A week after seeing a preview performance of Einstein on the Beach and there’s still this feeling of having taken a trip to a 1976 sci-fi time capsule. An operatic spaceship. It was a four-hour train ride from Chicago to the Power Center at the University of Michigan, a venue that in mid-January was home to epic rehearsals of the show. “There’s no doubt about it,” wrote the University Musical Society in fervent pre-show emails. “This is a seriously historic moment.” Historic, yes, but like visiting a sepia-colored dream of some NASA engineer–after a particularly long day pushing buttons in big glasses and a comb-over. Smart, beautiful, disorienting, dated.

A lot of that has to do with the set. The biggest pieces roll onstage in grey plywood slabs, from the wings, with haze and smoke billowing out around them. Prison bars made of ribbons dangle from the battens and billow slightly from the gust of passing performers. Most of the color is flat shades of white, black and grey, with very little blending, and even when we are presented with the representation of an actual building, there’s no attempt to, say, carve a faux stone façade from Styrofoam. We’re very obviously looking at a painted backdrop. Even a giant wall of chasing light bulbs is literally made of old-school yellow globes, not something more modern like LEDs. And yet, that the setting looks like it came out of a Theater History Textbook contributes to its other-worldliness, and its modern meaning.

The scenic accuracy is deliberate. It’s been 20 years since the last re-staging of Einstein on the Beach. There was one in 1984, and again in 1992, when I was 5 and 13, respectively. Creators Robert Wilson, Phillip Glass and Lucinda Childs collaborated to ensure the creation of an accurate re-staging of the original. The work has been the subject of a PBS documentary and is said to have changed perception of modern opera.

This is clear from the production in a number of ways. That the endurance required from the performers is astounding. That aspects of its composition seem tired at this point, having been aggressively adopted into modern opera. That the whole piece is basically a 4.5 hour mental workout, demanding that you stay engaged while challenging you with endless looping chants of numbers, non-narrative speeches, robotic gestures, and straight-out goofiness.

In one of the strongest sequences of the piece, featured performer Kate Moran repeats a line describing an experience in a supermarket: “There were these bathing caps you could buy that had these kind of Fourth of July plumes on them,” while slowly moving through space, changing costumes. In the original production, Childs was the featured performer who recited these lines on loop. In this production, Moran owns the text. I never got tired of hearing those lines–with every repetition, the inflection and meaning would change. Sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically, always engaging.

The same is true, to a certain extent, of Glass’ music, in which choruses sing numbers that blend into sentences and words. It’s a little bit like listening to a kaleidoscope. The chorus sings from the pit, from a jury box onstage, in amorphous groups. Everyone wears suspenders, a white dress shirt, and slacks—an outfit stereotypical for Einstein and absolutely ridiculous for anyone else.

So here I am, sitting in a theater of a marathon length of time, watching a work with sets that look like they came out of a vault, everyone’s wearing suspenders and singing numbers, and the lead violinist is actually dressed like Einstein. People are puffing their cheeks out and reciting nonsensical phrases. There is a court scene. There is a caboose scene. There are several dance sequences. There is a visual theme of a bright white line. And all throughout, people are getting up to go to the bathroom as is necessary, because there isn’t any intermission.

It feels both glorious and totally insane—like a dream.

Which is kind of the point. In the PBS documentary, Wilson speaks of the work as depicting character, not narrative. Glass talks about trusting visual and psychological associations with Einstein as a basis for the work. Both acknowledge the German physicist as a powerful, almost godlike presence in their culture. With this devoted re-staging of Einstein on the Beach, Glass and Wilson claim their own territory within the word “godlike,” and the production celebrates not Einstein but the machinations and developments of its lead artists.

With just cause. Ever watch an old movie and think “Well, this is kind of cliché,” and then realize “Wait a minute—this is the thing that MADE the clichés”? That’s what watching Einstein on the Beach is like, for some of us who didn’t grow up in the atomic age, but are instead living in its hangover. For some of us who are familiar with the visual machinations of contemporary opera. For some of us who read about Wilson in our college textbooks and have seen Phillip Glass become the subject of sketch comedy. It comes with a kind of smirking respect. Like when you’re grateful for the incredible sacrifice your grandparents made but wish they’d stop talking about themselves at the dinner table.

So if coming back from this opera is like emerging from a 1976 Time Spaceship, it’s worth the trip, if only to appreciate the contributions of works past and the developments in the field since then. Makes you want to kiss the ground. A little.

Popularity: unranked [?]

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with Brad Learmonth, Director of Programming at Harlem Stage, to talk about their upcoming season and get a peek into the future.

Can you tell us a little bit about how you got to Harlem Stage and what you do?

Well, it’s a long story, but I’ll be here twenty-four years in February. It’s kind of a ground-up story for me. I started as an assistant to what was the executive producer at the time and within three years became Director of Education. For a decade I grew that initiative while working on other programming with the Director of Programming. I eventually became the Assistant Director of Programming and in 1998 became Director of Programming. There was a big transition – Patricia Cruz came on as Executive Director and Laura Greer, my predecessor, left that year.

Essentially what I do is oversee all of the programming of the institution. So I do the long-term planning, creation, development and implementation of programs, including education. Now, though, my program and arts education manager, Simone Eccleston, has really taken over the direction of the education program, much as I did in the 90′s. She’s really brought it back up to a good level and increased its growth.

Twenty-four years is a long time, you must have seen a lot of change. What is Harlem Stage doing now?

Well, it’s a very exciting time for us. We had a bit of an economic challenge when we moved over to the Gatehouse in 2006 after a two-year, $26 million renovation of our building, the Harlem Stage Gatehouse. As happens with a lot of organizations when they undertake something that big, we stepped out a little too far on our programming and had to pull back a bit. So we went through this turnaround and under Pat Cruz’s leadership it was a huge success. We are now in a really good place, especially given the situation in the economy. We’ve been doing extremely well for the past couple of years, not just surviving but even, I would say, in some ways thriving notwithstanding the challenges that everyone is facing, the tremendous challenges in fundraising We’ve launched a new series that has had huge success that targets young people and brought other programs back into their full realization – the film program, the Waterworks program, which is our signature commissioning initiative.

And we’re about to go into our 30^th Anniversary season! We incorporated as an institution in 1982/1983, the paperwork was filed in 1982 and it was signed, sealed and delivered in 1983. So we’re going to have kind of a soft launch of our 30^th anniversary season starting in January 2012 and go into a hard launch when we have our 30^th anniversary gala on May 21^st,. Starting in September 2012 we’ll go into a full campaign of 30^th anniversary programming which will focus on the institution, highlighted by three world premieres from our Waterworks program, along with quite a number of other significant presentations and projects.

