Tag: Dance Theater Workshop

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WHO'S ZOOMING WHOM?: ZVIDANCE AT DANCE THEATER WORKSHOP

Reviewed by Christopher Atamian, SLSG Experimental Dance Critic

I recently caught ZviDance’s charming if somewhat superficial “Zoom” at DTW.  I was particularly interested in seeing this performance as I had written a very positive preview of the company and its DTW run in the Jewish Daily Forward (www.forward.com/authors/christopher-atamian/). Israeli choreographer Zvi Gotheiner has been a presence on the New York scene for over twenty years now and he continues to develop interesting, intellectually engaging performances.

Overall, I wasn’t disappointed though I can’t say that the choreography presented anything revolutionary or distinctive.  It was all fun and jazzy and engaging—a light, perfectly enjoyable night of dance.  My colleague Gia Kourlas at The New York Times compared some of the dancing to the old PBS children’s series of the same title “Zoom” (remember they spoke ubbaduhbah language and wore fabulous striped tops à la Agnès B?)…Kourlas may have been slightly unfair in juxtaposing the two, but I see her point—through much of the performance, you felt as if you were  watching sketches for a deeper, more mature presentation.

As a meditation on technological change, the internet and cell phones, “Zoom” hints at many interesting directions: how does technology mediate the human touch and body?  What happens to our notions of intimacy and the way we perceive time in an age of supposedly instantaneous connectivity?

After a few introductory group pieces and solos, one of the Zvi dancers sat on stage with a laptop and communicated with the audience, whose members sent in text messages from their blackberries etc…The messages appeared on a large white screen on stage. Predictably—and unfortunately—they alternated between humor (“Do the kicky thing again” or “Can you do the worm?”), to sexual encomia (“You are hot!”) and repeated fart references by one audience member.  The performance then lost me a bit when audience members were invited on stage, LOL, OMG I just couldn’t follow.

Tal Yarden’s videos, which were also projected onscreen, were lovely eerie transformations of low-resolution images, also e-mailed by audience members.  The most affecting part of “Zoom” came at the very end of the performance—the dancers had already moved off stage and a series of new messages appeared onscreen: “Guess I missed you…” “Talk to you soon.” The real message, and one that I think warrants further investigation, is perhaps the growing alienation that technology has foisted on society.  Information isn’t synonymous with knowledge and it certainly doesn’t always translate into wisdom.  Perhaps in a future incarnation of “Zoom,” Gotheiner will give the latter some more thought.

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LUCY GUERIN’S KAFKAESQUE, FOUCAULDIAN "CORRIDOR"

 

 

Friday night I went to see Australian choreographer Lucy Guerin’s Corridor at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. I love these more avant garde (for lack of a better term) kinds of dance pieces — where the choreographer clearly has an idea in mind and wants to make you think about it. I seem to see a lot of this kind of work at BAC.

Corridor is about the effects of modern forms of communication on the human body, and the body’s ability to receive and transmit those forms of communication. Guerin said the work was inspired by a scene from Kafka’s The Castle, which was partly about the comings and goings of various people down a long corridor.

Here, there was a long walkway, a corridor that looked a bit like a catwalk, and chairs for the audience were set up on each side. The piece opened with one dancer receiving a call on his cell phone. He was sitting in one of the audience seats so it wasn’t at first clear that he was a performer and this was part of the performance. He sauntered around on the walkway as other dancers, likewise seated, received phone calls as well and followed him onto the walkway. As soon as the audience realized the performance had begun and quieted down, a sharp buzz sounded over the speakers (some of which were seated under our chairs) and the dancers immediately put their cell phones in their pockets, widened their eyes and, as if on command, began making lots of sharp, angular movements. Ambient sound (traffic, construction, chattering voices, chirping birds, etc.) now played over the speakers.

There was so much going on in this piece, which was, unbelievably, less than an hour long, and there were so many different parts to it, it’s almost impossible for me to remember them all (which is one of the things I liked about it). So I’m just going to talk about what I most remember.

