, Niall Jones, Paul Monaghan, and Matthew Rogers – and placed them in a series of different vignettes and situations, riffing on the idea of closeted gay experience. We see various scenarios – two men paired with a third man looking longingly at them as an outsider, interactions that start as “ambiguously gay” and transform, a “catwalk” type sequence that plays with the idea of presentation and identity. In this context “Cover Boy” takes on a double meaning – it is both referring to the prettiness of the dancers, as in a model on the cover of a magazine, and the idea of “taking cover” – living in the closet.

The dancers have a great rapport that lends the piece an informal and improvisatory feel. While it is obviously meticulously structured and choreographed, the interplay of the dancers – the way they talk and whisper to each other, the way they move from sequence to sequence – brings us into a conversation or discussion that feels intimate, like a late-night confession or a “morning-after” recap of the previous night’s misadventures to a close friend.

Once again, each of the dancers has a unique presence, each one bringing a different attitude and tone to the ensemble. Michael Ingle brings a kind of effortless athleticism and gentle wit, Niall Jones brings – and I mean this in the best possible way – a hint of quirky, artsy, awkwardness. He is at home in his body but projects a hint of uncertainty and ambivalence, a gentle outsiderness. Matthew Rogers is like your fun gay hipster younger brother while Paul Monaghan, of slender frame and golden ringlets, is like some ephemeral androgyne from a magickal forest.

I don’t know much about O’Connor’s process, but a note in the program says that portions of the movement material for the work was made in collaboration with the performers. It shows. While O’Connor’s overarching vision for the work is ever-present, it feels as if he made room for each dancer to bring a part of themselves to the process, and the intermingling of these subjectivities joins together to make a fascinating whole.

Speaking of “overarching” – the set was this interesting canopy designed by Aptum Architecture, which, I think, was subtly raised and lowered at different points during the show. I couldn’t quite tell – but I occasionally looked up at the balcony and thought I saw the crew pulling on the ropes and levers that held the canopy aloft.

The music by James Baker and the lighting by Michael O’Connor were well integrated into the work. Together with the canopy they created a kind of intellectual/aesthetic frame for the the embodied emotionality of the performers. It was really wonderful how all the different elements came together into an enjoyable, engaging and satisfying whole.

It continues on 12/13 and 12/15 at Danspace Project, 8PM.  Check it out.

SATURDAY took us to LaMama for the Mini Teater Ljubljana (Slovenia) and Novo Kazaliste Zagreb (Croatia) presentation of Ivica Buljan‘s staging of Macbeth After Shakespeare, from a text by Heiner Muller. Extremely physical, muscular and loud, Buljan’s minimal production places Macbeth in a bleak, bloody and amoral wasteland where violence begets violence with no end in sight. Muller adds characters and scenes, most notably a peasant killed for not paying rent, his body eaten by dogs as his widow and son attempt to retrieve him. We are brought into a world where the violence perpetrated by the ruling class trickles down to the common man, where the brutal and brutish warrior class indulges in orgies, drink and debauchery between bouts of frenzied blood lust. No one is innocent, no one untouched.

Buljan’s cast is mostly strapping young men who wrestle and shout and beat each other up, loudly declaiming their lines as they cast about the stage or run up and down the aisles. Banquo is played by a middle-aged woman (Polona Vetrih Distefani) who serves as a kind of thoughtful counterweight. No less invested in the culture of violence, Banquo is still not quite as heinous as the others and, when returning as a ghost, offers the only intimation of the consequences of murder. Lady Macbeth is also played by a middle aged woman, film actress Milena Zupancic, who wields her scheming sexuality as a weapon in the world of men.

At first I was a little put off by the Grotowski-esque presentation. It was so loud, rough and monotone that I found it difficult to engage. Also the supertitles, projected on the back wall, were frequently obscured by the actors and went by so quickly they were difficult to read. I started thinking about the multiple layers of translation – Shakespeare’s English adapted and interpreted by Muller’s German, translated and performed in Slovenian and then re-translated back into modern English, projected on a wall.

Soon I gave over to the experience and found myself being drawn into its relentless assault. The characters are one-dimensional without inner life, they are the embodiment of our animal nature, unfettered and unchecked. The cruelty and violence of this world is the reality of a world always at war, where introspection, over-thinking and sensitivity are seen as weaknesses leading to death.

I also started thinking about the experience of the performers. Coming from a part of the world that has, for the better part of the last 100 years, experienced ongoing political turmoil, oppression, violence and civil war. Even the youngest of the actors must have memories – or at least immediate, close family members who have memories and stories – of life during wartime. The brutality of a society constantly at war is embodied in their physicality, their emotions, their experiences. This kind of theater reflects that. At times, to the cynical American eye, it looks dated and less than subtle. But it represents a reality and perspective that most Americans are fortunate enough not to have experienced firsthand – though have been responsible for spreading abroad. So it is important for us to see this work, hear these voices, be exposed to these perspectives and reminded of the consequences of our actions. Be reminded how underneath all the high-minded rhetoric and professed ideals there is just blood, brutality and death, that when we foment war we risk, as does Macbeth, losing our humanity entirely and becoming mindless killing machines, bereft of moral compass or redemption.

I was going to go the Immediate Medium party after the show but was too drained and tired. Sorry guys! Hope it went well!

SUNDAY we went to The Joyce to go see Martha Clarke‘s Angel Reapers. Written by Alfred Uhry (Driving Miss Daisy), Angel Reapers is inspired by the life of Ann Lee, founder of the Shaker movement. As one might imagine, the show is about the effect of sexual repression, which was kind of what Ann Lee was all about, but it was pretty tame except for the brief glimpse of breasts and a moment of dangly man-bits.

Alfred Uhry has won a bunch of awards and Clarke is a revered, MacArthur Genius Award-winning icon of American Dance, the choreography, the text, the dancing, lighting, music, etc. was the embodiment of professionalism and excellence.  I enjoyed it, especially the rhythmic footwork and the singing. That being said, it was definitely a little less experimental and edgy than my tastes usually run. Good mainstream stuff.

