{"id":2808,"date":"2014-10-06T10:50:12","date_gmt":"2014-10-06T14:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/?p=2808"},"modified":"2014-10-14T17:39:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-14T21:39:00","slug":"choreographers-gets-their-feet-wet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/2014\/10\/choreographers-gets-their-feet-wet\/","title":{"rendered":"Choreographers Get Their Feet Wet"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Soaking Wet Festival at New York’s West End Theater, October 2-5.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Paul<\/a>

Paul Matteson and Sara Hook in their Bored House Guests<\/em>. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu<\/p><\/div>\n

Bored house guests. What does that mean to you? Unearthing the jigsaw puzzle because it\u2019s raining and you can\u2019t take them to the beach? The duet Bored House Guests<\/em>, dreamed up and performed by Sara Hook and Paul Matteson as part of the Soaking Wet Festival, blasts open any of the usual images. Is the \u201chouse\u201d in fact a home, or is it a theater\u2014perhaps the tiny West End Theater, nesting two flights up in the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, where these two brilliant performer-choreographers are puttin\u2019 on a show? Or is the \u201chouse\u201d the relationship they are locked into? Or the struggling, posing, sweating bodies that contain their rampaging spirits?<\/p>\n

When the spectators enter the tiny theater with its fraying red velvet seats, Matteson is already sitting motionless in a silver armchair in a patch of light (lighting design by Jay Ryan). The chair is placed as far as possible from the first row of the audience. That\u2019s not very far; calling the West End Theater \u201cintimate\u201d doesn\u2019t adequately describe the small, curving performance space with its vaulted ceiling.<\/p>\n

Matteson has been sitting there for about 15 minutes when a loud noise in the hitherto restrained musical score by Nick Didkovsky prompts him to take off his shoes and stand on tiptoe, wobbling slightly. Hook walks in and stares at him. From the outset, this be-spectacled woman\u2014tight-lipped, occasionally exasperated\u2014attempts to maintain a kind of world-weary dominance. The man often looks at her as if to say, \u201cWhat will she do\/want next?\u201d Who are these people in their black pants and tacky shirts? We may never know (although deep down, we probably do).<\/p>\n

\"Paul<\/a>

Paul Matteson and Sara Hook have a little discussion. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu<\/p><\/div>\n

What passes between Hook and Matteson is structured vaguely like a series of \u201cacts,\u201d or attempted feats. Or rounds in a competition or forays onto a dance floor. But much of what materializes deteriorates almost as quickly. Throughout Bored House Guests<\/em>, polite gestures recur\u2014an offered arm that says \u201cthis way, please\u201d or \u201cyou first;\u201d or \u201cmay I present?\u201d Hook and Matteson bow: link their arms like pairs skaters; move into a ballroom hold; lifts wreathed arms to resemble ballet\u2019s-fifth position port de bras<\/em>. However, several times, Matteson walks doggily on all fours, and once Hook actually plays<\/em> the dog, jittering toward Matteson on all fours, then backing up a little, then coming forward again, while he, crouching, says things to her we can\u2019t hear.<\/p>\n

Four of the musical pieces that accompany the dance are by Didkovsky, with the remaining three credited to Didkovsky and his hardcore band Vomit Fist (these last are titled \u201cSodom,\u201d \u201cEnter My Guts,\u201d and \u201cFrogmen\u201d). Once, a crackly, off-key voice sings \u201cLet Me Call You Sweetheart,\u201d a song that is later reprised, roaring and buried in an indeed vomitous storm of sound. Matteson echoes that image toward the end, crawling, convulsing, and spewing out strangled noises. And Hook has a solo from hell, thrashing around as if she intends to break herself into pieces.<\/p>\n

Some of their encounters have a surreal edge and\/or a tinge of farce. Matteson rushes toward Hook while she\u2019s maintaining a gracious, open-armed, wide-legged stance, slams himself down on his knees and glues himself along one of her legs\u2014suggesting for a few seconds one of those dogs that embarrasses its owner by humping a guest\u2019s calf. She maintains her poise as long as she can, while he gets her leg gripped between his and starts maneuvering the two of them into improbable, anti-erotic (or failed erotic) positions. In another moment\u2014one with a comic twist\u2014she jams her head against his chest and sticks it there, then slides one perfectly arched foot and then the other into a balletic tendu<\/em> to the side.<\/p>\n

\"Paul<\/a>

Paul Matteson about to slam onto his knees before Sara Hook in their Bored House Guests<\/em>. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu<\/p><\/div>\n

I think Matteson is one of the world\u2019s great dancers (I\u2019ve missed seeing him in the Bill T. Jones\/Arnie Zane Dance Company, which he graced for four years). In one amazing solo in Bored House Guests<\/em>, his mastery of the large and loping and the small and particular, and how they may both mesh and interrupt one another is uncanny. You have no idea what\u2019s going through his mind, or what he sees in the distance, but clearly something is. You follow him through his every hesitation, outburst, change of mind, easing of body.<\/p>\n