At one point, toward the beginning, the dancers broke into pairs. There were three men and three women and each pair (comprised of one man, one woman) stood in three different sections of the corridor. The man of the couple would make various movements — an arm circling above his head, another arm jutting out, bending over sideways, etc. — and the woman standing facing him would follow him. Each man was facing the same direction, each woman was facing each man. At one point, it became clear that the man and woman farthest to the west end of the corridor were the “leaders.” Or rather than man was the leader. The men farther down the corridor kept watching him, and imitating him. Their women followers, who could not see that man since they were facing their own men instead, imitated their man. The more rapidly the first man moved, the crazier and more chaotic and confused was the movement of the other couples, particularly the women who basically were following a man following another man. It was really interesting, and you could see the frustration growing on the faces of the male followers and their women.

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TAKE DANCE PREMIERES FOOTSTEPS IN THE SNOW

 

 

 

 

TAKE Dance Company began its season at Dance Theater Workshop on Thursday night. There were four dances on the program — all choreographed by artistic director Takehiro Ueyama: two pieces from last year (the upbeat Linked, and Love Stories, a haunting duet about three stages in the life of a relationship that was inspired by a Magritte painting); the New York premiere of Shabon; and the world premiere of Footsteps in the Snow, both rather abstract pieces that I found a bit unsettling.

 

 

Shabon, set to Steve Reich music, is bookended by a solitary woman walking across the stage blowing bubbles. Bubbles are blown onstage throughout the dance, by bubble machines, which would seem to make the mood of the piece playful. But there’s a lot of intense partnering and the dancers seem to be characters who struggle somewhat with each other. During the climax of the piece, a small woman walks atop the shoulders of the other dancers, who together make a kind of human pyramid. She does this twice, then falls backward, hoping the others will catch her, which they do. But it still made me jump, because it doesn’t seem like she’s really trusting them so much as that she doesn’t care about her own well-being any more, like she’s given up. Then, in the end, when the solitary woman is walking across stage blowing her bubbles again, it’s like she’s in her own world. To me, it was about the solitariness of human existence or the fragility of connection.

The last piece, Footsteps, seemed to echo those themes as well as hint at the impermanence of human existence. Set to the rain-drop-like music of Arvo Part (the same used by Christopher Wheeldon in his famous After the Rain pas de deux), the stage was covered with fake snow (confetti) and there were some “snow-blowing” machines used from time to time to cover the dancers’ tracks, which made me think of the way it’s impossible to leave a lasting footprint in the snow. The dancers danced by turns in solo, in pairs, and in ensemble, the mood shifting between violent, tender and pensive. In one part, Francisco Gracinao (who regularly dances with Paul Taylor and was guesting with TAKE) throws himself violently to the floor, ending in a balance on the side of his neck, his legs in the air. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone throw himself down that way and then basically land on his neck. It made me jump. In other places, the men dangle the women upside down. In one moment — my favorite – -a man and woman, both crawling on the floor, find each other, and rub necks, entwining them and kind of locking them into place, fitting together perfectly like the pieces of a puzzle. It’s a beautiful image and at first I was hoping the piece would end there, but no, the pause in the music and the dimmed lights were only a pause; there was another, more disconcerting section that followed. I guess, thinking it over, I’m glad it didn’t end there — it would probably have been too pat, too happy, and I don’t think Take does happy endings!

I really like TAKE’s dancers. Ueyama has a good, diverse group — about half of them are kind of  “all American” in a Paul Taylorish way (Ueyema danced with Paul Taylor before forming his own group) — kind of carefree and sunny and spacious in their use of the floor, and then the other half are these really intense Asian women who captivate you with the depth of their gaze and the small details in their movement. They’re kind of opposites in a way but both are equally compelling and together I think make for a really unique company.

This is a good, varied program. It runs at DTW through this Sunday afternoon.Visit the DTW website for details and video excerpts, and see Philip’s blog for more pictures by his friend Kokyat.

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UPCOMING: BURN THE FLOOR, TAKE DANCE, PASCAL RIOULT IN THE PARK, AND MERCE

 

 

A few things to do this week and next if you’re suffering post-ballet season boredom:

This Thursday evening, TAKE Dance Company, a small modern company I like, founded by former Paul Taylor dancer Takehiro Ueyama, opens at Dance Theater Workshop in Chelsea. I’ve seen some of the works on the program before (and saw parts of Footsteps, which they’re premiering, in rehearsal). I’ve always found his work mesmerizing and I’m excited to see Footsteps in full. They show through August 2. Go here for details and to see a video; also visit Oberon who has been covering the company’s rehearsals.