FINALLY, just a few hours ago, before I came home to write this article, I went to the Angelika with a friend of mine to see the new movie The Artist. It was absolutely, totally, beautiful and amazing. If I wasn’t so tired and achey and it weren’t so late I would write a whole huge essay about it. It is just a wonderful work of cinema – so smart and well-made. I’m sorry. I’m just too tired, my head hurts and so do my fingers. Go see the movie. And if you want to discuss it further, offer to buy me dinner and drinks. I’m a fun and witty companion who loves good company and free food at nice restaurants. Especially during holiday time and especially in the middle of the month when I’m between paychecks.

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Yvonne Rainer's "Assisted Living: Good Sports 2" at BAC.

Jeremy‘s all about the Balkans this weekend, and will be catching Ivo Dimchev tonight and BADco. tomorrow at La Mama. Which sucks, because if he wasn’t already booked he’d be headed out to the Bushwick Starr Saturday, where Catch 44 looks pretty cool, with both Joe Silovsky and Young Jean Lee (with her band Future Wife) showing up. Sunday he has vague plans to catch some friends’ Spider-man spoof Spidermann (respectin’ copyright law peeps!) up at the Tank, and then Monday, he means to catch Little Theater at Dixon Place.

Tonight, Andy‘s at La Mama for Ivo Dimchev, Saturday he’s down at the World Financial Center for New York Classical Theater‘s production of The Rover, and Sunday has no idea what he’ll be doing, if anythin.

Last night, Maura Donohue enjoyed the opening program in “Rhythm & Humor,” David Parker’s portion of the “Body Madness” Platform at Danspace Project. The shared program by Michelle Dorrance and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards is sold-out (including tonight’s added 10pm show), but it’s worth getting on the wait list to see these women throw down. Tonight she’ll be at Vanessa Anspaugh’s Studio Series showing (also sold-out) and then watching Bill T. Jones on Real Time with Bill Maher. Tomorrow she’ll be at the Asia Society for Malavika Sarukkai’s Ganga (sold out, too).

Alyssa joins Jeremy on Saturday for Semi-interpretations or How to Explain Contemporary Dance to an Undead Hare, part of the Perforations New York Festival at LaMama. On Tuesday, she’ll make her way to the Baryshnikov Arts Center for a dress rehearsal of Yvonne Rainer’s (underpublicized?) NYC season.

Saturday, Jane will be at El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem for Ping Chong & Company‘s presentation of Secret Survivors, an interview-based theater project in the “Undesirable Elements” series featuring adult survivors of child sexual abuse telling their personal stories on stage.

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See our interview with Perforations Festival founder and curator Zvonimir Dobrovic, as well as previews of the artists.

La MaMa in association with Perforacije (Perforations) Festival in Croatia presents Perforations Festival New York, a live arts festival featuring some of the leading contemporary performing artists from the Balkan region. The festival includes 12 productions with more than 50 artists from five countries—Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, and Macedonia.

The Perforations Festival takes place annually in Croatia and presents a range of artists working in performance art, theater, and dance, whose diverse approaches to art-making blurs the borders between these genres. Their work touches upon issues of identity (public, political, religious), redefining borders and space, a collective past, and personal histories, but most of all their work talks about the present. Highlights from this festival will be presented in New York, offering audiences insight into contemporary lines of artistic thinking from some of the most provocative and influential artists in the region.

The Perforations Festival is also the largest initiative focused on artists from Central and Eastern Europe whose work is created within the so-called independent artistic scene. Curator and producer of Perforations (Croatia and New York) Zvonimir Dobrovic comments: “State-subsidized venues receive the majority of available arts funding in the Balkans, but some of the most exciting and compelling work in the region is being developed by independent artists working outside of these institutions. It is this group of artists that Perforations supports and presents, in part, to counter established funding and cultural policy that has not created a sustainable working environment for these more progressive artists.”

Perforations Festival New York will feature U.S. premieres from Ivo Dimchev (Bulgaria); BADco. (Croatia); Sanja Mitrović (Serbia); Igor Josifov (Macedonia); Petra Kovačić (Croatia); Željko Zorica (Croatia); Slovenian Youth Theater (Slovenia); Via Negativa (Slovenia); and Ivica Buljan/Mini Teater (Croatia/ Slovenia). Program information for each event follows.

Performances will take place at Club La MaMa, 74A East 4th Street (between Bowery and 2nd Avenue), New York City. Performances run March 11–20 (Friday, Saturday, and Thursday at 10pm; and Sunday and Monday at 8pm). Tickets are $15 for general admission/$10 for students and seniors. Tickets can be purchased through La MaMa’s box office at 212-475-7710, and online at www.lamama.org. The performance installations on March 14 and 18 are free of charge, but a reservation is required.

On Monday, March 21 from 6–8pm, TCDS of The New School for Social Research will present Transgressing Borders in the Balkans: The State of Art, a panel discussion with festival participants, artists, academics, and experts on the region. Location: The New School for Social Research,
66 West 12th Street, Room 510, New York City.

Performance Schedule: March 11–20, 2011

March 11 at 10pm
Ivo Dimchev (Bulgaria)
Lili Handel

Ivo Dimchev is a choreographer and performer whose work is an extreme and colorful mixture of performance art, dance, theater, music, drawings, and photography. Over the last several years, he has become known for his radical work in the area of physical theater. Dimchev’s incentive for creating Lili Handel came from the idea of the human body as a subject of physical and aesthetic consumption. Subtitled “blood, poetry, and music from the white boudoir of a whore…,” Lili Handel is the final cry of a variety show diva. The tagedy of Lili’s fading beauty takes center stage as Dimchev conjures the ancient desire of the stage diva to give the public her innermost life, here, in a passionate and sinister display of her pains.
Lili Handel has been presented more than 70 times in Bulgaria, Macedonia, France, Hungary, Italy, Turkey, Romania, Germany, Slovenia, Czech Republic, and Sweden.

March 12 at 10pm
BADco. (Croatia)
Semi-interpretations or How to Explain Contemporary Dance to an Undead Hare
BADco. is a collaborative performance collective based in Zagreb that includes core members Pravdan Devlahović, Ivana Ivković, Ana Kreitmeyer, Tomislav Medak, Goran Sergej Pristaš, Nikolina Pristaš, and Zrinka Užbinec. The collective systematically focuses on the research of protocols of performing, presenting, and observing by structuring its projects around diverse formal and perceptual relations and contexts. Semi-interpretations, or How to Explain Contemporary Dance to an Undead Hare, a solo created and performed by Nikolina Pristaš (Hooge Huysen award winner for Best Young Choreographer in 2002), reconfigures established boundaries between audience and performer and is inspired, in part, by the work of Joseph Beuys, François Delsatre, Franz Kafka, Steven Shavior, Bruno Latour, and Graham Harman.

