The American Dance Institute presents Jack Ferver's I Want You To Want Me. What is this? The Kitchen looks different. Mirrors line the back wall and angle to either side. Barres are stretched along them, ready for a ballet class. We can look at ourselves, the reflected spectators—the innocent and the not-so-innocent—obedient and ready to contemplate, well. . .Hell (aka Jack Ferver’s I Want … [Read more...]
Changing Color
Susan Marshall, Jason Treuting, and Suzanne Bocanegra explore our perception of color. Is this the coolest ever lecture on color theory? Yes and no. It’s also a piece of theater created and performed at the Kitchen (June 23-25) by choreographer Susan Marshall, composer Jacob Treuting, and visual artist Suzanne Bocanegra. However, after seeing their Chromatic and its references to Bauhaus … [Read more...]
You Are Not Alone
Jane Comfort and Company premieres You Are Here at The Kitchen Jane Comfort has a formidable history as one who attacks with an intellectual cleaver subjects that most choreographers avoid: government policies, sanctioned torture, public apathy, gender stereotypes, beauty contests, talent shows. She deconstructed Shakespeare (Cliff Notes Macbeth, 1980) and Tennessee Williams (Faith Healing, … [Read more...]
Redefining Wilderness in Music and Dance
Choreographer Brian Brooks and composer Jerome Begin collaborate at The Kitchen. I don’t know why Brian Brooks titled his fascinating new work Wilderness, since the word conveys that there’s no man-made order involved, while his “wilderness” is precisely structured with a considerable amount of over-and-over repetition by eight black-clad dancers (costumes by Karen Young). On a white floor, … [Read more...]
Emerging from, Returning to Dust
Yvonne Rainer's The Concept of Dust: Continuous Project—Altered Annually. So, a woman walks into The Kitchen and stands hesitantly before the audience. Behind her, at the back of the performing area, five dancers wait; there’s a gap in their shoulder-to-shoulder line. The woman—it is choreographer Yvonne Rainer— warns us, fumbling a bit for words, that she has bad news for us. About … [Read more...]
Together As One
Tere O'Connor's The Goodbye Studies creates a world of hidden depths at The Kitchen. City dwellers know what it’s like to be part of a crowd. In Grand Central Station at rush hour, people speed along—dodging one another and laying down complex swerving paths. In a breadline or trying to push their way en masse through a single entrance or exit, they move toward their goal in small steps. … [Read more...]
Not a Dance? Are You Sure?
I plan to iron out the creases and frame the flyer for The Kitchen’s fall season. It’s an art work by Ralph Lemon that also appears in Lemon’s installation and performance there, Scaffold Room. Tiny, brightly painted figures cross the sheet of paper in rows that disguise their parallel underpinnings. There are also words, so tiny as to be difficult to read. I spot images from Scaffold Room: a man … [Read more...]
Moving Pictures
The Kitchen and Performa present Maria Hassabi's dance installation, Premiere. The lobby of The Kitchen opens onto far-west 19th Street. Trucks could—and perhaps once did—drive right in. The night I go there to see Maria Hassabi’s Premiere, that area is as packed with people as the place’s full name (The Kitchen Center for Video, Music, Dance, Performance, Film, and Literature) is packed … [Read more...]
Deconstructing Beethoven
DD Dorvillier’s dances seem to be built upon propositions (What if I limited my self to this? What if I examined an idea through an unusual lens?). Usually she imbues her works with wit and an offbeat theatricality that together play against the limits of the choreographic structure. Translation is a theme that runs through her recent works. In her No Change or “freedom is a psycho-kinetic skill” … [Read more...]
How Do You Define “Object”?
Some choreographers devote a lot of creative energy to finding a great new way to lift a leg (or a partner), or maybe split unison into counterpoint. Wally Cardona and Jennifer Lacey? Not so much. Undertaking alone—he in New York, she in Paris — the research that led to their joint project, Tool Is Loot (at the Kitchen September 22 through 24 and September 29 through October 1), they sought … [Read more...]