We’re also embarking on an ambitious five-year plan. For the last year we’ve really been looking at our programming, institution and mission and honing our vision so we can really distinguish ourselves in what has become, locally – and I mean immediately locally – a very healthily competitive field in Harlem.

Where we were sort of the reigning presenting institution in Harlem for decades, there is now a real scene being created now in Harlem, again; one that’s bringing people back in a way that hasn’t happened in a long time. Harlem’s always been a vibrant community, but it tends to be under-represented in the media. While it has never lost its vibrancy, it is definitely coming back in a big way. So as we look at the immediate landscape, and the national and international landscape as well, we’re looking at ourselves as an institution and really trying to hone in on what really distinguishes us.

We’ve been working to identify what we’re going to focus on more fully as we define the future of the Harlem Stage.

What are the implications of that in terms of programming?

Well one of the ideas that we’re working with, something that we’ve identified as central to what we do, is the notion of “Dig Deeper.”

Harlem Stage presents programming that is, by its nature, investigating the deepest part of the creative process, the most expansive and innovative thinking that artists do. We also investigate issues that resonate for people in the culture today – particularly artists and people of color, because that’s what our mission represents. All of the artists we work with are in some way or another activists both in their communities, through their art and in the world. Often they’re addressing very challenging and difficult issues in their work.

So we support the creation of work that takes a deeper look, that is both socially and artistically bold and adventurous. At the same time the artists are doing it in a way that not only transmits great information but also offers the possibility of digging deeper and, dare I say, entertains you or transforms you, the way art should.

So we’re using that idea of Dig Deeper to look at how we can broaden our offerings and our activities All of our humanities components are going to be looked at more closely and marketed more visibly. They’ve always existed but sometimes it seems like it’s the best kept secret. So we’re going to be working on really letting people know what we do and giving them a way in.

You said this spring is a “soft launch” of the 30^th Anniversary. What does that mean?

Well, what you’re going to see starting in the spring is programming that reflects the “Dig Deeper” idea that came out of the focused thinking that is part of our strategic planning process, and as we move forward that’s going to get even sharper and sharper.

We begin the season with – and we actually end the season – with two vocalists who are extraordinary innovators in their field. One is Jose James who opens the season for two nights and four sets on February 10^th and 11^th.

Its kind of a pre-Valentine’s thing if you wanna look at it that way because he’s very smooth and sexy and he sings a lot about that kind of thing. But he’s an extraordinary artist with an exceptional voice and incredible vocal and stylistic range. He spans the worlds of hip-hop and soul and is very much in the jazz world as well. He’s worked with great jazz people like McCoy Tyner – he’s got several albums under his belt and with us he’s going to be doing all new material from his upcoming album. Jose’s an exceptional artist that we’ve recently discovered and we’re very excited to be presenting him.

At the end of the season in June we’re going to be presenting an artist we’ve worked with for over a decade: Tamar-kali. She comes more from the Afro-Punk movement but is also an extraordinary composer and singer who tackles everything from Nina Simone to jazz standards. We’re going to be presenting a program called Voices, which over the course of three nights will feature the three ensembles that represent different strains of her creativity. One of evenings will feature an acoustic string ensemble, then she has another project called the Pseudo-Acoustic Sirens and finally she has a group called 5ive Piece, which is a pretty hard-hitting blow-the-roof off rock band. So we’re going to be doing all three of those, for the first time for her, in one program. We’ve worked with her many times over the years. Exceptional artist.

I’m just curious – how did Tamar-kali get her name? Does she have an Indian background?

No she is African-American, I think she might be from Brooklyn but her family is largely from the Gullah community off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia. Tamar-kali is her created name. It has a lot of various meanings. Tamar was a very powerful female figure in the Old Testament and Kali, of course, is the creator-destroyer deity of Hindu mythology. There’s a lot of stuff going on in that name and there’s a lot going on in that artist, that person. She’s a phenomenon.

Harlem Stage has a penchant for identifying artists who, like Sekou [Sundiata], we really stick with over the years. Artists who we feel are exceptional voices with exceptional vision in their particular craft and in the field in general. We try to develop a relationship with them that nurtures them and gives them visibility while celebrating what we try to do as an institution. Tamar-kali is one of those people that we’ve really stuck with for over a decade now and we’re really trying to sit down with her to figure out what’s next. “What have you got up your sleeve that we can help you move into the world?” Same with Vijay Iyer. Jason Moran is someone we’ve worked with for over a decade, we gave him his first platform as a band leader and he’s been a great friend to Harlem Stage every since, creating great things. Of course Sekou was probably the exemplar of that relationship with us over a twenty year period, and there are others. We really try to nurture artists that gives them a platform to discover who they are or further that discovery and we just join in with them.

Great. Sorry for the digression! So back to the season – after you open with Jose James, what’s next?

Following Jose James we’re doing a four-part program, called “A Tribe Called Quest: Innovations and Legacies – A Movement in Four Parts”. That was created by Simone, our program manager, and it’s going to be really looking deeply at A Tribe Called Quest’s contribution to and influence on the whole hip-hop movement of the last decade, plus. Tribe not only created incredible. [positive, music in the genre of hip-hop, but they were really innovators in terms of blending it with jazz. They just took the genre and created a new language for the music that has been hugely influential.

That will kick off with a panel discussion called “Footprints: A Discussion on the Innovation and Impact of A Tribe Called Quest”. The next night will feature a Tribe Called Quest Tribute from the Revive The Live Big Band headed by the trumpeter Igmar Thomas with special guests. That will be followed, on the same night, by an after-party called “SPIT: Speaking In Tongues”. DJ Cosi will be playing the music of, and inspired, by the Native Tongues Collective which was comprised of the groups De La Soul, The Jungle Brothers, A Tribe Called Quest, Leaders of the New School, Black Sheep, as well as individual artists Monie Love and Queen Latifah. The final night will be a concert called “Beats, Rhymes and Beyond” featuring The J. Dilla Ensemble. J-Dilla was a producer and DJ and musician that died very young of lupus but was instrumental in moving the Tribe legacy forward. The J. Dilla Ensemble is an ensemble out of Berklee College of Music in Boston that celebrates his music.