March 13 at 8pm
Sanja Mitrović (Serbia)
Will You Ever Be Happy Again?
Are we ever going to be happy again? It’s a question the German population asked themselves at the end of the Second World War. A significant part of the Serbian population faced the same question in the wake of the new millennium. Conceived and directed by Sanja Mitrović (2010 BNG Theater award for Best Young Director), Will You Ever Be Happy Again? is developed around autobiographical accounts of its performers, the Serbian Mitrović and German Jochen Stechmann, and employs documentary strategies to explore how nationality influences one’s personal identity. The work is structured as a succession of performative situations, based on the performers’ personal and collective memories. They counterpoint and mirror each other’s cultural and historical backgrounds as they approach the problem of self-representation–the way one looks at the other and the urge to see oneself through the eyes of another.

March 14 at 8pm (shared evening)
Two performance installations presented throughout the evening beginning at 8pm

Petra Kovačić (Croatia)
Act(ing)

Petra Kovačić is a 2008 graduate from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. The concept for Act(ing) originated from her desire to provide audiences with the experience and feeling of creation. The work is defined as a performance installation—a symbolic view of the creation of a visual artwork that is developed over the course of the performance. Movement is created through the gestures Kovačić uses to build the piece. The material constructed and its final destruction looks to the importance and necessity of experiencing feelings and emotions in the moment.

Željko Zorica (Croatia)
Digitalization of Monumental Heritage and Its Commercial Exploitation

Željko Zorica has worked within different artistic fields as a coauthor of theater performances, set designer, puppeteer, dramatist, graphic designer, writer, and founder of several theater companies. Digitalization of Monumental Heritage and Its Commercial Exploitation is part of an ongoing project that started in 1983 when Zorica developed a fictitious scholar named H. C. Zabludovsky whose writing investigates the phenomena of people rarely stopping and reading what is written on memorial plaques. In response, Zorica has created a faux space that memorial plaques occupy, replacing the plaques with light monitors that screen text and visual material referring to the commemorated person or event. Zorica also creates and places newly invented plaques in strategic locations to reference significant events that took place there. The performance events that surround this activity are somber and staged ceremonies, with speeches, music, and other kinds of theatrics that typically accompany such events.

March 17 at 10pm
Slovenian Youth Theater (Slovenia)
Damned Be The Traitor of His Homeland

The Slovenian Youth Theater was established in 1955 as Slovenia’s first professional theater for children and youth. Today it is known for its wide range of innovative works by various young directors and its ensemble energy, which avoids star hierarchy by investing in a laboratory approach to build its creative ensemble. Every collaborator–actor, director, choreographer, set designer, musician–researches, develops, risks, and creates. Through its performances, the company strives to address universal paradoxes and to develop new codes of theatrical practice, new visual paradigms, and new points of view on the classics, modernism, and postmodernism. In Damned Be The Traitor of His Homeland, Croatian director Oliver Frljić led the company through a series of improvisations to create the language and material for this work. Using an aggressive style, the piece deconstructs Yugoslavian political, theatrical, and historical stereotypes while addressing the danger of committing a crime. Frljić is seen as the leader of a new generation of Croatian theater directors and is known for his use of hyperbole along with grotesque and strong visuals to talk to his audience, to be political, contemporary, and relevant.

March 18 (off-site performance installation – time and location TBA)
Igor Josifov (Macedonia)
Present Memories

In Igor Josifov’s work, an analogous collapsing of borders occurs between artist and form. After several years working in a range of media, Josifov has now chosen his own body as his primary and essential medium. Present Memories is a performance installation in which Josifov comments on the process of entering and moving through different mental constructs that artists embody during performance. He will perform elements from five previous works in this revisiting process: Purification Process, PPP Mental Prison, Emit, 2 Dimensional, and Reflection on Originality. All of these works are anchored in visual and body art and share a through line of endurance. This is a durational work during which Josifov casts himself as a signifying body in a field of social semiotics and uses performance and visual representation to explore psychoanalytic themes such as identity, death, loss, and the status of the ego in contemporary society.

March 18 at 10pm
Via Negativa (Slovenia)
Out

Via Negativa’s work is focused on the relationship between the performer and the audience in real space and time. This relationship is identified as a complex flow of points of view, expectations, judgments, conclusions, recognitions, stereotypes, fallacies, prejudices, tolerance or intolerance, and knowledge or lack thereof. All of these perceptions trigger various emotional, rational, or irrational responses. No matter what the subject or story behind the performance, Via Negativa always searches for the situation(s) that triggers and activates this relationship. The company dedicated its first seven years (2002–08) to addressing the seven deadly sins. Out, the final piece they developed during this period, focuses on the sin of vanity. The work examines the logic of expectations in the relationship between viewer and performer, and tests how the spectator and performer will act out their roles in a situation in which it is no longer clear what they can expect from each other.

March 19 at 10pm
Via Negativa (Slovenia)
Game With Toothpicks
Invalid
Tonight I Celebrate

Via Negativa’s Game With Toothpicks is described as a documentary performance where a Serb and Croat enact a knife-game scene (which is also referenced in Marina Abramović’s Rhythm 10), literally cutting each other on stage. This scene is part of the piece Not Like Me and reflects upon the horrified media response to the work. Game With Toothpicks deals with the media’s “exterior” reaction as if it’s the “interior” of their experience. Performers Kristian Al Droubi and Boris Kadin adopt two radically different positions, turning the performance into an absurd self-referential machine.

Invalid begins in 1990 when the performer, Primož Bezjak, injures his knee after being struck by a stone. Bezjak is an active dancer, actor, and performer, and discusses his diagnosis and therapy at length. At every rehearsal and performance he is in constant danger of dislocating his knee, which has happened many times before. At his request, viewers render his performance impossible. At the core of this work is the idea that without a mangled body a dancer cannot exist or succeed in the system.