This Friday night, Rioult, Pascal Rioult’s wonderful little modern dance company, is performing at Central Park’s Summerstage along with Germaul Barnes’s Viewsic Expressions. Two of my favorite dances of Rioult’s, his sexy version of Les Noces and his gorgeous Views of the Fleeting World, are on the program.

This weekend, Saturday and Sunday evenings and Sunday afternoon, Merce Cunningham Dance Company are to perform a collection of Cunningham’s work, past and present, in Rockefeller Park as part of the River to River Festival. Those performances will of course be all the more momentous (and heartbreaking) in light of the choreographer’s recent death.

 

Finally, Burn the Floor, the ballroom show by Jason Gilkison (of So You Think You Can Dance fame, and a former Australian ballroom champion) officially opens on Broadway next Tuesday. It’s in previews right now. I saw it last night and loved it (review coming soon). It’s great fun; makes you want to dance home 🙂 I’m tempted to say it’s worth it just to see Peta Murgatroyd — WHOA. She’s a ballerina-turned Latin dancer and she just combines the best of everything… Try to go to a performance prior to August 16th so you can see Maks Chmerkovskiy and Karina Smirnoff in the cast as well. Maks is an absolute hoot to watch live!

 

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KISAENG BECOMES YOU and $20 UP FRONT

 

I’ve got to go to small, experimental dance performances more often. It really is where much of the groundbreaking work happens these days.

I recently went to see Kisaeng becomes you at Dance Theater Workshop in Chelsea, with Claudia La Rocco’s WNYC performance club. Kisaeng is a collaboration between experimental dance-maker Dean Moss and Korean choreographer Yoon Jin Kim and it explores, through movement, multimedia, and spoken word the lives of the kisaeng, women courtesans in Korea from the 10th Century on, who were, kind of like Japanese Geisha, well-trained in poetry and the arts and existing for the entertainment of Korean aristocracy.

What was really novel here, I felt, was the choreographers’ use of audience members. Apparently, they asked three women and one man in the lobby before the performance if they would participate in the production, without telling them what their roles would be. There are five professional female performers depicting the kisaeng (and, by the way, all were costumed in contemporary clothing — pants and t-shirts, etc.). The dance opens with one of them piercing her skin with a needle, and embroidering her palm with thread — very difficult to watch. This was live-videoed and projected onto a large screen at the back of the stage so you couldn’t help but watch. At the same time, another dancer takes center stage and opens her mouth, Scream-like, bending her neck far backward so she’s looking up toward the ceiling, like frantically crying out, or yearning for more. Several other dancers follow her, and soon all five are making that same, rather haunting movement.

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New Cafe at Alice Tully Hall

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Yesterday, Ariel invited me to a rehearsal at New York City Ballet. I love watching rehearsals! Especially with performers you really like; you kind of get to know their personalities a bit more. I don’t think we’re supposed to talk about anything in detail, but can I just say, methinks Tyler Angle must be every girl’s Dream partner 😀

 

Anyway, afterward, Ariel told me about the new cafe at Alice Tully Hall, the northernmost building of Lincoln Center, that houses mainly music concerts. She’d heard the restaurant portion (apparently the mac ‘n cheese) got some negative reviews, but I thought their coffee was rich and the American cheesecake we had, which was creamy and topped with little swirls of white chocolate, was delic. The spacious cafe is on the bottom floor and, encased in glass, it lets a lot of sunlight in and gives you an excellent view of the surrounding area.

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(this is facing east).

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(and this south, toward the rest of Lincoln Center. Ariel picking delicately at her cheesecake in foreground 🙂 )

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(the renovated Juilliard School aka Irene Diamond Building atop Alice Tully Hall).

Lincoln Center’s been under construction forever, so it’s nice to finally see some of the building facades begin to crawl out from under their shells.

Also, last night I went to a very intriguing performance at Dance Theater Workshop, called Kisaeng becomes you by experimental dance-makers Dean Moss and Yoon Jin Kim. It’s on for one night more — tonight — and I highly recommend it if you’re in New York. I went to see it as part of Claudia La Rocco’s WNYC performance club. I found it to be powerful but subtle, and at least in part about the commodification of Asian women in contemporary society, although club members, who discussed the performance a bit afterward at a nearby French restaurant, saw different things. Review coming soon! In the meantime, here’s Gia Kourlas’s NYTimes write-up.