For us this is not only a celebration of great music but it also helps us advance the idea of contextualizing these younger generations of musicians not just as songwriters or DJs but as composers. People are re-thinking what classical music is – understanding that it is not just Western European-based music but that there are classical musics around the world which are different for everybody. That’s something we’re looking at in various ways – we’re working with the Cuban composer Tania Leon and Symphony Space on their annual February series called Composers Now and Jose James fits into that as well.

But in that context the Tribe Called Quest program really represents a much deeper look at a particular movement, elevating the idea of looking at hip-hop and its innovations in a way that people like myself who aren’t really of the hip-hop generation but appreciate it – to have a greater understanding and appreciation of the work. Also we could offer a platform for Simone, whose a younger programmer, to do her thing and present it to audiences – which is important to what we do as organization.

Then in March we’ll start our monthly film series that we do with our primary partner, Black Documentary Collective, and a new partner, Media That Matters. They bring in great short films that get paired with these great documentaries.

At the end of March we’ll be presenting the Afro-Peruvian singer Eva Ayllon across the street at Aaron Davis Hall. She’s been in the business for over 40 years, celebrating Afro-Peruvian music. She’s an amazing vocalist and it’s a free concert – so that’s very exciting. We’ll be presenting that with our long-time partner, for twenty-five years, the Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concert program

In April we have our annual dance series, E-Moves which is in its thirteenth season of showcasing emerging and evolving choreographers. We’ll have eight emerging choreographers who are, in many cases, presenting their very first works some of which have been supported by grants from our Fund For New Work grant program.

The E-Moves program has grown into kind of a university, that’s how we think of it. We audition artists and then we set them up with a mentor that they work with for a period of six to eight months while they create their works. They have open rehearsals where they come into Harlem Stage and present the works-in-progress with their mentors and we give them feedback and then they go on to present the full work in E-moves.

The evolving choreographers that we’re working with this year are an Indian-American choreographer from L.A. named Sheetal Ghandi and Souleymane Badolo who is from Burkina-Faso, and they’re both presenting new works. We’re very excited about that because it brings more of an international dialogue to the series.

Then in May we really concentrate on our jazz programming which includes the second annual Harlem Jazz Shrines Festival which we do in consortium with The Apollo and JazzMobile. There are between 30 and 40 events over a week’s period, they’re all $10 and the three organizations work together to celebrate the Jazz Shrines of the last 100 years. We identify the places in Harlem that were seminal in creating or providing a platform for creating the music we know as jazz.

Each of the organizations takes three or more of the shrines and celebrates them either literally, because they still exist, like the Lenox Lounge, or we recreate some idea of the shrine such as the Savoy Ballroom, and we bring in artists that pay tribute to it, though not necessarily literally, because the idea of the program is both to look back and move forward.

This year we’re celebrating Cecil Taylor with three pianists: Vijay Iyer, Amina Claudine Myers and Craig Taborn. We are also bringing Cecil in the week after the festival to perform himself, which will be an amazing experience.

We’re bringing in The Mosaic Project by Terri Lyne Carrington which is a project celebrating women in Jazz – women in music, really. She created this project a couple of years ago and I think they’re up for a Grammy this year. That will feature Terry Lyne, Nona Hendryx, Lizz Wright and a host of other artists performing with them. After that we’re going to be presenting a “Tribute to Club Havana San Juan” with The Havana San Juan Orchestra led by Louis Bauzo, then our gala is on the 21^st and we end with Tamar-kali. So we’re bookending the season, as it happens, not really by design, with these two amazing vocalists.

The program is a great mix of disciplines and has a strong intergenerational component. How is that going to play out in the humanities programs?

Well, the Tribe Called Quest program starts with a panel that will include at least one member of the original Tribe and other people that are important to the movement. The reason I’m not telling you them yet is that they’re still being confirmed and Simone is really working on that project, so I’m going to give her all the credit on that one. But that will be really looking at and understanding what Tribe’s impact was, which is why the panel is called “Footprints”. These are the tracks that these artists laid down that other people have since followed. And then the other three movements then not only celebrate their music but the people that followed them directly – Native Tongues, J.Dilla Ensemble.

With Jose James we’re trying to formulate a humanities program that is specific to him. What we try to do is work with the artists to see what’s going to resonate for them and what’s going to get their voice heard in the best possible way.

We’re going to have a much more interactive component on our website and for some of these artists the Dig Deeper aspect may only be there, but for everybody there’ll be something there. You’ll always have the opportunity to dig deeper by going to our website and seeing film clips or audio clips or reading or hearing interviews, and exploring a variety of ideas.

With our E-moves program we have discussions with the artists and the mentors that will follow two of the programs. And we’re going to be showing films this year that will highlight some of the programming that we’re doing. One of the films we’ll be showing is the 2007 film Movement (R)evolution Africa which talks about contemporary African choreographers and features Souleymane Badolo. And we’re showing a new film by David Rousseve, a short film called Two Seconds After Laughter which was filmed in Java. It doesn’t directly relate to Sheetal’s work but David Rousseve is Sheetal’s mentor and there’s some connection to the movement because of the Indian connection in Indonesia, so we’ll find a way in there. But it does give another look at a more international scope of dance and how its being interpreted from the traditional into the contemporary.

With the Harlem Jazz Shrines Festival there will be whole week of humanities components around that. We work very closely with the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University and they are a collaborating partner in the festival. They will be creating a series of humanities events on their own and we’re going to do symposia. We’re talking about possibly doing symposia at Columbia around Cecil Taylor and have scholars present papers that will then get published. We’re really trying to celebrate Cecil Taylor in a way that he really has not been celebrated and really deserves.

As part of celebrating Cecil we will we have the three pianists in a wonderful set-up, where we’re going to have two pianos. Each of the pianists is going to do a solo and then they’re going to do duets with each other in combinations. So some of the humanities may be artist talks where we discuss not only Cecil’s influence on them but also on the music itself. He’s one of the geniuses of the last century so he needs to be recognized.

And every film presentation is followed by a discussion with the filmmakers and a wine and cheese reception. We’re very big on receptions, because we believe that breaking bread with artists and audiences is a wonderful way to complete the experience. It also gives people an opportunity to have a little bit of one-on-one, not only with each other, but with the artists.

I was going to ask about that. It seems that you do have a lot of opportunities for people to engage in other ways beyond just being an audience member.

