Palissimo in Pavel Zustiak's "Amidst" Photo: Robert Flynt

Pavel Zustiak’s Amidst, at Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) this past weekend, lived up to its name. The performers did indeed move “amidst” the audience, although the dangling modifier is also suggestive of a host of emotions and ideas hovering around the work.

The audience entered BAC’s Howard Gilman Performance Space to a dense fog. No seating, no clear performance area, just musicians set up in a corner, and lots of milling people. Mixing the performers in with the audience trick is an old one, but a good one, and as three (Lindsay Dietz Marchant, Nicholas Bruder, Zustiak) gradually emerged, the audience followed them from one area of the space to the next.

Alternating between intensely theatrical lighting and the dim haze characteristic of pauses that aren’t quite intermissions, Amidst conjured a sense of isolation despite the throngs of people, although there were allusions to fragments of relationships in the moments of interaction between the performers. Projected images on the walls, by photographer Robert Flynn, did little to enhance the work, although the mapping on the floor was a powerful motif. Original music by Christian Frederickson, performed live, contributed ineffably to the atmosphere of intensity.

In terms of performances that eschew the proscenium stage layout, what continually perplexes me is the paradox between an apparent wish to tear down the proverbial fourth wall, countered by the performers’ insistence on living in an internal world and not reacting to an audience within sneezing distance. Zustiak’s physical use of the space seems designed not to delineate between audience/performer, yet those boundaries were still upheld on both sides. Theoretically, there was a possibility of straying from the standard roles, but the audience was a well-mannered crowd, so we stayed in the reactive mode, and distance was kept from the performers. My own movements were a continual, partially successful attempt to see what was going on; as some one who is far from Jolly Green Giant stature, this remains one of my peeves with installation-style performances.

Amidst is the middle section of Zustiak’s The Painted Bird Trilogy, and not having seen the first installment, I had no reference point. But the full trilogy is scheduled to be performed at LaMaMa next spring (2012). This is a rarity for mid-level artists and smaller presenting venues, so keep an eye out.

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This Thursday is the opening of Bastard, the first part of The Painted Bird, a new dance work in three parts from choreographer Pavel Zuštiak/Palissimo , at La Mama (tickets $20/$25). Loosely inspired by a scene from Jerzy Kosinski’s controversial 1956 novel The Painted Bird, Zuštiak’s piece exlores “migration, displacement, and identity formation.”

As Zuštiak explained in a brief telephone interview earlier this week, the piece was inspired by one particular scene in the novel, in which a bird keeper paints a bird a different color and then releases it so that it will be attacked by its own flock, now unable to recognize it.

“The bird of the same kind is rejected by its own kind,” he told me, and that sense of having your own turn on you, of being made an outsider, resonated with Zuštiak, an immigrant who left his native country in 1993.

The Painted Bird also gave Zuštiak the opportunity to collaborate with noted Slovakian dancer Jaroslav Viňarský. “We know each other for about seventeen years,” Zuštiak said of Viňarský, who he met first as a teacher before emigrating from Slovakia. In the intervening decades, Viňarský has built a career for himself as a dancer, and for some time Zuštiak had been looking for the opoortunity to work with him.

“For him as well, the things we’re looking at hit close to home,” Zuštiak said of Viňarský.

The show also allowed Zuštiak to collaborate extensively with composer Christian Frederickson, a violinist and one of the core members of the classical-influenced indie rock outfit Rachel’s. Frederickson had become acquainted with Zuštiak when he was taken to some of Palissimo’s performances, and for The Painted Bird (at which he will be performing live, along with Ryan Rumery), he’s been involved in the process from the beginning, working along with Zuštiak and Viňarský in the studio and traveling with them to Europe, where he also had the opportunity to do some recordings for part of the score.

Bastard, as noted, is just the first of three parts for the work, the second of which will be presented at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in January and third of which goes up at PS 122 later in 2011. While all three are designed to stand on their own, taken together, Zuštiak will be shifting the audience’s perspective at each stage to follow the same sort of trajectory of confusion and identity crisis the work explores. While Part 1 takes place in a traditional theatre, part 2 will be presented in a black box, with no seating, and the dissolution of the artist-audience boundary will be completed in Part 3, which will exist as an installation work.

“I find our work successful when we get into a conversation with people through the work,” Zuštiak said.

A special event will also be taking place as part of the run: on November 18, Palissimo will be commemorating the 21st anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, the peaceful movement that overthrew communism in the former Czechoslovakia. The Velvet Night festivities, sponsored by Consulate General of Slovakia in New York and Plus421 Foundation, will take place after the performance; special tickets available here.

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Photo: Jeremy Lehmann

Name: Pavel Zustiak
Title/Occupation: Artistic Director, Choreographer, Sound Designer
Organization/Company: Palissimo Inc.
URL: www.palissimo.com

1. Where did you grow up and how did you end up where you are now?

I grew up in the eastern part of the former Czechoslovakia, which is now Slovakia. I studied in Canada then in Amsterdam, Netherlands before getting my green card and moving to New York City.

2. Which performance, song, play, movie, painting or other work of art had the biggest influence on you and why?

It must have been performance of Pina Bausch (Cafe Muller and Rite of Spring) when she came to my home town of Kosice in 1987. I was part of a dance company at the time that had a long-term residency at the theatre where they performed so we interacted with her and the company. I was amazed how powerful dance can be. Up to that point I was exposed to dance that strived for technical virtuosity only. For Pina art was life and life was art. Around the time of her visit I started to consider the idea to go into dance professionally.

3. What skill, talent or attribute do you most wish you had and why?

I wish I spoke more languages – French and Italian are on my list to learn for a long time. How is that saying about living as many lives as the number of languages you know?….

4. What do you do to make a living? Describe a normal day.

No two weeks are the same for me. My schedule varies wether we are in a creative process, pre-production or in the midst of performances. I am working weekends as a project manager in the presentations department at an investment bank in NYC which is the main source of my income at the moment. All activities relating with Palissimo happen during the week. Besides the Company work I am also freelancing as a choreographer and sound designer.

5. Have you ever had to make a choice between work and art? What did you choose, why, and what was the outcome?

I have received my MBA from University in Slovakia in 1993. It was time when many western companies were opening their branches in Slovakia – an ideal time for a young businessman, but I was always drawn to the world of arts and chose to study in that area before deciding between the two. After graduating from the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam I moved to NYC, pursued career of a choreographer and a sound designer. I wish there was more financial stability for artists in the U.S. at my level but I have never regretted my decision to pursue art and my heart.

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Palissimo Fundraising Event
April 26 (Monday) 2010, 7-9pm
Lyons Wier Gallery
175 Seventh Ave. (at 20th Street), New York City

Suggested donation $50 (cash or check at the door)

Please RSVP by April 20 at events@palissimo.com

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