{"id":3845,"date":"2015-12-09T12:40:12","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T17:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/?p=3845"},"modified":"2015-12-09T12:41:53","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T17:41:53","slug":"intimations-of-the-unseen-haunt-the-seen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/2015\/12\/intimations-of-the-unseen-haunt-the-seen\/","title":{"rendered":"Intimations of the Unseen Haunt the Seen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pavel Zu\u0161tiak & Palissimo Company at New York Live Arts.<\/p>\n

\"Nicholas

Nicholas Bruder, Emma Judkins, and Justin Morrison in Pavel Zu\u0161tiak’s Custodians of Beauty<\/em>. Photo: Ian Douglas<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s very dark down here. This is not how we\u2019re used to entering New York Live Arts\u2019 black-box theater: down the stairs, walking along a narrow corridor at the edge of the performing area. There are a couple of people with flashlights, but they don\u2019t fully light the way. Is this a birth canal of sorts? And into what?<\/p>\n

The overture to Pavel Zu\u0161tiak\u2019s Custodians of Beauty<\/em> is as disconcerting as our entrance. Once we\u2019re seated, and everything goes black, we hear the roar and rumble of Christian Frederickson\u2019s score start up; every few seconds, a scraping noise is heard\u2014\u201cssshhpt!\u201d Then rapidly undulating black lines appear\u2014racing across a scrim at the very front of the stage from our left to our right. They\u2019re thick to begin with, then bleed into one another, grow, thin down; the background turns orange. Then the lines vanish, and we see\u2014dimly\u2014two, no, three figures in black crouched together, squirming into a different configuration. Suddenly three overhead spotlights go out and the scrim falls.<\/p>\n

Over the course of ninety minutes, we will see a number of events\u2014some very brief\u2014separated by blackouts. Zu\u0161tiak is depriving us of transitions; each new scene occurs in isolation\u2014without apparent cause or effect. Frederickson\u2019s score hints at happenings that don\u2019t materialize here. Later Plato\u2019s cave allegory pops into my head; people chained and immobilized from birth assume the shadows that pass on a surface in front of them to be reality. Perhaps connecting this to Custodians of Beauty <\/em>is only muddying the waters, but, watching the remarkable work, I get the feeling that Zu\u0161tiak is showing us only part of a reality that is known to him, the dancers, and his other collaborators in Pavel Zu\u0161tiak & Palissimo Company (including assistant choreographer Lindsey Dietz Marchant).<\/p>\n

Interviewed by Jeremy Barker for \u201cContext Notes\u201d that appear in the program, Zu\u0161tiak said that he is currently interested in transferring to dance-making the process employed by sculptors: stone is gradually chiseled away from a mass of material to \u201creveal\u201d the form within. That means, I think that he starts by creating images with his collaborators and then, in his words, \u201cI want to see how much I can take away\u201d\u2014without, of course, compromising the essential nature of the ideas.<\/p>\n

The effect is intriguing, disturbing, and made all the more enigmatic by the work\u2019s title. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI applied the words \u201ccustodians of beauty\u201d to artists while addressing a group of them in the Sistine Chapel (additional \u201cContext Notes\u201d by Melanie George point this out). Did he mean that they extract from the beauty around them something that is essential to it and, by doing so make it\u2014or the vision of it\u2014 endure?<\/p>\n

The black-clad figures become increasingly visible. You can\u2019t be sure of the identity of the person in the face-concealing cap turning her\/his bent legs in and out, doing a headstand against a gold velvet wall at the back (I think it\u2019s Justin Morrison). The next post-blackout image shows a second person (Emma Judkins) jostling Morrison. Blackout. Now there are three (Nicholas Bruder has joined). Successive blackouts will give us brief glimpses of them paired variously or all three. Their shadows accompany them as they create poses as symmetrical as Rorschach blots. It\u2019s as if the images we do see have been snipped from a film, while the shots providing continuity have been eliminated.<\/p>\n

\"(L

(L to R): The spaces between. Emma Judkins, Justin Morrison, and Nicholas Bruder in Pavel Zu\u0161tiak’s Custodians of Beauty<\/em>. Photo: Ian Douglas<\/p><\/div>\n

Zu\u0161tiak creates impressions of absence in various ways. Bruder walks on, barechested now, and delivers a \u201cspeech\u201d to us in gestures and without facial expressions. His arms rounded to frame his head may mean \u201cso big,\u201d or not; his fist may be threatening. Or not. Is he pointing at something? Shortly after this, the stage becomes an arena for absence. What may be a distant train or surf roars, while we contemplate the space devoid of humans for quite a long time. Until a blackout intercedes between emptiness and three figures huddled on the floor\u2014this time nearly nude and tangling together. Later, we hear what might be a wittily devised conversation between two spectators at this very event (text by Alexandra Collier). They compare impressions, agree, and argue good-naturedly about what they\u2019ve seen. But since they\u2019re invisible and distanced by technology, they are half absent.<\/p>\n