It’s really about building a family for Harlem Stage. We tend to look at it more in terms of family and friends – but it all amounts to community. For us it really is about creating this living organism that is more than just: “We’re the presenters and you’re the audience and you buy a ticket and come see the work and isn’t that lovely.: It’s a much more in-depth experience. And its not just about “here’s a great lecture” either – its really about rubbing elbows with people and breaking bread, and having a reception is certainly a way to always do that. We also have great dance parties – The Uptown Nights series – and we have a lot of events that begin and end with a DJ set: there’s a bar, there’s food and it’s cabaret style seating. We try to create an atmosphere, where appropriate, that’s not just a proscenium look at art.

With the Cecil tribute we’re going to put a platform in the middle of the space and we’re going to surround it with seats, probably cabaret style seating, and serve wine and some food (that doesn’t make noise!) and really celebrate this evening and celebrate this artist. We want to give people an opportunity before and after the show to mingle with themselves and mingle with the artists. That will also provide a way into the context and the content of the work whether its that night or later, online.

Another project we’re launching is the Harlem Stage Reading Circle which is more than a book club, because a lot of the works we present are inspired by literature or historical material. So we’ll be reading in groups of people and then we’ll have a potluck dinner or some kind of gathering – always with food – to explore the content and context of the work.

For instance we’re working on developing an opera called Makandal by Carl Hancock Rux that was originally inspired by Cuban author Alejo Carpentier’s The Kingdom of This World. So we’ll offer an opportunity for people to read the book and then gather – it could be a dozen people, just a half-dozen people – twith Carl and other artists connected with the work in question. We’ll discuss the book, discuss the work, discuss the content and the context of it as it relates to the work that’s been created or is being created along with how it resonates with the world today.

We’re also developing a project with with Vijay Iyer and Mike Ladd that looks at veterans of color in conflicts. We’ll be looking at what it means to be a veteran of color in this day and age in the United States military. What does it mean to go over to another country, be shooting at people of color and then come home to the challenges of being a person of color here.

These are all things that are resonating in the world as we speak, and that move through the art that we’re creating. Makandal deals with freedom, immigration, revolution – all these things that couldn’t be more appropriate or poignant to be creating a major work now that deals with those issues.

So we’re interested in finding ways to engage those people who want to be engaged in a deeper conversation and discover how that can be a further transformative experience beyond just coming to the show. The performance can be an extraordinary experience in and of itself – but how do we take it deeper and offer something to people that choose to take that journey, encourage those people that are on the fence and drag the rest…

These sound like big projects. Are these Waterworks commissions?

Yes, Makandal and Vijay Iyer’s project Holding It Down – The Veteran’s Dream Project are Waterworks commissions. The 30^th Anniversary season will start in September 2012 with Holding It Down, which has been in development for several years now. It is being created by Vijay Iyer and Mike Ladd with Maurice Decaul who is a veteran poet. Patricia McGregor is directing and it has a wonderful ensemble including Guillermo Brown, Pamela Z. and Kassa Overall.

Then we’ll close the year and the 30^th anniversary season with the world premiere of Makandal which we’re also producing, which is somewhat new for us. We produced one other project over ten years ago that was kind of a “trial by fire” experience. We have ventured into that land again a little by default – and that’s a really long story I won’t go into – but Makandal has been in the works for over four years. It was written and conceived by Carl and conceived of by Carl. It is composed by Yosvany Terry, the Cuban composer and saxophonist with the visual design is by Edouard Duval Carrie who is a celebrated Haitian-American artist. And now its being directed by Lars Jan, who is this kind of wunderkind out of CalArts and we’re going fully into the next phase of development beginning in January.

So these works – Holding it Down and Makandal in particular – will be in full development stages through the spring and in Makandal‘s case through next year.

And once again we’ll be creating “Dig Deeper” kinds of events so people are aware of these projects as they’re in development. While there will be some of the traditional show-and-tell work-in-progress showings or open rehearsals, we really want to use the Reading Circle to build awareness and engagement with the work. Its especially appropriate to Holding it Down in which they’ve taken the dreams of veterans and woven the poetry of veterans into an evening of music, text and video design – it’s a really powerful piece. So we’ll be looking at veteran poetry and other relevant works.

Makandal deals with Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba in contemporary, historical and mythical settings. So for that the Reading Circle might engage with any number of works that inform the process – the writing of Alejo Carpentier, Isabel Allende’s recent book Island Beneath the Sea, the works of Maya Deren which also includes film. All these things are sort of ripe for the picking for a reading circle that looks at the history of Haiti, its revolution and the consequences of that revolution. It provided and still provides a lot of inspiration to the world. And of course there’s the complicated relationship between Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba – not to mention the rest of the world – and how those intertwined histories inform those islands and those cultures – and how they’ve informed our culture. You know when the Haitian revolution happened a lot of those slaves came to New Orleans and that’s one of the reasons you have vodun in New Orleans. And how the music came from Cuba to New York. I mean, there are so many connections and so much information that we just don’t know – we certainly don’t know the details. We know broad swipes of information if we’re into the music or the culture, but there’s so much detail there, so much complexity. And its really rich material.

So we want to find ways to investigate all that information because Carl certainly does, if you know his writing. He’s a brilliant writer with a wealth of knowledge and in that libretto is buried a treasure of historical and mythological information. Unpacking that a little bit is not only fun but allows you to enjoy the piece even more.

What’s the history of Waterworks?

Waterworks was created as the signature commissioning program for Harlem Stage when we re-branded the institution and moved over to The Gatehouse in 2006. We had previously been Aaron Davis Hall, Inc. – that still is our legal name – but now we’re Harlem Stage. Waterworks looks at master artists who are really exemplary in the field, giving them larger commissions and extended development periods to create new work that has artistic merit but also looks at issues of social justice, arts and activism. Four works were created to open the building, including one by Sekou – 51^st Dream State, Roger Guenveur Smith, Tania Leon and Bill T. Jones were the other three artists that created work. And its gone on to be our most significant commissioning program.

I remember coming up to meet you when Bill T. was loading in. I remember a lot of red drapes.

That was the piece he created for Waterworks and it was created specifically for the Gatehouse. He was very inspired by the space. He saw the space when it was completely gutted and empty four stories down. It was magnificent. We’re going to be celebrating that renovation more as we move forward. He created Chapel/Chapter for the space and he completely wrapped the inside in red drapery and it was all done in the round. It was a great piece.