Tonight I Celebrate focuses on the relationship between a performer and an audience, on its depth and profanity, its authenticity and illusion. The title song “Tonight I Celebrate My Love for You” by Michael Masser and Gerry Goffin serves as the introduction to eight popular songs from which the singer/performer Uroš Kaurin, accompanied on contrabass by Tomaž Grom, expresses his love for the audience. The ultimate question this work asks is: If the audience of today is ready for everything, does that mean that a performer of today must be ready for everything too?

March 20 at 8pm
Ivica Buljan/Mini Teater (Croatia/Slovenia)
Ma and Al

Ivica Buljan is one of Croatia’s most prolific directors; he codirects Mini Teater with Robert Waltl, and is known for his extensive work with Pasolini and Koltès texts. Ma and Al is inspired by various texts by J.D. Salinger as well as Koltès’ play Sallinger. The space is decorated with fragments of props and the border between the real and fictitous becomes blurred as the audience is called upon and drawn into the playful hysteria of the actors. Issues raised in the show are varied and about the everyday: family breakups, the death of a child, American democracy, the relationship between traditional and contemporary theater, art, and the Vietnam War.

* * * * *

The Perforations Festival in Croatia is produced by Association Domino, a presenting organization that produces two major international festivals in Croatia annually: Perforations and Queer Zagreb. Founded in 2009, the mission of Perforations is to commission, produce, and promote internationally significant work by young and emerging artists from Central and Eastern Europe. Perforations takes place in three cities in each fall: Rijeka, Dubrovnik, and Zagreb. Queer Zagreb, which has been presented in Croatia since 2003, challenges heteronormativity within transitional societies through art, theory, and activism. Zvonimir Dobrovic is the Artistic Director and Producer of both of these festivals.

Perforations Festival New York has received support from Trust for Mutual Understanding, Dance Theater Workshop’s Suitcase Fund as part of the East/Central Europe Cultural Partnerships Program, with support from the Trust for Mutual Understanding, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Croatia, FACE Croatia, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, City of Zagreb Office for Culture, Zagreb Tourist Board, and City of Ljubljana with additional support from CEC ArtsLink.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Popularity: 3% [?]

Okay gang! Jeremy and I have been racing around town seeing tons of shows, meeting curators and artists and just generally living it up! It has been an exciting and invigorating time with lots of great work and great people. Most of the shows continue through this week so if you haven’t dipped your toe into the sea of shows, you still have time to see them! Get out there!

My week started off on Wednesday night with Diciembre from Chile’s Teatro en el Blanco. In writer-director Guillermo Calderón’s play, a young solider (Jorge) returns home to celebrate Christmas with his pregnant twin sisters. The sisters’ deeply opposing views on the fictional war between Chile and Peru come to a head when it is revealed that Jorge is planning to go AWOL. The show is deceptively simple – the entire action takes place at the dining room table – but the actors are remarkable as they take on different characters and the convoluted plot unfurls. I have to admit, I wish I spoke Spanish – the supertitles were a little wonky the night I saw it and it was sometimes difficult to follow. You can tell that the writing is really strong – it would be great to understand it in the original. Still, this magical realist kitchen sink drama is fascinating and rewarding.

After Diciembre I raced over to PS122 to see Rabbi Rabino, Argentinian director Vivi Tellas’ performance piece using two real-life (non-actor) rabbis. It was frequently funny and touching, and maybe for people who don’t have a lot of insight into Jewish life it could be educational. As someone who grew up in a very Jewish household and whose immediate family is deeply observant, I found the show to be a little simplistic and playing to stereotypes. The rabbis themselves are likable and entertaining – but its not enough. While I laud the impulse to humanize the iconic figure of “rabbi” – and to portray their untold lives onstage – the directorial lens was facile and simplistic. Good effort, good fun, but not quite a home run.

Thursday I went to the Under The Radar Symposium which featured a great keynote from Ben Cameron. You can read it here.

The first show I saw that day was Too Late! antigone (contest #2) by Italy’s Motus. Riffing off of the Living Theater’s Antigone, the conflict between Kreon and Antigone is reimagined as a conflict between two willful individuals, intertwined with the actors – as themselves – negotiating how they are going to perform the story. Kreon frequently wears a Berlusconi mask and the two physically adept performers struggle with each intensely and acrobatically. A kind of minimal physical-theater punk rock show, it is an intense high-octane show that flirts with big ideas while never quite digging under the surface.

After that I ran down to Dixon Place to check out the French collective Ildi/Eldi‘s Vice Versa, which is based on the story Cock and Bull by Will Self. The actors are French, but perform admirably in English, though at times it was pretty funny to hear their pronunciation. The story is about a guy who grows a vagina on the back of his knee and starts an affair with the doctor who diagnoses him. Great performers, silly premise. Clocking in at about 45 minutes its more like a sketch than a fully-realized show. Light stuff but a good night in the theater.

After that I headed over to LaMama for what was, undoubtedly, the highlight for me – Gob Squad’s Kitchen (You’ve Never Had It So Good). Starting from a very simple premise – re-enacting the Andy Warhol film Kitchen – the show gradually unfolds into something complex and beautiful. It explored issues of representation, documentation, history, identity and more in subtle, touching and profound ways. As the ensemble’s efforts to enact the Warhol era slowly spin out of control, they bring up audience members to play themselves, receiving instructions via headset. Willfully questioning – and undermining – the audience/performer dynamic, engaging the idea that “In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes” Gob Squad condenses time and folds in on itself. Remarkable. Amazing. Totally transcendent – and, sadly, over. Let’s hope somehow it comes back to NYC so more people can experience this extraordinary work.

Friday I saw Correspondances, a dance-theater piece created by Created by Kettly Noël (Haiti/Mali) and Nelisiwe Xaba(South Africa) which ended with a stunning sequence of sensory overload as a video montage played and the women were drenched in milk showering down from surgical gloves – crazy! Then, hustled over to 440 Studios for Bonanza by the Belgium-based team Berlin. This was not a performance but rather a five-channel video installation exploring the very real town of Bonanza, Colorado, which has only 7 inhabitants. As a film its a pretty interesting documentary. I’m not sure I accept the premise that this is performance, however. Maybe long-form video art. But so it goes.

