{"id":6856,"date":"2020-12-11T11:11:59","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T16:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/?p=6856"},"modified":"2021-06-30T20:12:57","modified_gmt":"2021-07-01T00:12:57","slug":"dancing-on-stone-and-in-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/2020\/12\/dancing-on-stone-and-in-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Dancing on Stone and in Water"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Jessica Cipriano in Du\u0161an T\u00fdnek\u2019s Quarry Dance IX <\/em>, Rockport, Massachusetts<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve said it before, and forgive me if I say it again: Dancers can\u2019t not dance. There they are on my laptop\u2019s window\u2014at work in their apartments, in parks, on piers, and in empty streets. Photographing yourself, all alone, practicing grand battements<\/em> may not constitute a convivial class, but it keeps you in shape while a pandemic sputters and swells and diminishes around you. Maybe partners and roommates have filmed you performing; maybe you just attached your cell phone to a music stand and shooed the cat away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Du\u0161an T\u00fdnek\u2019s Quarry Dance IX <\/em>is nothing like the above. It is also a little different from his previous eight related works, in that we can\u2019t view it sitting among others on an outdoors site.  Instead, we watch it on our computers. The Brooklyn-based choreographer has taken members of his company to Rockport, Massachusetts and filmed them in three of the numerous granite quarries  that dot the justly named town (these particular three privately owned). Lisa Hahn, Executive Director of Rockport\u2019s Windhover Performing Arts Center, has brought Quarry Dance IX <\/em>into our homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Elizabeth Hepp merging with a pine tree in Du\u0161an T\u00fdnek’s Quarry Dance IX<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The settings are beautiful. Left to themselves, the quarries fill up with water. Wind ripples their surfaces. I know from experience that sometimes the deep waters hold leftover machinery, but you\u2019d never guess that. In several of Quarry Dance IX<\/em>\u2019s images, pine trees have rooted in the cracks between stones. Sometimes Russ Gershon\u2019s spare music sensitively accompanies the fourteen short dances, but at other times, we hear water rushing and splashing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jessica Cipriano seen from afar on a slag mountain.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

What moves me most about the piece is the intrepidness and the bravery of the dancers: Alexandra Berger, Gary Champi, Jessica Cipriano, Elizabeth Hepp, and T\u00fdnek. Their changing clothes, mostly in shades of gray or green, unite them with the environment. They perform barefoot on rocky surfaces high above the quarries or wedged between huge stacks of sawn boulders or up to their necks in water. They leap across crevices. Photographer Anders Johnson is equally brave, judging by a photo of him holding up a camera while sitting in his boat: a floating inflatable swan. Sometimes we see the performers as small figures among the gigantic stone blocks. At other times, the camera shows in extreme close-up just their heads and reaching arms, or their feet seeking toeholds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alexandra Berger balancing on a stone.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I admire the fact that T\u00fdnek doesn\u2019t appear to have choreographed solos or duets and then transported them to the setting. The dances seem to grow out of their environments, to collaborate with the quarries’ rocks and water.  Champi rests, maybe even sleeps briefly, against a slanted stone. Hepp swings around a pine tree before dropping toward the water. Cipriano meets Champi on a grassy peninsula, and they dance, facing each other and close together, having fun, although they never touch. Berger balances on one foot on a rock surface that pokes up out of the water; the stone is so tiny that her dance involves a negotiation with what is possible. Hepp hops and rolls on a ledge before falling backward into the quarry. T\u00fdnek leaps between stones. On adjoining rocky surfaces, Berger and Champi copy each other\u2019s moves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Elizabeth Hepp perched by. a quarry pool in Du\u0161an T\u00fdnek’s Quarry Dance IX<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The choreographer plays a game with Champi and Cipriano, both wearing gray: He plunges into the water from a small carved-out ledge that\u2019s even with it, but it\u2019s she who emerges from the pool. She falls back, and he climbs out. He plunges in again, and she reappears. In extreme close-up, a man adjusts to the crevice into which he has wedged himself, and the camera slides away to reveal a woman also sheltering in stone. As the music taps eerily, the camera pulls back to reveal that the two are close enough to reach out to each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alexandra Berger fitting herself into a crevice<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not only the towering rocks that these courageous dancers inhabit. As I\u2019ve said, they fall into the water and rise from it, but they may also sink into it up to their necks or emerge partly out of it and flick the water into the air. Yes, of course, they dry off and go home. But they\u2019ve shown us something both beautiful and disturbing. Stone and liquid are their world, and they must embrace the hard surfaces, yield to the cold water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Du\u0161an T\u00fdnek leaping between rocky surfaces<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Note: The photographs were taken by Peter Van Demark, David Watts, Jr. or Anders Johnson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve said it before, and forgive me if I say it again: Dancers can\u2019t not dance. There they are on my laptop\u2019s window\u2014at work in their apartments, in parks, on piers, and in empty streets. Photographing yourself, all alone, practicing grand battements may not constitute a convivial class, but it keeps you in shape while a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":[1],"tags":[1054,836,3285,2442,3289,3283,3290],"class_list":{"0":"post-6856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-alexandra-berger","8":"tag-dusan-tynek","9":"tag-elizabeth-hepp","10":"tag-gary-champi","11":"tag-jessica-cipriano","12":"tag-lisa-hahn","13":"tag-windhover-performing-arts-center","14":"entry","15":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6856","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=6856"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6876,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6856\/revisions\/6876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}