The Gatehouse is a historic landmark building that was part of the aqueduct system of New York State in the 1800′s. It literally fed the first clean drinking water to New York City in the 1890′s. It was the gatehouse where the water was gated as it flowed down from Croton Aqueduct. So we work with that water imagery/metaphor a lot and it definitely feeds the institution in many ways. Not the least of which is…. Well, you know, if you believe in such things, there’s a real kind of spiritual connection when you come into the Gatehouse building. A lot of artists feel that. They feel very – they feel a real energy in there that’s powerful to them and allows them to embrace their creativity. So a number of works have been created for it.

What are the other commissioning programs beyond Waterworks?

Commissioning is something that is really significant to what we do, and from what I’ve gathered in the field we seem to be one of the few organizations who are trying to hang on to the idea of being major commissioners.

We also have a commissioning program called the Fund For New Work, that gives emerging artists their very first commissions and opportunities to develop new work. And we’re looking more deeply at giving mid-career or evolving artists more support. That’s an area where we haven’t had funding. We’ve had funding for emerging from the Jerome Foundation and for the Waterworks program primarily from Time-Warner but also other organizations like Nathan Cummings, but the evolving part has been elusive. We’re going to be more aggressively looking at that because that’s a huge bunch of artists that need support.

One examples of that is we’re commissioning Kyle Abraham for his new work Boys In The Hood which will have its premiere at Harlem Stage next November. He’s an artist we gave his first emerging artist grants to, and we’ve been working with him ever since and he’s come up to be a really celebrated choreographer. We’re going to be giving him his own week of presentation in November. He’s an amazing young artist who’s really grown a lot and I really love working with him, he’s a great spirit.

So Waterworks is our major, signature commissioning program but commissioning overall is a big thing for us. We’ve actually created a Commissioning Circle which is another way of allowing individuals to support work – you can become a commissioner of a work or a co-commissioner of a work at different levels. So we’re giving people an opportunity to invest in work in multiple ways, including financially.

That’s an interesting idea – letting donors target their donations to a specific project.

Well, it’s a way of offering people a form of targeted giving that may resonate more for them. And they have a personal investment in the creation of a work that gives them access to to the creative process in a way that not everyone will have – special meetings with artists, and things like that.

But moving commissioning front-and-center seems pretty innovative, or at least it sends a message about the organization.

A lot of organizations have very creative ways of parsing out ways of donating. You know. you can buy a year’s worth of toe shoes for this much money. A lot of dance companies have been innovative in that way – but this is specifically toward commissioning, and really letting people know what that means and what’s involved in bringing a work from concept to presentation.

We want to get supporters involved in the process in a way that works not only for them, but for the artist. It works very differently for each artist: their process is different, their comfort level at being exposed while they’re in the creative process is different. And there’s a dialogue that goes on there. Some artists become more comfortable and find ways that really inform the work for them. You know, they discover that being a little more vulnerable or open in the creative process can be a win-win. So it’s a wonderful opportunity for audiences and it opens up the dialogue for artists to find new ways to connect through their art.

One of the things we’re really looking at as we move forward is the fact that not enough people – especially people that are, in theory, really close to us either geographically or in the arts field – really know the breadth and scope of what we do. So we’re looking to find ways to make ourselves more visible and to let people really know what’s going on at Harlem Stage. And we’re really going to be looking at that as we move into the 30^th anniversary and the future. We’re doing a lot of great work and we want people to know about it and be a part of it.

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This showed up in my Facebook feed.
(thumbnail photo by Frederick Hecker)

Shot in Fire Island, New York, this film captures the secrets of eternal youth as Maia Helles, a Russian ballet dancer turns 95 but still remains resolutely independent, healthy and as fit as a forty year old. Made by Julia Warr, artist and film maker (juliawarr.com) met Maia on a plane 4 years ago and became utterly convinced by the benefits of her daily exercise routine, which Maia perfected, together with her Mother, over 60 years ago, long before exercise classes were ever invented. (2011)

My friend Maia from julia warr on Vimeo.

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The Store Demo; clip length 2:00 from ysdt on Vimeo.

Don’t know much about this but could be interesting:

New York City based Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre presents The Store, an evening length dance theater performance that tells a story of love, loss and the struggle for self on January 19-21, at 7:30pm and January 22 at 2pm, at Joyce SoHo. Brought together through a single unforeseen event in a neighborhood deli, The Store explores the interconnectedness of individuals and strangers as they struggle to realize their dreams and cope with tragedy in New York City.

The Store offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of six individuals told through a series of stream-of-consciousness narratives. Interwoven with multimedia vignettes of dance, video, text and music, this rich performance tells a uniquely human story. Featuring an all-new cast including guest artists Christopher Rudd (Cirque de Soleil, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal), Yusha Marie Sorzano (Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre, Morphoses) and Nathan Trice (Nathan Trice/Rituals). Original sound design by Berberock and costumes by Daphne Correll.

Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre Presents The Store
January 19-21 at 7:30pm; January 22 at 2pm
Joyce SoHo
155 Mercer Street
R train to Prince, B/D/F/M trains to Broadway Lafayette, 6 train to Bleecker Street
Tickets: $18, Student/Senior $15

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Oh, the days when slapping a video behind a dance or music piece made it a ‘multimedia performance.’ The novelty rapidly waned, and our expectations for multimedia are higher now—as they should be. Still, it’s a treat to be newly amazed by the possibilities of video in live performance. The dance/performance installation Takes (presented by Philadelphia-based Nichole Canuso Dance Company at 3LD Art and Technology Center this past weekend as part of the APAP blitz) integrated live video and projections with a subtle, yet knock-your-socks-off level of inventiveness.

The credit for the concept of Takes goes to Nichole Canuso and multimedia director Lars Jan, a 2011 TEDGlobal Fellow who has produced a slew of intriguing performance/installation projects. Performed by choreographer Canuso and Dito Van Reigersberg within the confines of a box created by white gauze-like walls, Takes is a series of snippets about a relationship gone sour. The substance and the magic of this piece lies in live projections of the performers onto the transparent walls of the box: the action inside the box is recorded simultaneously by multiple cameras and superimposed on the walls/screens, creating different perspectives and layers of each moment that add up to more than the individual parts. Combining all this with an evocative sound score and skillful lighting, Takes casts a net of intimacy that is impossible not to fall into.

Nonetheless, the choreography, while no doubt crafted with an eye towards the projections, is largely unremarkable in terms of its movement vocabulary. Structurally, the piece follows the predictable arc of an angst-ridden love story, with some fragments reading more strongly than others, and a few trite moments along the way (ironic that a paper letter takes center stage in an era of electronic communication).