Saturday took us to Abrons Arts Center to see Tarek Halaby’s An attempt to understand my socio-political disposition through artistic research on personal identity in relationship to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Part One. Halaby is an entertaining performer and his exploration of his identity is as engaging as it is, at times, disturbing. He tells the story of his awakening to the plight of Palestine – how it became real to him, though he grew up Palestinian in America, far removed from the conflict itself. Essentially it is an autobiographical solo show and if it had been advertised as such, I don’t know that I would have enjoyed it as much. But because it was promoted as “dance” – somehow I was open to seeing it through a different lens. That’s a whole topic for discussion unto itself. And of course it is politically relevant and a not-frequently-heard perspective. I’d like to see what he does for Part 2.

After that I saw John Jasperse and Faye Driscoll show works-in-progress (fun!) but left before Miguel Gutierrez because I had seen his show before at CPR. (You can read my write-up of that show here.

Saturday night took me back to the Public for Universe’s Ameriville. Nobody does spoken-word performance/theater better than Universes and this is an incredibly polished and well-composed show. The performers are all exceptional, the music is great and the ensemble moves from sequence to sequence seamlessly. It is like one symphony with different movements. That being said – it starts as an examination of Katrina and its aftermath and then kind of expands into every ill currently plaguing America. A bit too much of a reach – the show loses focus and power as it attempts to take on too much. The audience I was with stuck with it and was dancing and clapping along by the end, so maybe I’m just a grinch. Good stuff, but could use some editing.

Sunday took me to the Hudson Hotel for Travis Chamberlain’s site-specific staging of Tennessee Williams’s Green Eyes. This short one-act is a psychosexual battle royale between Erin Markey and Adam Couperthwaite as a husband and wife on their honeymoon. The husband is a Vietnam-era solider on leave and the two are engaged in a brutal and erotic test of wills. Once again, it feels a bit more like a sketch of an idea than a fully-developed work, and that is very possibly what it is. But it shows how adventurous and surreal Williams became in his later years, even if he didn’t fully realize his vision. Markey brings a feral sexuality to the role that drives the twisting plot forward like a runaway freight train. Chamberlain and his designers have created a hermetic world that is at once erotic and violent, surreal and bleak. I think it is sold out but if you can get a ticket, check it out.

After that I headed down to PS122 to see Jack Ferver’s Rumble Ghost. Intertwining scenes from Poltergeist with movement sequences and a group therapy session, Ferver playfully – and spookily – explores the terrain of subconscious fear. It is one of the rare shows that I actually wished were longer. When it concluded, at just under an hour, I was left wanting more.

So the first “week” of shows conclude. Here’s my schedule for this week:

Monday:
Annie Dorsen’s Hello, Hi There at PS122
Show Your Face at LaMama
Holiday at PS122

Tuesday:
JUMP at The Public

Thursday:
The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church at St. Ann’s Warehouse

Saturday:
Devotion at The Kitchen

Sunday:
Daniel Fish’s Tom Ryan Thinks… at Incubator Arts Project

Hope to see you out there!!!!

Popularity: 5% [?]

“La MaMa Puppet Series IV — Built to Perform,” the latest in La MaMa’s celebrated annual puppet program, will premiere five adult puppet theater productions and remount a popular children’s attraction this fall, exploring the artistic and creative possibilities of puppetry in all its forms. The series will run from October 14 to November 28, 2010.

The series will open with the latest work by Italy’s Dario D’Ambrosi (Pathological Theater), “Bong Bong Bong against the Walls, Ting Ting Ting in our Heads,” from October 14 thru October 31. There will be two works from Poland presented in association with The Polish Cultural Institute, “Chopin-An Impression” by Bialystok Puppet Theatre October 21 to November 7 and “Broken Nails. A Marlene Dietrich Dialogue” by Wiczy Theatre from November 11 to 21.  From Brooklyn comes “Wake Up, You’re Dead,” directed and designed by Aaron Haskell, October 29 to November 7. The family and children’s puppet theater attraction will be “Folktales of Asia and Africa” by Jane Catherine Shaw October 23 to November 7. The festival will conclude with “In Retrospect” by LOCO7 Dance Puppet Theatre Company, directed, choreographed and designed by Colombia-born Federico Restrepo with music composed by Elizabeth Swados, November 11 to 28. There will be Gallery Exhibit at La MaMa’s La Galleria, 6 East First Street, with puppets displayed from artists of the series, from October 21 to November 7.

La MaMa will have its fall gala October 25, celebrating its 49th season by honoring Cheryl Henson of the Jim Henson Foundation.

The La MaMa Puppet Series is now an annual event, curated by Denise Greber. It carries on La MaMa’s tradition, since its inception, of supporting puppet theater artists from all over the world.

The series is supported by the Jim Henson Foundation, the Trust for Mutual Understanding, NYSCA and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

To encourage audiences to see multiple productions during the festival, La MaMa will offer a Festival Pass subscription and incentive pricing for the Series (to be announced). Tickets can be purchased online at www.lamama.org. The phone number for audience information is (212) 475-7710. La MaMa is located at 74A East Fourth Street, between Second Avenue and Bowery, in the East Village.

Schedules and descriptions of eight events follow:

“Bong Bong Bong against the Walls, Ting Ting Ting in our Heads” by Pathological Theatre, Italy
October 14 thru October 31, First Floor Theatre
Written and directed by Dario D’Ambrosi
Set and Object/Puppet design by Aurora Buzzetti
Thursdays through Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sundays at 2:30; $18
Running time: 60 minutes.

“Bong Bong Bong against the Walls, Ting Ting Ting in our Heads” is the kind of play that could only be written from the experience of Dario D’Ambrosi, who for over 30 years has worked with mentally disabled people in Italy. It is the American debut for Set/Puppet Designer Aurora Buzzetti (Rome).  Translation is by Celeste Moratti.  It is a theatrical fantasy about mentally ill children in institutions, whose thoughts are cloudy but whose souls are clear, who are bespattered with pain but whose dignity shines.  In fairy tale style, it dramatizes how their imaginations are limitless and how they flourish when they are loved.  The story is told with live music, singing, dance and puppets.  Although it deals directly with lives of most troubled people, the play is fantastical and nonthreatening.  It is recommended for audiences of all ages.

