Benon—Straw or Plastic?

Souleymane Badolo and Charmaine Warren. Photo: Ian Douglas

Souleymane Badolo is one of a few artists who has burnished a reputation by performing solo (coincidentally, his nickname). He has a strong presence—full of humanity, both vulnerable and dignified, that radiates from not just his face, but from every part of his body. For his new work at Danspace Project, Benon, Charmaine Warren—a writer, scholar, and dancer—joins him onstage, also emanating great pathos and power. The audience is seated on all four sides of the St. Marks sanctuary; Tony Turner has created two sculptures made of empty plastic bottles (one is lit from inside), and a panel of black wooden planks. 

Shadowed closely by Warren, wearing a hooded cloak of clear plastic over a dress with a Hefty-strip skirt (by Wunmi), Badolo clutches an armful of plastic cups, dropping one now and then to produce a clatter. Warren looks like a ghost wordlessly guiding him to inflict her evil plastic bidding on the earth. Jeff Hudgins plays the sax in the choir loft; as he moves from one side to another, and then downstairs, the sound shifts like a restless spirit.

After a long spell of wandering, the two dancers face one another, making a burst of small hand gestures. Badolo puts on the cloak, and they both fling themselves on their stomachs like human bowling balls, knocking into the scattered cups. Warren prowls the edge of a sharply lit oval (lighting by Carol Mullins); the music shifts to a recording of a plucked instrument with vocals. She rolls her shoulders, scoops air toward her face, and poses with one foot in a forced arch. Badolo has donned a tunic embellished with grass that sits perpendicularly to his arms and torso, transforming him into a bristling mythic creature of nature. Warren places some grass rings, mats, and fronds in a circle around Badolo, whose every careful pose is accentuated by the tunic. She removes his tunic piece by piece, leaving him bare-chested—the human in between nature and industrialization. He approaches a couple of viewers and stares at them confrontationally, from a close proximity, implying that we are all responsible for the planet. The movement remains upright, at times reminiscent of heroic Greek sculpture. 

Hudgins' sax plays over a recording of music from Burkina Faso (Badolo's homeland). The motifs throughout—the props/costumes, the movement, the music—delineate the contrast between a contemporary industrialized society versus a traditional one more respectful of nature. It's a simple premise, but one that needs all the exposure it can get.

Bronx Gothic—Innocence Lost

Okwui Okpakwasili. Photo: Ian Douglas

If you mention the name Okwui Okpokwasili to NYC dance world familiars, one of the first reactions is invariably, "she's so beautiful." It's not just her lithe, muscular physique; she radiates great dignity, self-possession, and grace. These traits no doubt factored into her being cast as Queen Hippolyta in Julie Taymor's recent production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Theater for a New Audience, and in her leather cloak, long gown, and platform shoes she certainly embodied royalty. Thus it's all the more shocking to see her stripped to her physical and emotional essence in her solo show, Bronx Gothic, presented at Danspace Project by the Coil Festival through February 1.

In this intense, intensely personal physical theater piece, as we enter, she stands in the corner of a cordoned off square within the sanctuary, where the audience lines two sides; her body judders and shakes as if jolted by an electric shock. How she sustains this trance for even a few minutes is astonishing, but this continues for another quarter hour. She then calmly begins to revisit her Bronx-based adolescence, reading notes exchanged with her experienced best friend at the time. Despite her maroon jersey halter dress being soaked with sweat, she barely breathes hard as she speaks into a mic. She switches octaves for the two girls' voices, between naive and knowing; her vocal and breathing control should be the envy of any opera singer. 