The close-ups and level of detail captured by the cameras mean that gestures come across particularly powerfully, and these are the moments that stuck in my mind: his fingers playfully marching up her knee in the beginning, and later, his fists striking the air in frustration. The solo sections are the least engaging, perhaps because they rely more heavily on movement alone, as opposed to the interactions between Canuso and Van Reigersberg. The performers’ commitment to the work salvages some of these shortcomings, but can’t rescue them entirely.

The suggestive possibilities of the projections and rich quality of the images is nothing less than mesmerizing, but as I watched the video loop roll across the screens at the end, I realized that I was rather satisfied with these pre-recorded projections of movement. Am I just a junkie for beautiful footage? I’d like to think not—Takes is missing something in the link between video, choreography, and performance, and this time, the gap isn’t on the multimedia side.

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Jack Ferver and Michelle Mola. Photo by Ian Douglas

Characterizing Queen Cleopatra, Jack Ferver’s maniacal grin charges the Abrons Arts Center Experimental Theater during Monday’s American Realness performance of Me, Michelle with the charming Michelle Mola. In a silvery floor-length dress, Mola repeatedly lifts her hands behind Ferver’s head, spreading her fingers to suggest a crown. As a servant, she scrambles to appease Ferver who barks demands: “I’m bored. Tell me a story. I’m lonely. Bring me the thing.” Like children, they play ball and hold a small dog, exhibiting an innocent kinship when not conversing about poison, death and murder.

Simultaneously endearing and dark, their performance maintains a stream of dialogue pouring effortlessly in tandem with the physical action. Mola’s wispy voice continues as she circles Ferver. She swoops with her head close to the floor and one leg raised. Ferver struts in white tights, oscillating between the grandiose Cleopatra character and himself. Ferver and Mola share a bright chemistry and their characters reveal shades of the past and the modern. When Ferver finally announces that he will take the poison, the dialog and upright sequences dissolve into a dance frenzy of floorwork and arabesques, augmented by John Fireman’s music. The ending is surprisingly straightforward: he dies and she cries, concluding a distinct act of the festival.

Another duet the same evening, Tool Is Loot by Wally Cardona and Jennifer Lacey with music by Johnathan Bepler at the Abrons Arts Center Playhouse, leaves more to the imagination. Lacey treats a chair as she might a person, enacting a one-sided flirtation directed at the piece of furniture. She eventually grinds her pelvis against it. Later, recorded text describes an object with physical and emotional traits usually reserved for humans, suggesting a sort of inversion. After disappearing behind a screen, Lacey emerges in a sailor dress with Cardona, the two skittering, jogging and lacing arms. Parallel to the opening text which reads “The whistle travels to the part of the room unseen,” Cardona and Lacey now exit behind the screen where one can imagine their dance continuing. All the audience sees for the duration is the dance of light – a moon-like projection that mysteriously shifts to more solid colors with the heavy brass music.

Also on Monday at American Realness, Jeremy Wade performed Fountain at the Playhouse. With the curtain closed the audience joins him onstage for a participatory group ritual, during which Wade guides the group to circulate, make “sprinkle fingers”, growl, and sustain vowel sounds while shaking. (A similar group sequence was guided late night on Saturday during Wade’s appearance at Public Assembly as part of American Pussy Faggot! Realness. He endured through interruptions by an impatient Penny Arcade and the bar crowd proved more willing to perform and lie on the floor – this one beer-soaked.)  Everyone is onstage. Everyone is a performer, and at the end of the invigorating group section, the audience surrounds Wade in a circle.

During his solo, Wade, in denim shorts and a plaid shirt, struggles to suck in a breath slowly, standing concave. He expells the air, deflating with effort. Again and again he takes these long arduous breaths progressing to an animalistic state. Wade offers intense eye contact as he travels with tensile writhing movement. The group participation before witnessing Wade’s solo adjusts the energy of the shared space to become welcoming and expansive. Left more embodied and physically connected to the performer, the viewer’s perception of Wades solo intensifies as a result of the communal effort.

American Realness at the Abrons Arts Center continues through January 15. Tickets $15.

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Heather Lang and Eleanor Bauer. Photo by Ian Douglas

A whole lot of real exists in The Heather Lang Show By Eleanor Bauer And Vice Versa Trash Is Fierce Episode 2: Destiny’s Realness, and that’s a good thing. Smart, vital and spontaneous, Eleanor Bauer and Heather Lang host an insightful infomercial unpacking “realness”, which the audience experiences both live and on a television screen. The dynamic characters work in the business of connecting people to one’s “spirit product” in a direct and endearing style.

Wearing recycled materials (Lang, in a stiff dress of magazine pages and Bauer, wrapped in flowing layers of plastic bags), the two pontificate on the couch and riff about inner-light, the evils of capitalism and repurposing trash to make somethingness out of nothingness. After showcasing each product in the style of a roadshow, audience members call the 800 number for the spirit product, which is then lovingly presented to the caller by Lang or Bauer.

While the talk show format makes watching the full performance on screen possible, Trash Is Fierce should be seen in a room full of people, it’s live-ness crucial. Bauer cracks her character just once on Thursday, slumping into the couch. She cups her mouth laughing, the moment fresh for a show about realness and unifying in its honesty. In the end, Bauer and Lang remind their viewers to be awake in the world by literally holding up a compact mirror. They also remind everyone that “Trash Is Fierce!” which the audience repeats with gusto. If we are lucky they’ll bring us another episode.

Michael Hart’s photography exhibition, Unreal, with text by Ryan Tracy packs years of life and art moments into a mosaic of roughly 200 images. During the opening Thursday in the Abrons Arts Center, several of Hart’s subjects present at the show informally identified their images pointing and telling anecdotes. The subjects recalled Hart’s captured moment, at times clarifying whether the shot was real or staged. Those live conversations illuminated Tracy’s text, “In the end, the body is what we have and what we use to make “the world” and with which we remember it. Real or staged. Live or performed.” The subjects made clear that those moments were both – lived and performed.