Midway through the piece, he and Hook become daringly physical. She jumps at him from behind, chest-bumping his back over and over; she leaps onto his shoulder and sits there awkwardly triumphant; he stands bent forward, one leg on the ground, one in the air behind him, and\u2014while she balances on his back\u2014he revolves (!). Slightly out-of-synch drum rolls announce these feats. The effect is of a domestic battle as a pas de deux gone wrong\u2014and a pas de deux that\u2019s more obviously arduous than its well-behaved ballet cousin.<\/p>\n

Near the end, Hook, who has left the stage for a few moments, returns with her wild hair in a bun and her feet encased in glittering, high-heeled silver boots. Matteson opens a bottle of champagne, and they sip some. But it ain\u2019t over till it\u2019s over. Hook removes Matteson\u2019s shirt and tucks it into the waistband at the back of her pants. When she leans perkily over one side, then the other, of the chair in which he\u2019s again sitting, the shirt becomes a bird\u2019s showy tail. And then (did I really see this?), she leans over and licks one of his nipples.<\/p>\n

\"Paul<\/a>

Paul Matteson, Sara Hook, and a silver chair in their Bored House Guests<\/em>. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu<\/p><\/div>\n

Also, wearing those cruel boots, she tries to stand on his thighs, and pretty soon succeeds. Finally, he reprises some of his dancing, puts on his shoes and walks out, leaving her standing there in the dimming light.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hook and Matteson\u2019s amazing duet constituted the 8:30 show at the West End Theater. At 7:00, a smaller audience assembled for a joint program of small-scale works by Se\u00e1n Curran, Malini Srinvasan, and Daniel Holt. (Blakely White-McGuire was scheduled to perform a solo by Deborah Zall, but illness prevented her doing so). Valerie Gladstone curated this particular event, but could not be there to moderate the discussion following it. David Parker, who took her place (he and Jeffrey Kazin of the Bang Group present the annual series), put forth some possible connections between the offerings, but I was also struck by how different they were.<\/p>\n

\"Elizabeth<\/a>

Elizabeth Coker in Se\u00e1n Curran’s Better to be Looking at It Than to be Looking for It.<\/em> Photo: Yi-Chun Wu<\/p><\/div>\n

Curran (my colleague on the dance-department faculty at NYU\u2019s Tisch School of the Arts) was adept at Irish step dancing well before he performed (for many years) with the Bill T. Jones\/Arnie Zane Dance Company and founded his own group. His own choreography is often refreshingly foot-lively\u2014as it is for the solo danced by Elizabeth Coker. The title is instructive: Better to be Looking at It Than to be Looking for It. <\/em>No story, no \u201cmeaning\u201d beyond the sight of a strong, assertive, good-humored dancer working her way through strenuous variations set to the ravishing No. 2 of Franz Schubert’s Moments Musicaux<\/em> for solo piano (alas, played live by Jonathan Matthews at all but this first performance).<\/p>\n

Coker may clap her hands gently together to match two notes that conclude a Schubert phrase, or make two-dimensional, flat-handed arm gestures that hint at Balinese dance, or press her palms down on the air to signify the end of a variation. Nevertheless, it\u2019s her legs and feet that are busiest. She covers the limited space with swift, grounded steps or bigger airborne ones, clicks her legs together, swings one leg forward and back. She calms down when Schubert does, becomes more tempestuous when he works himself up to that, but she doesn\u2019t yield to mood the way she responds to tempo and complexity. She gazes challengingly at the audience whenever she faces front. You want to say, \u201cI am<\/em> looking at it and I\u2019m liking it. Hidden meanings? I\u2019m swearing off those.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Jin<\/a>

Jin Jun Song-Begin and Dwayne Brown in Se\u00e1n Curran’s Duet Event<\/em>. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu<\/p><\/div>\n

Curran also contributed Duet Event <\/em> to the program. In this, Dwayne Brown and Jin Ju Song- Begin dance to selections of music by Radiohead. He wears a micro-pleated red outfit, she\u2019s in blue, and their initial relationship is hard to parse. For sure, they are ceremonious with each other as they spool out strong, smooth, moderately paced moves. They move in unison but not in perfect synchrony (or maybe I mean harmony). The middle section brings them together in a resonant shared task; with their arms or legs, they create cavities and tunnels for each other to pass through. It\u2019s a subtly flawed relationship, I\u2019d guess. At the end of the third section, she\u2019s supine with her hands raised as if to catch him. He lies elsewhere, near enough, but not really close.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Malini<\/a>

Malini Srinivasan in her Pannagendra Sayana<\/em>. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu<\/p><\/div>\n

You need to think about meaning when watching Srinivasan perform Pannagendra Sayana<\/em>, a solo that she has choreographed in India\u2019s Bharata Natyam style (with a few subtle departures). Maharaja Swati Tirunal\u2019s recorded score blends flute, violin, inger cymbals, and drum (mrdangam). A vocalist sings the text. It is this text that Srinivasam explains in words and gestures as a prelude to the dance, and, even in this small space, I\u2019m not sure everyone can hear her gentle voice. I sense that she\u2019s nervous, and it takes her a while to become as bold as she needs to be. When that happens, the tensions among desire, frustration, and adoration become wonderfully clear.<\/p>\n