In the ’80s and ’90s, Dario D’Ambrosi marched irresistibly into the forefront of Italy’s theatrical ambassadors, a cohort led by Pirandello, DiFilippo and Dario Fo.  In 1994, he received the equivalent of a Tony Award in his country: a prize for lifetime achievement in the theater from the Instituto del Drama Italiano.  D’Ambrosi first performed at La MaMa in 1980 and has been in residence there nearly every year thereafter. Rosette Lamont wrote in Theater Week, “The yearly appearance of the Italian writer/performer Dario D’Ambrosi at La MaMa is cause for celebration.”

Last October, D’Ambrosi opened a new theater in a converted warehouse in a norther section of Rome.  Named The Pathological Theater, it is home to his resident company of professional actors and a drama school for psychiatric patients.  Set/Puppet Designer Aurora Buzzetti, a fast-emerging artist of Rome’s theatre crafts community, is a resident artist there.  This world premiere, however, will be performed by American actors, as has been D’Ambrosi’s practice in each of his New York productions since 2004.
“Chopin-An Impression” by Bialystok Puppet Theatre
Presented in association with The Polish Cultural Institute in New York
October 21 thru November 7, Ellen Stewart Theatre at The Annex
Conceived by Wojciech Szelachowski
Written by Leslaw Piecka, Wojciech Szelachowski
Directed by Leslaw Piecka
Set and puppets designed by Joanna Braun
Choreographed by Jolanta Kruszewska
Music by Fryderyk Chopin
Thursdays through Saturday at 7:30 PM, Sundays at 2:30; $25
Running time: 60 minutes.

“…it is absolutely inconceivable how two genius abilities became united in Chopin’s person: that of the greatest melodist and of the most original master of harmony.” –Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Presented with the Polish Cultural Institute in New York “Chopin-An Impression” is an essay for the stage that unites music, visual art, and marionette performance. This extremely challenging technique in puppetry requires unusual mechanical design and extraordinary skill in animating the marionettes. Compositions by Fryderyk Chopin will be rendered both by a pianist and by a marionette representing the composer – a marionette controlled with strings, measuring about a foot and displaying agility and virtuosic perfection in the hands of its master.

The production premiered March 7, 2010, in Bialystok, Poland. The Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage commissioned the work as part of the worldwide celebration of The Year of Chopin 2010, commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Poland’s greatest composer. The official opening of this year-long celebration took place on January 1 in Zelazowa Wola, Poland, where the artist was born and where his father worked as a tutor for a local aristocratic family.

The Bialystok Puppet Theatre, one of the best puppet theaters in Europe introduces the audience to Chopin’s world through a series of Muses who serve as guides through the worlds of dreams and sounds produced by his music. They also present his artistic friendships, musical impressions, and life experiences. The show refers to Chopin’s fascination with Paganini, his friendships and relationships with George Sand, with his fiancée Maria Wodzinska, his longings for the lost “country of his childhood,” his creative dilemmas, Impressions, artistic visions, moods that range from the poetic to the paranoid, the feeling of success, and the sense of despair. Apart from Chopin’s music performed live by one of Poland’s most talented pianists, Krzysztof Traskowski, the show features actors, marionettes, art objects and visual presentations.
“Wake Up, You’re Dead!” by Brooklyn Art Department
October 29 thru November 7, The Club
Directed and Designed by Aaron Haskell
Fridays and Saturdays at 10:00 PM, Sundays at 5:30 PM; $15
Running time: 45 minutes.

What puppeteer doesn’t wonder what will happen to him as he impersonates the creator?  In “Wake Up, You’re Dead!,” Aaron Haskell of Brooklyn Art Department, one of the original designers of Nightmare: NYC’s Haunted House, gives us a Halloween-flavored creation myth.  It’s performed as a dark ceremony by a weird tribe.  The Ancestors–Haskell’s own version of the Greek Titans–are life-sized skeleton creatures that create great balls of light (the life force).  Mankind is born by sliding down a Jungian sluice to the earth.  There are black light effects, dancing skeletons (that show the cyclical nature of life), primal movement (costumed creatures locomoting on all-fours, animal-like), bass-heavy loud music, Butoh and technical modern dance.  Puppets bring puppeteers to life and vice-versa.  Following this spectacle of evolution, an ultimate being is created at the end of the show.

It’s all staged as a De La Guarda-type event and spectacle:  a boisterous party that will have you on your feet!

Haskell has invented myths since childhood.  “It’s a cool way to make up your own stories, especially since you can also make up your own creatures.”  In “Wake Up, You’re Dead!,” they’re all constructed from eco-friendly, greenlist ingredients, including skeletons of sawdust and cardboard that look like bones dressed in cornflakes.
“Broken Nails. A Marlene Dietrich Dialogue” by Wiczy Theatre
Presented in association with The Polish Cultural Institute in New York
November 11 thru 21, The Club
Conceived and performed by Anna Skubik
Written and directed by Romuald Wicza-Pokojski
Set designed by Romuald Wicza-Pokojski
Music arranged by Igor Nowicki
Puppet designed by Anna Skubik and Barbara Poczwardowska
Thursdays through Saturdays at 10:00 PM, Sundays at 5:30 PM; $15
Running time: 45 minutes.

Beautiful, determined, intelligent, controversial–Marlene Dietrich was a transcendent symbol of femininity, a lady of strong character and clear mind, a woman with claws. A fascinating figure to both men and women, Dietrich’s personality has also seduced Anna Skubik, a young Polish actress and puppeteer who brings this German star to life by animating her as a life-size doll. Presented with the Polish Cultural Institute in New York, “Broken Nails. A Marlene Dietrich Dialogue” portrays Dietrich and her maid Gloria (both played by Skubik) in a co-dependent relationship during the star’s last days in her Paris apartment.

Ms. Skubik slips back and forth between her roles as meek servant and haughty star with such virtuosity that it is easy to forget there is only one woman on stage. The play is a compelling study of womanhood – from all that is eternal and archetypal about women to their more ephemeral, fragile, and unsustainable personal qualities. The actress, under the direction of the play’s author, Romuald Wicza-Pokojski, is less interested in resurrecting Marlene Dietrich than in showing the legendary star as she deals with her fading beauty and imminent death.

