{"id":1087,"date":"2012-10-21T09:15:50","date_gmt":"2012-10-21T13:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/?p=1087"},"modified":"2012-10-22T23:45:10","modified_gmt":"2012-10-23T03:45:10","slug":"dont-stop-the-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/2012\/10\/dont-stop-the-dance\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Stop the Dance!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

L to R: Andrej Vidlar, Trajal Harrell, and Thibault Lac rehearsing Harrell’s Judson Church is Ringing in Harlem (Made to Measure)\/Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church (M2M)<\/em>. Photo: Miana Jun Thxo<\/p><\/div>\n

Judson Church is Ringing in Harlem (Made to Measure)\/Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church (M2M) <\/em>may be the longest title in Trajal Harrell\u2019s series of works titled Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church. <\/em>(As you will note, it results in a sentence that\u2019s practically a runway.) In keeping with the fashion references that are integral to the idea, Harrell labels each piece by size\u2014beginning with extra small. He\u2019s made six so far, and the seventh and last is to be a book. \u00a0Fans in Japan, Brazil, Canada, and numerous European cities, as well as ones in the U.S., are going to be very sad that M2M <\/em>\u00a0is the opus\u2019s swan song in terms of performance.<\/p>\n

Let me append some labels of my own: D (delicious), W (witty), P (provocative), B (brilliant).<\/p>\n

M2M<\/em>, fittingly, made its debut in St. Mark\u2019s Church as part of\u00a0 Danspace\u2019s Platform 2012: Judson Now<\/em>, which celebrates the 50th<\/sup> anniversary of the radical and influential Judson Dance Theater. Harrell\u2019s series hinges on a premise: \u201cWhat would have happened in 1963 if someone from the voguing-ball scene in Harlem had come downtown to perform alongside the early postmoderns at Judson Church?\u201d\u00a0 What it means in terms of Harrell\u2019s works is that he has been able to imagine how full-out dancing, glamor, narrative, and emotion might resurface within a climate that celebrated everyday movement and a neutral performing style in brainy structures and plain-jane settings.<\/p>\n

For M2M<\/em>, he switches his original question around. What would have happened if one of those downtown adventurers (Yvonne Rainer, say) had gone up to Harlem in 1963 to perform in the voguing ballroom scene?\u00a0 And he answers that question ingeniously. Minimal movements stretched out over time, barely audible snippets of spoken text, a lot of repetition? OK, but take that up to Harlem and right away, the climate change begins to have an impact.<\/p>\n

There are three magnificent performers in M2M<\/em>, all men: Harrell, Thibault Lac, and Rob Fordeyn the night I attended (Ondrej Vidlar performed October 11 and 13, Fordeyn on October 12). They spend the first part of the piece either sitting on three chairs set at some distance from one another or walking between them.<\/p>\n

They have not, however, come to the party clad in any-old attire, and they\u2019ve taken the time to paint their toenails. Lac and Fordeyn wear draped, vaguely Grecian gowns constructed of a filmy black material (costumes by Complexgeometries), while Harrell\u2019s dress, made of the same fabric, looks a bit more like something a grieving widow or an uncertain visitor might wear. (Watching the men sit, I imagine another question for the occasion: \u201cWhat if Isadora Duncan\u2019s adopted daughters had come to mourn (retrospectively) the early death of Chopin and been intimidated by all that stained glass?\u201d).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

L to R: Vidlar, Lac, and Fordeyn (the cast that never was?) rehearsing in St.Mark’s Church. Photo: Miana Jun Thxo<\/p><\/div>\n

So, yes, they sit, looking lovely, making barely audible remarks now and then; quiet music with a beat hovers in the background. They all have microphones, but don\u2019t always use them. I hear what could be song lyrics, place names, allusions to oppression. Harrell sings more powerfully, almost wailing. Slouching in his chair, he\u2019s less contained than the other two, his face registering, discomfort, sorrow, petulance. Perhaps he\u2019s the outsider from downtown, trying to fit in up in Harlem. (Interestingly, he\u2019s the African American while Lac and Fordeyn are Caucasian, but, then, perhaps they\u2019re virtual Judsonsites too, just a little less worried about the new atmosphere than he is.)<\/p>\n

