Faye Driscoll presents Thank You for Coming; Play at BAM Fisher. I could swear that Faye Driscoll has done something to her eyebrows. They seem to slant downward the way they would if she were an Indian dancer portraying one of the nine permanent emotions: “karuna” (compassion or “the pathetic”). Even though the guy I’m sitting next to in BAM Fisher’s front row laughs boisterously at the … [Read more...]
From Sweden: Taped and Set Free
K. Kvarnström Co/Kulturhuset City Theatre Stockholm performs at BAM Fisher. Eighteen years have passed since I first saw Kenneth Kvarnström’s choreography. That was at a rehearsal in his native Finland. Thirteen years ago, I viewed his beautiful Fragile at Jacob’s Pillow. So I can’t speak knowledgeably about his style, but I do see connections between Fragile and TAPE, which K. Kvarnström … [Read more...]
Nothing To Be Ashamed Of
Douglas Dunn + Dancers premiere Aidos at BAM Fisher. Aidos seems to have been a goddess slightly confused about her own identity. No wonder she is said to be the last of the Greek gods to leave earth after the Golden Age. The Random House Dictionary of the English Language calls her “the personification of conscience,” but she is also seen as representing shame and modesty. I see a … [Read more...]
To Each Her Own With Others
Ivy Baldwin Dance at BAM Fisher and Hilary Easton + Co. at Danspace St. Mark's. Every now and then, I sift through a horde of ancestral photographs, puzzling over how some of the images fit into the structure I call “my family.” Some from the 20th century are impulsive and particular. A solitary child wearing a bib (me) squints at a small birthday cake with two candles on it. Generations … [Read more...]
Quiet Flowering
Jodi Melnick presents a trio, Moment Marigold, at BAM Fisher. When is a theme not a theme? When is a person not a persona? Jodi Melnick raises these questions in a brief program essay about her new Moment Marigold. She also noted that she begins the choreographic process by working in a studio by herself, letting movement ideas emerge. Creating this work, which premiered at BAM Fisher, she … [Read more...]
Collapsing Three to Make a Fourth
Tere O'Connor's Bleed, premiering on BAM's Next Wave Festival, is built on the bones of three previous works. Writing about Tere O’Connor’s work is always a challenge (he himself does it very well). Watching his marvelous new Bleed in the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Fishman Space is akin to recalling a night of dreaming. In it, as in dreams, events pour into one another, places morph into … [Read more...]
Playing Hard, Game Unknown
Gallim Dance at BAM Fisher, May 21-26, 2013 What does “blush” convey to you? A person becomingly embarrassed? A person ashamed? The reddening sky of dawn? If it were not for the association of “flush” with toilets and wealth, I’d consider it an apter title than Blush for Andrea Miller’s revised 2009 dance. The six go-for-broke members of her Gallim Dance do indeed turn red in the face … [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...]