Simon Harding\u2019s set (he also designed the videos) consists of two very large velvet walls\u2014one goldish one and the other red-orange. When invisible hands wheel them into new positions, they alter the space and conceal what once was visible. At one point, the performers and two stagehands pick up the plastic scrim that\u2019s now lying at the feet of the front row, and move up the side aisles with it, covering and then uncovering the audience. If you turn your head and look behind you, you see spectators\u2019 hands reaching up to speed the process along.<\/p>\n

\"(L

(L to R): Justin Morrison, Emma Judkins, and Nicholas Bruder in Custodians of Beauty<\/em>. Photo: Ian Douglas<\/p><\/div>\n

Zu\u0161tiak is interested in bridging the separation between the audience and the performers Here\u2019s another way he manages this. Morrison asks where \u201cRose\u201d is, and I guess someone raises a hand, because he walks up one aisle and returns to the stage with a woman; asking her to hold down the place for a few minutes; the performers exit. \u201cRose\u201d is on the spot; she could be any of us, and our hearts are with her. She happens to be young and very beautiful with long blond hair and wearing a stylish, flowing black outfit. She smiles, looks toward one wing, looks a little harder in the other direction, shrugs, adjusts her clothing, and then, rising to the occasion, does about three steps of what could turn into a soft-shoe number. Bruder returns and presumably tells her she can return to her seat. I imagine he thanks her.<\/p>\n

I consider her an intermission, because after the dancers have returned in different clothes (costume design by Asta Bennie Hostetter), the walls get moved more often, Joe Levasseur\u2019s splendid lighting creates more dramatic contrasts, and the music lays out more assertively rhythmic sounds.<\/p>\n

Morrison (what a mover!) walks on wobbly half-toe, gradually increasing the scope of his tiny steps and drooping his body forward. Bruder sings words that I can\u2019t always make out (“earthquake is one of them”). Judkins\u2019s solo is notable for the wonderfully precise way she almost jumps into a perch on one half-toe, the other leg stretched behind her. She does this suddenly several times without ever quavering. The men wrap their arms around her and carry her into a blackout.<\/p>\n

For the last event, they all wear sneakers, and no wonder. The step that the three, starting in a line, execute for many minutes is like a refined version of a preparation for something big. Feet apart, they jog, barely off the ground, from one foot to the other. It reminds me a little of the way basketball players dance when they\u2019re guarding a member of the opposing team or trying to fake one out. Judkins has taken her hair down, and it swings with the her movements.<\/p>\n

\"(L

(L to R): Emma Judkins, Nicholas Bruder, and Justin Morrison in Pavel Zu\u0161tiak’s Custodians of Beauty<\/em>. Photo: Ian Douglas<\/p><\/div>\n

The three dancers keep their bodies erect, their arms still, their feet agile. Drums, metallic clangs, and distorted voices submerge and combine to given them rhythmic support. They seem at ease, relaxing a bit into the steps of what turns into a precisely configured routine. Now they all go in the same direction; now one swings in the opposite way. They can cover space without changing the nature of the step, so that they appear in new spatial designs. They can travel backward or forward.<\/p>\n

They gradually increase the scale of this precision routine\u2014adding a gesture, a turn, a higher spring. They bounce front and back rather than from side to side. Abetted by the music, they get wilder, looser as the lights begin to darken. This is still dancing stripped of all excess, but not of vibrancy and the demand for endurance.<\/p>\n

The last mysterious image is of absence becoming a presence. In a pool of dim light, Bruder spins slowly, holding a long pole horizontal to the ground. As he does this, he also rotates the pole. At first, it appears to thicken. Then you realize that he is gradually unfurling a gray silk flag, a storm cloud of a flag. You have no idea of how big it is going to get. And something else: while this is happening, the air begins to smell sweet.<\/p>\n

Custodians of Beauty<\/em> tells no stories. It is a dance of images. You watch them recur, but they\u2019re not the same as they were before. They hint at meanings that vanish when the lights go out. You sense something that is not there hovering beneath what is <\/em>there. Yet what is before you holds\u2014compels\u2014 your attention. If this rich, yet pared-down dance were a meal, you\u2019d receive a few sips of fine wine, a slice of warm bread, and a handful of freshly picked berries, and you\u2019d go home feeling full.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pavel Zu\u0161tiak & Palissimo Company at New York Live Arts. It\u2019s very dark down here. This is not how we\u2019re used to entering New York Live Arts\u2019 black-box theater: down the stairs, walking along a narrow corridor at the edge of the performing area. There are a couple of people with flashlights, but they don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3849,"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":[199],"tags":[316,1852,768,1853,849,312,1854],"class_list":{"0":"post-3845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-postmodern-views","8":"tag-christian-frederickson","9":"tag-emma-judkins","10":"tag-joe-levasseur","11":"tag-justin-morrison","12":"tag-nicholas-bruder","13":"tag-pavel-zustiak","14":"tag-simon-harding","15":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845","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=3845"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3851,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845\/revisions\/3851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}