The structure that Harrell is building begins to make itself known in ways both discreet and suspenseful. Very softly, Fordeyn begins to riff on \u201cdon\u2019t\u201d and \u201cdon\u2019t stop\u201d \u2014repeating it, giving the words an intermittent rhythm. There\u2019s a taped voice singing in the distance. Now and then Harrell sings \u201cGood mornin\u2019\u201d under his breath. Gradually words spawn other words, and the men\u2014walking, sitting, Harrell trying out graceful hand gestures\u2014echo one another. \u00a0Finally we get, \u201cDon\u2019t stop the dance,\u201d then \u201cMama says, \u2018don\u2019t stop the dance.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 And Fordeyn occasionally interjects, \u201cever, ever, ever.\u201d\u00a0 Except for Harrell\u2019s outburst of song and his evident unease, the three are very self-possessed, very neutral. Very Judsony in their layering of minimal moves with apparently unrelated text in terms of subject matter. (I could go on about the deeper resonance of \u201ccool.\u201d)<\/p>\n

How much time has passed? \u00a0Hard to be sure (M2M <\/em>is over an hour long). And things are definitely heating up. The lights dim to a ballroom ambiance. Lac turns on a small fan and lets his drapery blow. Harrell initiates a flouncing runway strut on tiptoe, almost skipping. The other two stop and watch him strike sultry poses. He\u2019s getting it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Working feet. Thibault Lac and ?. Photo: Miana Jun Thxo<\/p><\/div>\n

And the room is about to explode. The men don the sneakers that have been sitting beside their chairs. Finally the rest of the lyrics from Bryan Ferry\u2019s 1985 \u201cDon\u2019t Stop the Dance\u201d emerge on tape. \u201cEvery thought I have don\u2019t mean a thing,\u201d sings the recorded voice. When the men\u2014sometimes yelling now\u2014 start intoning \u201cconceptual dance is over\u201d and \u201cDon\u2019t think! Work!\u201d their words emerge with a gospel-shout fervency. The downtown artist has become a testifying witness. The music pounds. Lac cries out \u201cAre you on fire?\u201d\u00a0 And they are. Oh, lord, how they dance!\u00a0 Heads tossing, shoulders shrugging, knees lifting, feet stomping, hips swinging. \u00a0Fordeyn and Lac, both long-legged and skinny, cast their limbs into space in twisting, spiraling craziness. They\u2019re sweating, hard-breathing marvels. \u201cWork it!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWork!\u201d\u00a0 Harrell works it heroically, sensually, loving it. Even when the taped sound mix simmers down into sweet piano music and words of love, need, shame, and soul-baring filter in, he keeps going. \u201cDon\u2019t stop,\u201d the others remind him.<\/p>\n

Harrell is, of course, aware of the irony that erupts. He\u2019s not about to reject thought; he\u2019s a man of ideas, a lover of concepts and theories, and these are built into the substructure of all the pieces in his Twenty Looks <\/em>series.\u00a0 But, thank heaven, he also lives to move. As the song says:<\/p>\n

\u201cGot to keep on moving or I will die.
\nDon’t stop
\nDon’t stop the dance.
\nDon’t – mama says – don’t stop the dance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Judson Church is Ringing in Harlem (Made to Measure)\/Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church (M2M) may be the longest title in Trajal Harrell\u2019s series of works titled Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church. (As you will note, it results in a sentence that\u2019s practically a runway.) In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[443,442,441,301],"class_list":{"0":"post-1087","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-postmodern-new-york","8":"tag-ondrej-vidlar","9":"tag-rob-fordeyn","10":"tag-thibault-lac","11":"tag-trajal-harrell","12":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}