Between her many note-reading sessions, she repeats an alarming movement sequence in which she collapses to the floor joint by joint, each bone thudding as it hits, as well as her skull. She sings several songs in a lovely voice, lifting the mood of this dense reverie. The tone is also lightened by the kitschy figurine lamps and plant clusters scattered around what feels as much like a boxing ring as a stage. Much of what she recounts from the notes are differing levels of maturity from two 11-year-old girls: one all too experienced with boys and sex; the other innocent. Toward the end of the 80-minute work, Okpokwasili eerily takes on a wise Bronx adolescent's tone and aggression. She tears down the nature of the two girls' toxic relationship, recalling being repeatedly tagged ugly. It clearly scarred her, and she repeats it so much that we, as she must have, begin to believe it. A litany of questions and commands prompting us to determine if we're waking or dreaming further erases the line between real and imagined. The dream shades into nightmare again and again.

This confessional often approaches how the naive girl must have felt—held between thrall and terror at her friend's braggadoccio and admonishments—but witnessing the gamut of expression used by Okpokwasili is to marvel at her multifaceted talent.

Everybody Dance Now! Or just stand there.

Earth to Annique (in Gatekeepers): you can come down now! Photo: David Andrako

This fall, two organizations have opened within one block near the BAM Harvey Theater, BRIC House and Theater for a New Audience. BRIC's new headquarters is on the location where it was previously based along with Urban Glass (which also has new digs in the complex) and is an impressively varied multi-use space, including "the stoop"—an amphitheater like open atrium with step seating, a gallery space, a tv studio, a rehearsal space, a cafe area, and a 250-seat flexible theater.

Ron Brown shows the way to his company and community dancers
 in On Earth Together. Photo: David Andrako

The good news is that the mood was celebratory at one of Evidence's first week of performances (and the first ever dance in the theater). The theater was pretty full, and the audience eager to embrace the company. It presented an older work, Gatekeepers (1999), to music by Wunmi (who also designed the costumes), and the latest version of a growing Stevie Wonder tribute, On Earth Together, begun in 2011 and now nearly an evening-length work in itself. The twist this time around: dancers from the community were smoothly incorporated into several of the numbers. Their ages ranged wildly, from elementary school-aged to grandparent-aged, but all danced enthusiastically and with composure. Some looked nearly ready to substitute for one of Brown's excellent regular company dancers, including the ever-magnetic and silky Annique Roberts, who became Brown's partner in the final movements. She clearly inspires him, as she does us. 

The bad news? The sight lines are wanting in the chosen bleacher-style setup, at least for dance. Seated behind an average height person, I had to lean forward to glimpse the dancers' feet. Hopefully, the arrangement can be tweaked to fix this drawback, but it wasn't enough to dampen the crowd's exuberance. And the stage is perhaps half the size of the just-big-enough Joyce, where Evidence often performs. The run continues this week with Torch (2013) and On Earth Together with a different group of community members. 

Huggin' it out in Way In. Photo: Ian Douglas

Way In, at Danspace Project, by Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener, also included non-professional performers. It they wanted to—not that they do—this pair will never be able to shake the fact that they were stellar dancers with Merce Cunningham. Fortunately, the skills they honed with Merce are now like a superpower, summoned at will to astound us mortals. Technique aside, they have an intellectual and conceptual curiosity that is catalyzing some fascinating and varied work (Interface and Nox). Here, they chose to work with lighting and set designer Davison Scandrett and writer and ex-dance reviewer for the NY Times, Claudia La Rocco. (Question: Why did they collaborate with La Rocco? Answer: So she couldn't review the show! *rimshot*). Jokes aside, La Rocco has always been unsparingly honest with her opinion in reviews, and here she takes a risk in exposing herself physically to what is most likely an audience very familiar with her point of view. 

The piece begins somewhat tediously, with Scandrett lying on a dolly, awkwardly wheeling hand-written signs (turn off phones, emergency exits, etc) to La Rocco, who coyly holds them up like a boxing ring "girl," and exaggeratedly imitates a bored airline attendant. The set, by Mitchell, Riener, and Scandrett, played a major role—pink lace fabric formed a false ceiling over the stage, and walled off the altar area. It created a perfumy bordello feel, and the resulting compartments were lit to delineate on and offstage. