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...]
Keely Garfield Enters the Forest; She Is Not Alone
A number of the people rising from their seats and milling around Danspace St. Mark’s after Keely Garfield’s Twin Pines exchange grins and nods and fond remarks along the lines of “That’s Keely for you!” The word “quirky” is heard. Watching a piece by Garfield can be like entering someone’s disheveled home at a bad time and wondering, “What’s been going on here?” Or like entering Garfield’s … [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...]
Surviving the Flood
Somewhere out there, there must be people who, happening on—or dragged to— a contemporary performance, will venture, “but is it dance?” Others more confident will re-frame the question as an assertion, possibly an outraged one. But anyone regularly attending productions in New York’s forward-looking theaters and the equivalent in Europe will have become accustomed to the wide-armed, eclectic … [Read more...]
Three Women Dancing
Just when you’re blinking into 2012, The Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) schedules a conference in New York, and zillion of companies showcase their work. This year, from January 5 to 9 and beyond, every dance venue in the city hosts performances ranging from whole dances to excerpts. The hoped-for audiences? That would be the presenters. But friends, fans, critics, and the … [Read more...]
In the Garden
The verdant place that gives Kate Weare’s disastrously beautiful Garden (2011) its name is no Eden. The weeds and brambles that sprout in human relationships flourish here, not quite crowding out the sudden, valiant blooms. Kurt Perschke’s set suggests that something is awry. The stage of the Joyce Theater—where Gotham Arts presented its FOCUS DANCE series of shared programs from January 3 through … [Read more...]
Hail and Farewell
In January, 2011, one-and-a-half years after Merce Cunningham died, the second half of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s two-year Legacy Tour began in Hong Kong. It ended at 10:00 P.M. on December 31 in New York. The immense crowd of spectators in the Park Avenue Armory applauded and cheered the dancers for many minutes, as if keeping them onstage, bowing over and over, not only showed them how … [Read more...]
Different Circuses: Elizabeth Streb and Sarah East Johnson
Elizabeth Streb has the mind of a physicist, the heart of a circus performer, and a movie stuntman’s appetite for risk. Upping the ante while balancing all the factors involved seems to be what sustains her. In the 1980s, when she first started showing her work in small downtown black-box theaters or loft spaces, watching her performers topple—straight as boards, faces down—onto a mic’d mattress … [Read more...]
At the Threshold of the Closet
One of the most intriguing things about Tere O’Connor’s Cover Boy is its overall rhythmic structure. During the hour it takes the piece to unfold, the movements of the four performers (Michael Ingle, Niall Jones, Paul Monaghan, and Matthew Rogers) set up subtle interplays between asserting and backing off, between attacking and melting. This dynamic formalizes and expresses the implications … [Read more...]
Walking With Merce
So long, Roaratorio. Goodbye, Biped. Farewell, Second Hand. And Pond Way, Split Sides, Rainforest, it’s been great to know you. Pardon the tears. New Yorkers may see scraps from these works in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s Events at the Park Avenue Armory on the last days of 2011. Then silence and stillness. Or, as Cunningham’s longtime collaborator, composer John Cage, might remind us, a … [Read more...]