Eight short pieces compose Daniel Linehan’s Zombie Aporia performed by Linehan, Thibault Lac and Salka Ardal Rosengren in the Abrons Arts Center Experimental Theater Friday. During the first section, the performers rhythmically repeat the phrase “The music is the background for the dance” although for Linehan, the music is truly created by the dance.  The trio generates a soundtrack of music with the body through sustained monotone vocalizations, repeated words and percussive footsteps resulting from the given movement. For one song, Lac applies pressure with his hands to Rosengren’s throat and stomach to manipulate the force of her throaty tune. The execution provides a physical image of that which is heard. The exacting, often mechanical sequences cast a distance between the audience and the performers. This distance extends even in the moments during which the three get physically close to the audience, stiffly moving through the crowd to create formations dictated by a computer screen.

(M)imosa/Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church (M) on Friday in the Abrons Arts Center Underground Theater employ a raw and layered approach to reveal the possible identities of (M)imosa. Story upon story, song upon song Cecilia Bengolea, Francois Chaignaud, Marlene Monteiro Freitas and Trajal Harrell unravel the identity of (M)imosa. The spectacle swinging from glow-in-the-dark club moments, to Stravinsky, to a crowd-pleasing rendition of Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights successfully disorients and then settles as Harrell discusses authenticity through a story about the situations in which one should bring the real fancy handbag out, versus the times when the fake is the better choice. Echoing the sentiment he also suggests that in terms of realness, there is a time to be vulnerable and a time to keep one’s real to oneself.

American Realness continues through January 15 at the Abrons Arts Center. Tickets $15.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Andy beat me to it, but I’m going to play the “single mom for a week because Perry had to suddenly fly to Qatar(!?) to play shakuhachi for Vangelis” card in explaining why I couldn’t get a moment’s quiet to think and write my own wrap up before today. (Seriously? Qatar? Tomorrow? But, I have so much dance to see this weekend.) Luckily a hearty stable of babysitters allowed me to maintain most of my planned viewing of last week’s insanely amazing offering of live performance events. Man, I love this town. Right? I mean, screw backyards and your own bedroom. This is where where risk breeds, craft thrives and greatness lives (and, finally, rests). And, I suppose that describes in very short form my week’s viewing.

Fresh Tracks 2011: Pictured Left to Right: Levi Gonzalez (Fresh Tracks Adivsor), Lorene M. Bouboushian, niv Acosta, Hadar Ahuvia, Saύl Ulerio, Yanghee Lee, Aretha Aoki, Marýa Wethers (Program Manager)

On Wednesday, I caught Fresh Tracks at NY Live Arts as they continued DTW’s signature program with a roster that heralded great promise for the kind of voices we can expect the new organization to foster in the future. It’s a subtle shift, but this round, I’d hope, represented how NY Live Arts might be able to bring a healthier range of artists to the proverbial table than some of the more recent versions. Fresh Tracks remains the quintessential showcase for emerging choreographers and provides vital boosts for these artists, not only by supporting them through the presentation of their works, but more importantly through the substantial Residency Program, still under Program Manager Marya Wethers’ and Artistic Advisor Levi Gonzalez’s skillful guidance, which includes almost 60 hours of rehearsal time, performance fees, commissioning funds and dialogue and professional development workshops. Getting in doesn’t necessarily guarantee sustained achievement or involvement in the field; that is up to each artist’s tenacity, but based on the show, I hope we see more from all of them.

Hadar Ahuvia‘s solo Class/icism opened the program. She explored a rich movement vocabulary based on her grandmother’s stroke and resulting paralysis. The dance is comprised of several short variations of a movement motif of threading between limbs, bending at the joints, rolling and twisting torso, and collapsing hips accompanied by short solo piano variations played on a small boombox placed downstage right. It is a lusciously compelling movement investigation sprinkled with bits of wry wit. Ahuvia plays off an examination of immobility with grace and a light touch, while engaging highly sophisticated physical research. Aretha Aoki, who I’ve worked with in the past, offered up a fraught examination of bided time in her The Turning of Events. She seems to spend much of the work alone although she is joined and shadowed by FT alumna Vanessa Anspaugh. There are also occasional bursts on stage or quick flitting passes through the space by Kristina Dobosz and Line Haddad who are clad in short, sparkling, pink skating tunics. A computer-generated, but South Asian sounding woman’s voiceover by Aoki’s collaborator Ryan MacDonald fills the work with a tone of quieted frustration and Aoki’s contracted gut and bent legs speak of deeply seated tensions before a final kowtowing bow acquiesces to larger forces.

Lorene Bouboushian

Lorene Bouboushian’s performance of her The White Lady guts flail gluttonous fail is an exercise in structured insanity and extreme performance. Seemingly similar in method to a solo by Grace Courvoisier that I saw and reviewed two weeks ago, Bouboushian mines both words and movement for their hidden agendas and exploits them to their fullest. She gives a virtuosic performance that unpacks white liberalism, sexual aggression, body image, and dance in viciously wacky ways. I want to see it again and I want all my friends to too. I wish I could give her to one of my sister’s for Christmas. It would be the best present eveRRR. Yanghee Lee’s Dusk is a personal presentation and rumination on her relationship with her deceased father. She begins seated on a chair holding a large drawing pad with words from a monologue she speaks about losing her father, being alone, her state of mind, etc. She pulls the pieces of paper off the pad, drops them to the floor, re-arranges them and dances with a studied liquidity and forcefulness, while singing along with the Korean song accompanying her dance. niv Acosta is on my hit list. Where he goes, I’m going to follow. This 23 year old, Dominican, transgender artist structured a quartet (with his mom yessenia acosta cunningham, Joey Kipp and Cason Bolton Jr) that provided me with great ammunition for my regular ‘contemporary dance is just white people getting their freak on’ debates with students. Acosta pulls from vogue, post-modern task-based practices, hip hop, disco, song, family, and film for denzel again. Somehow it is supposed to be inspired by the 1989 film Glory, I didn’t catch that, but it didn’t matter. His opening silent face-off, vogue-based duet with Bolton Jr., his song with his mom, his endurance structure with Kipp and a final downstage line-up where all four began to lip-synch a re-mix of Alice Smith’s Love Endeavour summed up to reveal a brilliant, new visionary for our field, someone as he says queering ‘brown involvement in performance’ in a way that speaks honestly and articulately from the here and now. His source materials, artistic treatments and casting are reflections of what live performance can be and who it can speak for today. Did I mention I love this city? Saul Ulerio performed a duet, of sorts, with FT alumna Mei Yamanaka. His an ocean in between begins with highly dramatic Wagner-ian Wagner music playing while the audience sits in darkness, the house lights come back on and the audience begins looking around to see if there’s some action behind them. We hear someone walking across the black stage and then following a thunderclap, Yamanaka slaps Ulerio across the face. She slaps him again. This was a, literally, striking moment. The force and sound of the slap were satisfyingly honest and I recalled a very physical, violent duet Yamanaka had performed at HT Chen’s Newsteps a few years ago. I was wondered if more of that was to come and, eventually, after quite a bit of swirling and avoiding one another, a bikini-clad Yamanaka walks in front of the languidly reclined, bikini-trunk clad Ulerio. At which point, he crushes the beer bottle he was holding in his hands, she gingerly walks on the crushed ‘glass’ and he returns with dripping red hands.

