Zombies and Blackboards, 1/12/12

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Zombies and Blackboards: Daniel Linehan and Michael Klien/Steve Valk.

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/zombies-and-blackboards/2080/

Salka Ardal Rosengren, Thibault Lac, and Daniel Linehan in Zombie Aporia. Photo by Ian Douglas.

I love me some ballet, but focusing away from traditional dance vocabularies, movement can be generated in many ways. Two shows I saw this past week demonstrated how artists use inventive methods as both a means and an end—Daniel Linehan’s Zombie Aporia and Michael Kliën’sChoreography for Blackboards. These were, respectively, part of theAmerican Realness (tbspMGMT) and COIL (PS 122) festivals, timed to entice the multiple eyeballs of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) conference-goers (as well as Under the Radar).

Zombie Aporia, at the Abrons Art Center, was performed by Linehan (who studied at PARTS and is based in Brussels) with Salka Ardal Rosengren and Thibault Lac. Working with spoken and sung words as much as dance, at times they took directives from a laptop, or one another; recombining verses, moving in a naively appealing style. This childlike aura was amplified through sections that evoked games like Simon Says led by an orchestra conductor, and follow-the-bouncing-ball sing alongs. In an especially poignant section, verses scrolled on a laptop controlled by Rosengren, eyes closed. She held Lac’s hand as he acted as the human microphone, loudly speaking the words that Linehan, on tiptoe and reading from the laptop, whispered into his ear. This simple, interdependent poetry of this part contrasted with other more robust scenes, with Rosengren in particular forcefully reciting text as Lac created vibrato by squeezing her body, or whipping her forward and back. Sound and movement were inseparable, performative agents of a powerful curiosity and intelligence.

American Realness, 1/13/10

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American Realness festival: Luciana Achugar, Zoe|Juniper, Layard Thompson

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/performance/american-realness/786/

“Realness” sounds like one of Stephen Colbert’s words, akin to truthiness. It came in handy recently in a dense, satisfying festival called American Realness, organized by Ben Pryor ofTBSPmgmt, which coincided with APAP (Association of Performing Arts Presenters). While the term realness comes from the LGBT community, where it pertains to one’s ability to pass as the opposite gender, it was expanded here to apply broadly to life and creating. Who knows, maybe it will become an “ism” for a some of the performance that’s currently being done in the US that defies categorization.

Zoe|Juniper performed a segment of A Crack in Everything. Zoe Scofield’s choreography carved shapes and snapped into place, using the body to trap or release space. One of the four dancers turned upstage as they moved ensemble, adding visual interest. All of them, including one man, wore pale silk tunics, lending a formal touch to an otherwise feral attitude.