This is one of those familiar sacred situations in which a beautiful woman, exemplifying the soul, yearns for a god to visit her. She waits through eight stages of night for his coming, as ardently sensual as a girl hoping for her lover to appear. The god in this case is Vishnu. Srinivasan\u2019s fluid gestures and facial expressions convey her feelings and the images in the text, while her passages of rhythmically intricate stamping create another, more abstract form of expressiveness. She makes you see by her undulating arms the snake on which Vishnu reclines; forms with her fingers his lotus-shaped eyes and teeth like jasmine buds; depicts cuckoos, then covers her ears and grimaces (no music sounds sweet if Vishnu is not with her). But she also conveys, over and over, her mounting impatience\u2014she looks for him in the distance, thinks she heard him, is disappointed yet again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Daniel<\/a>

Daniel Holt in his Crusoe<\/em>. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu<\/p><\/div>\n

Daniel Holt calls his astonishing new solo Crusoe. <\/em>And although in the talk-back he termed it abstract in relation to his previous work, I think perhaps he uses that sometimes misleading word to mean what George Balanchine meant when he told an interviewer that his ballets were not abstract but \u201cstoryless.\u201d When the lights begin to glimmer, and you see a man standing motionless\u2014his feet apart, his knees slightly bent, his body hunched protectively, and his eyes staring unblinkingly forward, thoughts about his possible identity or situation slink into your mind. As the lights brighten a tiny bit, you notice that his face, bare chest, and knee-length shorts are dirt-stained, and that a bandage is wrapped around one arm.<\/p>\n

A human being on stage can never be as \u201cabstract\u201d as a musical note. Given the title and Holt\u2019s imagery, we imagine \u201ccastaway\u201d and \u201cdesert island.\u201d And that\u2019s obviously okay with him.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s compelling about the character he presents is the way he sometimes seems to be investigating how his own body can move incrementally, and sometimes become the recipient of forces that knock him off-balance and set him staggering. The music he begins with is by Haan 808, an eerie blend of water lapping and transformed musical sounds that could presage storms (later Ancient Astronaut and Francis Harris contribute other environments\u2014percussively rhythmic or ringingly electronic).<\/p>\n

\"Daniel<\/a>

Daniel Holt in his Crusoe<\/em>. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu<\/p><\/div>\n

I say \u201cbegin,\u201d but Holt is motionless for many minutes before he begins to make small adjustments\u2014a rolling of one shoulder, a circling of his neck, his belly, his hips; watching him is like watching an unfamiliar machine beginning to warm up. As the complications he has set up in his torso quicken and expand, they form a network of fluent movements offset by jerks and stutters. And he\u2019s still standing in one spot.<\/p>\n

As he starts to explore the space around him, he sometimes appears creaturely\u2014simian maybe. And he\u2019s attentive to \u2014appears wary of\u2014 what\u2019s out there or above him. He falls, scrabbles on the floor; his own hand hits his head, and he recoils. He makes faces too, as if trying them out: a wide open mouth, a toothy grimace. In the final dimming light, he rises from crawling arduously on his belly to stand again, however unsteadily, amid the recurring sound of waves.<\/p>\n

Holt, who currently heads the dance collective Dirt, came to hip-hop late, after training and working in ballet and modern dance. He is one of those (Kyle Abraham is another) who can weave the evasive mobility of hip-hop styles into more experimental, personal and (dare I say it?) dramatic forms expressive of today\u2019s uncertain terrain and mobile structures. Mesmerized by Crusoe<\/em>, I feel as if I\u2019m seeing a human battling, on a small, intense scale, himself, the elements, and his fate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

The Soaking Wet Festival at New York’s West End Theater, October 2-5. Bored house guests. What does that mean to you? Unearthing the jigsaw puzzle because it\u2019s raining and you can\u2019t take them to the beach? The duet Bored House Guests, dreamed up and performed by Sara Hook and Paul Matteson as part of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2809,"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":[287,199],"tags":[1296,1083,1297,1298,1143,1084,433,1295,1294,1293,1164,1144,1292],"class_list":{"0":"post-2808","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-non-western-dance","8":"category-postmodern-views","9":"tag-daniel-holt","10":"tag-david-parker","11":"tag-dwayne-brown","12":"tag-elizabeth-coker","13":"tag-jay-ryan","14":"tag-jeffrey-kazin","15":"tag-jin-ju-song-begin","16":"tag-malini-srinivasan","17":"tag-paul-matteson","18":"tag-sara-hook","19":"tag-sean-curran","20":"tag-soaking-wet","21":"tag-west-end-theater","22":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2808","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=2808"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2848,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2808\/revisions\/2848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}