Paul Monaghan and Mathew Rogers (Niall Jones in background)

Thursday. Call me a fag hag, I’m in love with 4 gay boys. The gay cover boys Mathew Rogers, Paul Monaghan, Niall Jones, and Michael Ingle to be exact. After the performance of Cover Boy Tere O’Connor‘s latest, I felt dusted in fairy magic. And, I’m not using playful pejoratives to be wry. I want to attend to a very clear emotional experience I had with the pice because the exquisite care that O’Connor employs in his structuring of the work culminates in a deeply felt affection for the four people on the stage, especially Rogers who exudes a genuine warmth after performing physical pathos with an unrepenting sincerity that never approaches melodrama. I felt love. I felt included. I felt transported. I walked away feeling like I’d just ridden down the Mekong with these guys or maybe it was more like down the smaller, slower Russian River – landing in Guerneville, CA for some camping and intimate, low-key boy bars. Andy’s given a great review of the work already, so I won’t go into much recounting of details, but this work offered me something more than the incredibly detailed craftsmanship that Tere always provides. Like niv Acosta’s, and from Andy’s review I’d also guess like Kyle Abraham’s, this work opened up personal and political experiences in sophisticated and considered ways. In Tere’s hands, the personal and political aspects are not crutches or fodder. They are present and honest elements that are folded into a work that one can simply ride. I’m grateful to Andy for reviewing, because this work soaked its way into me in a way that makes analysis of it in a verbal or written way difficult. I’ll say this – GO. I know the shows tonight and Thursday at Danspace Project are sold out, but GO. They are releasing some now, but Go and get on the waitlist. If I weren’t still on domestic lockdown, I would go again tonight and I’d sit up close again and steep.

Friday. Okay, Cunningham. BAM. What’s to be said. The last stop on the Legacy Tour. There’s a New Year’s gig at the Armory, but basically, this was it. The end. I was exhausted, starving and managing a bronchial infection by this point. My generous colleague who shared her extra ticket with me and I made it just in time, running from the Open Lab that Dean Moss’s Live Art in the Visual Environment class performed, after throwing money at a babysitter for cab fare to get the ankle biters home and fed. But, I was there, putting in my time, paying my respects. Or, at least, that’s what I thought I was doing. “Okay, I’m here. It’s MCDC, at its end. I’m here for it. Don’t know if I’ll make it, but I made it.” And honestly for most of Pond Way was thinking “and I’m up here in the balcony, at the Opera House watching patterns and little people move around on the stage.” That’s not typically my preference. And, coming off of the intimacy and rich warmth of Tere’s piece in St. Mark’s Church, thought that this belief system was going to be strongly reinforced. I’m in it for the human-to-human scale, for the reminders of what it means to be live with other live beings in proximity. I’d rather see labor and effort and drips of sweat. But Rain Forest, Split Sides  and 2 intermissions later I was thinking “Jesus. That was I-N-C-R-E-D-I-B-L-E. What if I had missed that out of sheer laziness?” The company was beautiful. Seeing works that were created decades apart from one another and thinking of how Merce generated something like Split Sides while in his 80s was astounding. I was properly put in my place. Alistair Macaulay actually (shhhh don’t tell anyone I’m saying this) captures the program very nicely here. So, I’m not going into detail (plus I was just a civilian attendee and didn’t bother with notes).

It was so far from my Wednesday and Thursday, but by the end of my Friday I kept thinking: “God, I love this town.”

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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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The LAVA acrobatics company performs Atlas at Dixon Place in New York City on December 3, 2011. Photo by Angela Jimene

By Jeremy Finch

I love circus arts. But there’s something about going to the circus and watching world-class circus performers that sometimes bothers me. Sometimes you can sense that a particular performer was born into the circus, or has been training in a speciality since (what seems like) they were five years old. Often times, these people come from countries where children are funneled towards circus school and away from regular classes. Their bodies and bones bend in ways that adult bodies and bones should not, and there’s always a question in my mind: Are these performers really doing what they love, or did someone else choose this path for them? If these people had had more typical childhoods, would they have joined the circus later anyways?

It was with this mind that I came to see LAVA’s Atlas, the Brooklyn-based acro-dance-theater company’s latest production at Dixon Place (through December 11; tickets $15/$12). As far as I can tell, none of the eight-person all female cast was born into the circus. In fact, they all seem like regular adults, albeit ones with strong arms and a knack for hanging upside down. Except for Sarah East Johnson (the company’s director), none of the performers had particularly impressive circus skills or tricks. They were not bad, to be sure, but they were fairly basic for the most part. What the group did have was personality, humor and a magnetic sense of charm.

I guess that’s what makes LAVA’s performers more interesting. They don’t seem to want to be considered a circus company, nor do they seem to want to make strictly dance or theater. The eight women comprise a diverse and genuinely enthusiastic group of people who draw on a wide range of influences (hence the titles Atlas and Encyclopedia) to make original performance vignettes. Without a doubt, some of Lava’s most interesting moments are the ones that combine movement with singing and live music. Even while I tuned out of the less-interesting tumbling or higher-energy group sections in “Atlas”, I found myself repeatedly drawn in and mesmerized by the sections that featured the singing of Mamie Minch, the show’s musical collaborator.

The highlight of the evening for me was a static trapeze duo between Johnson and Molly Chanoff, done to a live cover of “Killing the Blues.” Johnson and Chanoff, with Minch’s added vocals, sing to one another (“swinging the world by the tail…”) as they dangle precariously up above the audience, slowly grasping at hands, ropes and legs. There was something clear and captivating hearing these two people sing while being upside down, blood rushing to their faces and muscles straining to stay connected. They knew that there was no need to rush, and you could tell that each person fully trusted in the other.

I felt that these slower-paced sections with music and singing in Atlas shone brightest of all. I’m not sure how to describe it, but there’s some amazing alchemy that reveals itself when you combine the the sound of a beautiful singing voice with an element of physical danger.

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