Stage Write http://www.artsjournal.com/stagewrite/ Elizabeth Zimmer on time-based art forms en-US Copyright 2008 Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:02:08 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Timely and Timeless The Village Voice, I was about to comment on the burgeoning of "historic preservation" in the dance and theater community.

In addition to the Jerome Robbins show at the Performing Arts Library, one week this spring yielded the kickoff of the 50th anniversary celebrations at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, another session in the "History Matters" series at the Merce Cunningham Studio, and a panel discussion and performance event staged by members of Dancers Over 40, Inc., at the St. Luke's Theater.

All these events celebrated the past. Back in the mid-'80s, the National Endowment for the Arts' dance program, under the direction of Nigel Redden, was funding a lot of experimental work, and some of the artists involved raised the ire of Congress. Since that time funding has become conservative, with more attention paid to preserving the "treasures" of the dance culture so far, and less to the needs of emerging and mid-career artists.

That said, these events were also valuable, and sometimes delightful. The Dancers Over 40 Event on March 31 celebrated Gower Champion, a California native and Broadway gypsy dancer who directed and choreographed many hit musicals from the '50s through the '70s, succumbing to a heart attack the day his 42nd Street opened on Broadway in 1980. His former wife Marge was part of the festivities (she's in her late eighties, and looks fabulous), as were more than a dozen former "gypsies" from a range of Champion's hit shows. They reminisced, they danced...and we in the audience treasured every moment, knowing how essential it is to tease out and preserve this unique history.

Tapes of the evening were donated to the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center, and DO40 plans more such sessions. They've established a new category, FODO 40 (that's "friends of Dancers Over 40"), for the  people who love and want to support them. Check out the programs and personnel of this vital group at www.dancersover40.org.

]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/stagewrite/2008/04/timely-and-timeless.html http://www.artsjournal.com/stagewrite/2008/04/timely-and-timeless.html Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:02:08 -0500 Everything at Once The Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center just launched a new exhibition, "New York Story: Jerome Robbins and his World." Since his death a decade ago, the resourceful choreographer-director has spawned at least three biographies, but a gallery show is a different animal. Full of photographs, window cards, costumes, correspondence, and of course film and video, the show, curated by dance scholar Lynn Garafola, integrates both time- and space-based art, sometimes all at once.

I'd ruminate more on the show, but I've just been derailed by the news that Deborah Jowitt, one of Robbins's biographers and my long-time colleague at The Village Voice, has just been fired from her job as chief dance critic there, after 40 years.

Multi-taskers will be fascinated by a wall of six video monitors, each playing kinescopes of television appearances by Robbins and the various ensembles for which he made dances. Banks of seats each have a padded headset and a control panel with six buttons; you can flip back and forth, concentrating on one sound track at a time, though all six videos are always in view. 

robbins%20CurtainCalljpg.jpg

The picture, is, of course, Costas's shot of Jerry Robbins, taking a curtain call at the New York State Theater. The show runs through June 28 in the Library's Donald and Mary Oenslager Gallery, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza in Manhattan; for hours and other info, call 212-592-7730, or visit www.nypl.org.

]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/stagewrite/2008/03/everything-at-once.html http://www.artsjournal.com/stagewrite/2008/03/everything-at-once.html Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:42:45 -0500 Time Step
Technology enables us to sample the wisdom of the whole world, and of the ages, in the calm of our own homes, but so far no one has managed to give us more than 24 hours a day in which to do it. Video renditions of live performances tend to feel "too long," and revivals or reconstructions of dances from 50 years ago strike us, now, as "too slow."

In this blog I plan to approach various artifacts of time-based art, from the emerging to the classic, from the wordless to the text-based. I'll consider whether these productions are "worth our time," given the plethora of offerings laid out for our pleasure at every hour.

Going to the theater, even going to church, used to be "occasions" for people, a chance to open themselves to stimulation and new ideas.  When my former spouse lost his day job, a long time ago, I got into the reviewing business both to shore up our income and to guarantee a steady flow of free tickets to dance performances, plays, movies--the events that made living in a small Canadian city bearable.

Decades later I'm still in the business, as much out of habit as for any other reason. But the competition for my time--even though I've lost my day job, and now set my own schedule--has grown desperate. I outsource housekeeping and most cooking, but my daily 24 hours now need to include substantial time to exercise, read two newspapers, several magazines and much of the cream delivered by ArtsJournal, open and vet the e- and snail mail that clogs both my virtual and real mailboxes, meet the deadlines set by my various freelance clients, go to a show almost daily and sometimes two. I make time to see friends, usually by taking them to work with me and sharing a meal before or after. I keep up with an online community I joined in 1993; my compatriots there are like a cousins' club of cherished relatives I rarely have time to visit.

But.  It has been weeks since I read a book. The piles of books I really want to read, for pleasure and edification, have grown to towering heights beside my bed.

]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/stagewrite/2008/03/time-step.html http://www.artsjournal.com/stagewrite/2008/03/time-step.html Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:20:04 -0500 Stage Write Stage Write is a blog about time-based art, and our changing relationship to performances that require protracted attention. As I witness plays and dance concerts, I'll be responding to them in terms of their value in an ecology of time. We'll be considering whether the young are really wired differently from us 20th-century fossils, and how performance works from earlier centuries hold up in the new digital landscape. If it asks us to sit in the dark and watch it, and is enacted before us by wetware, it's fair game. I hope you'll engage these subjects with me. ]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/stagewrite/2008/01/this-blog.html http://www.artsjournal.com/stagewrite/2008/01/this-blog.html about Sun, 27 Jan 2008 16:39:00 -0500 Elizabeth Zimmer ]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/stagewrite/2008/01/the-author.html http://www.artsjournal.com/stagewrite/2008/01/the-author.html about Sun, 27 Jan 2008 16:33:19 -0500 Contact me Click here to send me an email... http://www.artsjournal.com/stagewrite/2008/01/contact-me.html http://www.artsjournal.com/stagewrite/2008/01/contact-me.html about Sun, 27 Jan 2008 16:25:56 -0500