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Reconfiguring One’s Past in Art

May 21, 2012 By 2 Comments
Sarah Lawrence students in Yvonne Rainer's We Shall Run at Dia Beacon. Photo: Paula Court

In the iconoclastic Judson Dance Theater of the 1960s, visual artists Robert Rauschenberg, Alex Hay, and Robert Morris were among the choreographers and performers. The negotiations among them and their dance-world colleagues were boundlessly fruitful to both. In 1968, Yvonne Rainer wrote an essay titled “A Quasi Survey of Some ‘Minimalist’ Tendencies in the Quantitatively Minimal Dance Activity Midst the Plethora, or an Analysis of Trio A.” That essay paired art objects and dances in terms of elements to be minimized or eliminated … [Read more...]

05/21/12 5:40 PM | filed under: Postmodern New York |

New York City Ballet: The New and the Refurbished

May 20, 2012 By 2 Comments
Tiler Peck floating over Tyler Angel in Two Hearts. Photo: Paul Kolnik

Have you noticed that many new ballets look like older ballets?  Either that, or they introduce kinks that take them far outside the classical vocabulary. The best ballet choreographers have a way of making steps that every advanced student dancer does many times a day look newly expressive, or interweave with the music in deeply satisfying ways. I can’t say that Peter Martins’s new work for the New York City Ballet’s spring season is refreshing in that way. Martins, as the company’s ballet master in chief, has responsibilities that … [Read more...]

05/20/12 4:11 PM | filed under: ballet |

Consider the Body

May 16, 2012 By 2 Comments
Burr Johnson and Benjamin Asriel (seated) in John Jasperse's Fort Blossom revisited. Photo: Ian Douglas

Maybe this is something you haven’t scrutinized before; maybe it’s a familiar sight. But I imagine you haven’t noticed an asshole in quite this way. To begin John Jasperse’s Fort Blossom revisited, Benjamin Asriel begins an arduous trek on his belly across the floor of New York Live Arts; arms at his sides, he undulates along by a smooth process of humping and arching. Depending on where you’re sitting, you may notice that the action makes the crack between his buttocks widen and narrow rhythmically). Among the several thoughts this … [Read more...]

05/16/12 10:14 AM | filed under: postmodern views |

Hiding in Plain Sight, Becoming the Other

May 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Luke Murphy and Giulia Carotenuto. Photo: Paula Lobo

In November, 2010, I saw Bastard, the first part of Pavel Zustiak’s extraordinary trilogy, The Painted Bird, inspired by Jerzy Kozinski’s novel of that name.  In June, 2011, I saw the second installment, Amidst. From May 3 through 13, 2012, Zustiak’s group, Palissimo, is performing the final work, Strange Cargo. The novel’s passage over time and distances, as well as its themes of displacement, concealment, identity and transformation are embedded in all three structures and what they ask of spectators. Bastard premiered in … [Read more...]

05/12/12 3:42 PM | filed under: Postmodern New York |

Architectural Grazing

May 8, 2012 By 2 Comments
Kneeling: Lawrence Casella and Molly Poerstel-Taylor; seated Eleanor Smith. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu

I don’t know whether Ivy Baldwin roams around looking for images that will nourish her choreographic appetite, or whether she simply goes about her life and things suddenly catch her eye. Her new Ambient Cowboy was clearly fed by sources very unlike those that produced her Here Rests Peggy (as in Peggy Guggenheim, the deceased art patron). Baldwin has let it be known that Ambient Cowboy began to form in her mind when she visited Philip Johnson’s famous Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut. Johnson’s see-through box is furnished with … [Read more...]

05/8/12 5:10 PM | filed under: postmodern views |

Knowing How Your Dinner Sees The World

May 3, 2012 By 3 Comments
Carrie Ahearn in her "Barrowed Prey"

When writing about art with a message, critics tend to soft-pedal and back-pedal. Perhaps their hearts are with the messenger, yet they have reservations about the forms in which the ideas are delivered. Perhaps, for some, the message doesn’t come through strongly enough.  There’s little doubt as to what Carrie Ahern wants to put across in in her provocative and deeply felt Borrowed Prey: If we eat animals, we should be willing to face what they endure between untroubled life in a pasture and becoming chops on a plate. She herself has … [Read more...]

05/3/12 11:24 PM | filed under: Postmodern New York |

Taking Down the House

May 2, 2012 By 3 Comments
Thibault Lac (L) and Trajal Harrell talk of famous pairs. Photo: Ian Douglas

What would it be like to travel around in Trajal Harrell’s squirrelly postmodern brain? Circuits must crisscross, merge, restructure. Destination? Don’t ask. Enjoy the ride.  The title of the latest entry in Harrell’s series, Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church is prefaced by Antigone Sr./ and followed by its size: (L). Those who have seen the (XS), (S), (M), and (Jr.) versions will know that the enterprise began with a question that Harrell asked himself in 2009: What kind of work would have ensued had some voguers … [Read more...]

05/2/12 10:20 PM | filed under: postmodern views |

What Can I Tell You?

April 23, 2012 By 1 Comment
(L to R) Molly Lieber, Marilyn Maywald, Katy Pyle, and Weena Pauly. Photo: Christopher Duggan

Once upon a time there were program notes—maybe a provocative line of poetry would serve. Then there were no program notes; all you needed to know about a dance was there for the looking. Recently, programs for dance events outside the mainstream have begun to publish short essays by choreographers and/or seasoned non-dancing thinkers. In terms of theorizing and probing into the ideas behind the work about to unfold onstage, these writings go way beyond, for example, the excellent program material written by Jacob’s Pillow’s resident … [Read more...]

04/23/12 1:45 PM | filed under: Postmodern New York |

Testing Realness

April 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Faye Driscoll and Jesse Zaritt in Driscoll's You're Me. Photo: Paula Court

You’re Me. That’s the name of Faye Driscoll’s duet for herself and Jesse Zaritt. And the chosen title is a pretty blunt way of putting out an idea that longtime couples acknowledge in more honeyed syntax—possibly with damp eyes. I hope it won’t turn you off, dear reader, if I note that this no-holds barred encounter between a man and a woman is about identity and gender roles. You’re Me tackles these pardon-the-yawn issues with such savagery and convoluted wit that an evening at the Kitchen, where the piece continues through April … [Read more...]

04/14/12 5:29 PM | filed under: Postmodern New York |

Channeling Chekhov

April 13, 2012 By 2 Comments
David Krugel and Cora Bos-Kroese in Jirí Kylián and Michael Schumacher's Last Touch First. Photo: Robert Benschop

If this is a summerhouse somewhere in Europe around the end of the 19thcentury, why is the furniture still shrouded in dust sheets and marooned on a rumpled, sheeted floor?  This question is not the only one you might ask yourself while watching the inhabitants of the room move in slow motion through 50 or so minutes of a deceptively uneventful day. Last Touch First (at the Joyce Theater, April 10 through 15) by Jirí Kylián and Michael Schumacher is an expanded version of Last Touch First, created by Kylián in 2003 for Nederlands Dans … [Read more...]

04/13/12 11:07 PM | filed under: contemporary dance |
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