Anna Skubik is a one-woman tour de force in this show, always in intimate contact with the puppet. Skubik gives Dietrich a deep, slightly hoarse voice, while Gloria’s voice is shy and girlish. The dynamic of the dialogue, the rapid shifting of views and opinions, the transition from high emotion to peace and tranquility, as well as Dietrich’s diverse costumes and singing gives the audience no choice but to fully immerse itself in Skubik’s theatrical fiction.
“Folktales of Asia and Africa,” created by Jane Catherine Shaw (Children’s Puppet Theater)
October 23 & 24, October 30 & 31 and November 6 & 7, Ellen Stewart Theatre at The Annex
Saturdays and Sundays at Noon; Tickets $10 Adults/$5 Children
Running time: 45 minutes

While she is making bread, the hostess discovers that she has guests. As they all wait for the dough to rise she tells them three stories using kitchen utensils to play the characters, in the style of found object puppetry.

Audiences love to see egg beaters hop into cloth napkins to become Japanese sisters dressed in kimonos, or watch as a flour sifter becomes an old man, with a cookie cutter for a pet rabbit. Among the many notable characters are wooden salt and pepper shakers as sisters in “The Dragon with Five Heads” from Zimbabwe, 4 steak knives that become the wise man in the Japanese tale “The Lantern and The Fan,” and an unusual doughnut maker becomes the moon goddess disguised as an old women in “The Old Man and the Moon” from Burma.

This one woman show was created, designed, and performed by Jane Catherine Shaw nearly twenty years ago and has been an audience favorite wherever she has performed it. Children and adults delight in the imaginative use of everyday objects to portray the characters in the three stories. “Folktales of Asia and Africa” brings puppetry to its essence, in which common objects of daily use assume fantastic character through the artistry of puppetry and the puppeteer.
“In Retrospect” by LOCO7 Dance Puppet Theatre Company
November 12 thru November 28, First Floor Theatre
Conceived by Denise Greber and Federico Restrepo
Directed, choreographed and designed by Federico Restrepo
Music composed by Elizabeth Swados
Thursdays through Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sundays at 2:30 (no show Thanksgiving Day); $18
Running time: 60 minutes.

With its newest production, “In Retrospect,” LOCO7 Dance Puppet Theatre Company investigates how we each construct our personal memory box:  how we keep our memories fresh and preserve the things that made us who we are.  These include our mothers’ embraces, lost loves, childhood dreams, ideals of youth and struggles of age, loss and birth.

The production features giant puppets, marionette scenery, masks, choreography, acrobatics, live original music and video.  A large marionette tree dangles fruits high above our reach which, when dropped, grow into our memories.  Some of them summon feelings of being loved and secure, others evoke the opposite.  For example, one scene depicts a huge Mother marionette and her little children, revealing the pleasure of hiding within the safety of her giant legs.  Another scene has a puppet telephone and a character waiting for a call with a mixture of dread and excitement.  We are reminded of our emotional dependence on the appliance as a “life line” which can be either a comfort or a monster.

Reflecting the compartmentalization of our feelings, the stage will have a room-within-a-room where a person lives her life locked behind a wall. With this self inflicted alienation, she watches the world living yet remains cut off, unable to interact with society, hiding behind to safety zone of technology.

The production will be designed, choreographed, and directed by Federico Restrepo, a Colombian-born master of puppet theater and physical theater. The piece is being written and developed by Federico Restrepo and Denise Greber. Music will be composed by Elizabeth Swados; this is her fourth collaboration with Restrepo.
Gallery Exhibit at La Galleria, 6 East First Street.

Exhibition of puppets by Federico Restrepo, Theodora Skipitares, Jane Catherine Shaw, Dan Hurlin, Lake Simmons and more, October 21 – November 7, 2010.
La MaMa Fall Gala honoring Cheryl Henson
Ellen Stewart Theater, Monday, October 25, 8:00 PM

The evening will honor Cheryl Henson of the Jim Henson Foundation for her contributions to the art of puppetry.  The evening will have performances by Basil Twist, Dan Hurlin, Erik Sanko & Jessica Grindstaff, Federico Restrepo, Lake Simmons & John Dyer, Roman Paska, Tom Lee, Mark Russell, Theordora Skipitares and surprise guests.  (Note:  time has been changed from 7:30 to 8:00 PM.)

Popularity: 1% [?]

The fifth LaMama Moves Festival is well underway, people. With over two weeks of programming, over 50 artists, and showtimes ranging from 2 to 10pm, there’s little reason to not catch something, be it The Power of Hula, a Jack Ferver curated Cabaret Evening, or a Movement Studies Research Studies Project on Improvisational Practice.  Last night, the indomitable Nicky Paraiso welcomed the audience to the Mavericks in Motion Program A (there will be B, C, and D programs too) by pointing out that we are a form with history (dig one to Alastair Macaulay) out to reclaim the co-opted nickname (dig two to John McCain).  I’m not sure the four works shown represented much dissent, but there was plenty of fascinating movement exploration to chew on.

Lionel Popkin showed an excerpted solo, with fellow UCLA faculty member Robert Een accompanying on cello and voice, of last year’s Danspace Project quartet, “There’s an Elephant in this Dance,” which Andy has already written a bit about.   After Popkin’s huge, fuzzy elephant suit falls away, he begins a compelling journey through breath, rebound, and spiraling pathways.  Standing mostly in place, with his hands in his pockets, he blows and sucks in air in increasingly more complicated rhythms. Even without original cast members Ishmael Houston-Jones, Carolyn Hall, and Peggy Piacenza Popkin and Een (and the elephant) provide a sense of communal dialogue and multiplicity.

David Capps, my colleague at Hunter College, performs in his quartet “Now Sings the Garden,” set to part of Olivier Messiaen’s “Vingt Regards su l’enfant-jesus.”  Toby Hankin joins him on two chairs, and the two veteran dancers set a mood of mature quiet before Jamie Chandler and George Hirsch, bound into the space with youthful energy.  The dance continues primarily as simultaneous duets with Hankin occasionally gazing at the younger dancers.  Her benevolent smile hints at the contemplative theme of the music into some focus. However, Capps seems most often agitated by the other couple who, in turn, never acknowledge the older dancers. This provides an interesting spatial tension while allowing me ruminations about agility, rigidity and, parenthood.

