Here’s how Simone Forti laid out her 1961 From Instructions: “One man is told that he must lie on the floor during the entire piece. Another is told that he must tie the first man to the wall.” (I like picturing the possibilities inherent in this structured improvisation.) In her wonderful 1974 book, Handbook in Motion, Forti mentions that the room in which From Instructions was first performed … [Read more...]
Shadowing the Planets
i Eons ago, a solar eclipse made people fall to their knees or consider sacrificing some handy victim. Even when you know astronomy, a rare solar eclipse can feel ominous and a lunar one eerie, but the cosmos is full of smaller eclipses most of us don’t see. A distant planet’s orbiting moons can cast their shadows on one another or on their host. It’s that slow cosmic game of dodge ball that … [Read more...]
Shadow Presences, Tangible Absences
The back story: Jonah Bokaer and David Hallberg were working together on a duet—the postmodern dancer-choreographer and the adventurous ballet virtuoso, the dark-haired guy and the blond one. Hallberg broke his foot shortly before the piece was to premiere at the Avignon Festival. Steps were taken. The show went on. Now I’ll shut up and talk about Curtain as it was at Jacob’s Pillow, August 1 … [Read more...]
Consider the Body
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 … [Read more...]
Architectural Grazing
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 … [Read more...]
Taking Down the House
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 … [Read more...]
Feeding the Animals
“I'm gonna make you howl like a wolf Scream like a pig Go through the roof Lie down with the lion But to tell you the truth I'm thinking about starting a zoo.” So sings Jarvis Cocker, while, Jason Buckle, his mate in the Britpop duo Relaxed Muscle, pounds out a ripe, percussive smear of sound. Is this some red-lit, clinking- glasses club? No, it’s the Olympic-pool-sized, fourth floor … [Read more...]
Bill T. Jones Takes a Stroll with John Cage
Artists inevitably reveal themselves in their work, but some do it more overtly than others. Over the course of his career, Bill T. Jones has told us a lot about himself—not only in his choices of subject matter and his wonderfully poetic memoir Last Night on Earth, but while onstage dancing. Watching his solos, we learned about the large family he grew up in—about his mother Estella, his … [Read more...]
Covering Ground with Cage and Glass
In 2010, Molissa Fenley explored a new path, commissioning a number of artists to design props that could be manipulated by her and two additional dancers. Sometimes the results were striking, sometimes contrived. The newer Credo in Us, shown at Judson Church on January 9, goes way beyond The Prop Dance into a disciplined wildness and playfulness you might not have expected of Fenley—perhaps … [Read more...]
Pairs Made in Heaven: Reitz & Rudner, Burrows & Fargion
In 1994, we were all younger. Yet in the photo accompanying the review I wrote that year of Necessary Weather, the luminous collaboration by Dana Reitz, Sara Rudner, and Jennifer Tipton, Reitz and Rudner look almost exactly the way they do performing the piece at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in late October, 2011. They wear the same white pants and flowing, diaphanous white shirts. Reitz’s hair is … [Read more...]