Rashaun Mitchell showed “Nocturnal Excerpts,” a work in progress duet, performed and created in collaboration with fellow Cunningham Co. member Silas Riener.  The two begin slumped against the front brick wall of La Mama’s First Floor Theater.  Riener collapses and pushes against the wall, before both dancers push away from it and explore a strong backwards pull of the head, attending to sharp, fast, jerks of the cervical spine. And, I only get anatomic here because later in the dance Riener rolls himself backwards over the top of his head and onto his face, while laying on his back, in a spinal contortion that I found (this morning in the studio) is, indeed, as unlikely to achieve as it looked. The sonic landscape by Ablehearts and the physical crumpling and contortions imbue the space with sweet violence and a kind of late-night loneliness.

Luke Gutgsell performed “Two Habits,” his sensuous duet with Elise Knudson.  He states in the program that the work is an embrace of his own movement habits.  I’d say they’re habits worth maintaining, except, perhaps for Knudson’s butt scratching…I mean, only, as a personal habit… I actually enjoyed the humor of her hiked shorts and ichy rear end in the midst of this silky dance work.  The two are well matched for the slow and seamless slides and gently persistent pushes.  I found myself thinking they could continue on forever and I’d watch; it was like a raspberry dark chocolate mousse, absolutely luscious.

Popularity: 1% [?]

(l to r) Penny Dannenberg (seated), Jamie Graham, Rebecca Woll, Moses Kaplan, Alex Schell, Maggie Ronan, Jessica Thomas, Betty Williams (obscured) Photo by Eric Bandiero

Stretch.  And be smart about it.

Translate into Latin  (Tendo, Quod operor is purpureus?), and that might become a motto for NYU Tisch School of the Arts Dance Program.

Over the past several months I have encountered Department Chair Cherylyn Lavagnino, and faculty member Jaclynn Villamil with graduate students in tow both at DIA Beacon for the dress rehearsal of the Trisha Brown Dance Company‘s performances there in February, and at Danspace St. Mark’s.  Granted, the latter happens to be just up Second Avenue from the Department’s home at 6^th St.  But wouldn’t that be a smart stretch?

Last Friday, those two along with faculty project facilitator Jim Sutton could be found in the first and second rows of La Mama Annex around the corner on E. 4^th St.  And some of the graduate students, along with a number of newly minted BFA’s  and MFA’s could be found on the stage. There, in the evening’s most intriguing and compelling spectacle four of them found themselves fully integrated into Naomi Goldberg Haas’ “Uprooting,” a piece that incorporates three generations of performers to suggest passages both physical and metaphysical.

at rear: (l to r) Moses Kaplan, Jamie Graham, Maggie Ronan, Jackie Ferrara. front: Penny Dannenberg, Ani Javian Photo by Eric Bandiero

Goldberg Haas has been directing her Dances For A Variable Population since 2005, with professional company members ranging in age from 25 to 81.  The seamless addition of NYU dancers Moses Kaplan, Maggie Ronan, Alex Schell and Jessica Thomas highlights one of the choreography’s strengths.  Set to several propulsive folk-inspired recordings by the Polish combo Warsaw Village Band, “Uprooting” manages to find and challenge each of its 13 performers at or near the limit of her/his technical and expressive potential, and to transcend this challenge by suggesting the existential humanity of yearning, striving, transformation, and reflection from youth to age and memory back to immediate experience.

(l to r) M. Lindsay Smith, Jackie Ferrara Photo by Eric Bandiero

The performances of senior members Penny Dannenberg, Jackie Ferrara, Judith Chazen Walsh and Betty Williams, while remarkable in their own right, create a frame of dimension and depth for those of their youthful collaborators.  Their regard of the youngsters manages to encompass a mixture of dispassionate assessment with intimations of mentoring, longing, and sassy competitiveness and even one-upmanship that leavens the poignancy of both the music and the dancing with pith and wit.  In one exquisitely simple and memorable moment Dannenberg and Geraldine Bartlett slowly sit down back to back to share one of the folding chairs that has been brought on to the stage.  Their mirror images present in such a way as to leave open the question, expertly poised, of who might be a reflection of whom.

Add to this interplay the lusty way in which Goldberg Haas’ young professionals Jamie Graham, Ani Javian, M. Lindsay Smith and Rebecca Woll bite into the music and movement as if to both throw down a challenge and lead the way among their younger and older counterparts, and you have a work that begins to transform the creative potential energy of Dances For A Variable Population into a power to move and inspire its audience as much as its own members.

In this, rehearsal director Smith, of the high-arched and articulate feet and whip-smart torso, and the equally fiery Graham set the tone as firsts among equals.  With any luck, this cross-generational ensemble, including its new-found Tisch quartet, will manage to hold together long enough to re-present an outdoor version of this work at the end of September in cooperation with Hudson Guild Fulton Senior Center along the High Line Park in Chelsea.

(l to r): Ani Javian, M. Lindsay Smith, Jamie Graham, Rebecca Woll. Photo by Eric Bandiero

One can only wish as much for Selina Chau’s “The New York Exchange.” This witty, cheeky, extremely well crafted send up of everything from dance style pretensions to kung fu movies features fine performances by Monica Barbaro as a wayward ballet princess, Austin J. Diaz and Gierre J. Godley, as various NY dance, street and martial arts types, and Mandarin Wu as the archetypal femme fatale with the fan.

Mandarin Wu (with fan) Gierre J. Godley, and Monica Barbaro photo by Tony Dougherty

Chau displays a sharp eye and a supple mind for theatrical type and form, fable, kitsch, and the way pop culture co-opts all of the above. Set to an ingenious score by Kyle Olson that mashes up his own “New York Exchange” with passages from Adolphe Adams’ score for Giselle and Romani and Bellini’s “Costa Diva” from Norma, interrupted by Chinese text passages written by Chau and comically delivered by co-writer Wu, the work sets up and then undermines expectations in a way that satisfyingly compliments that of Goldberg Haas. Like the latter dance maker, Chau has keen sense of theatrical and, especially in her case, comic timing and the delicacy of gesture that allows us the comfort of recognition just as she twists to tickle and subvert our prejudice.

Such rare gifts more than justify Tisch’s repeated presence in the annual LaMama Moves Festival.  When you’ve got it, why not go the extra mile — or two blocks – beyond your building and perhaps your comfort zone to flaunt it?

More of DJ McDonald’s commentary can be found at City of Glass.

Popularity: 2% [?]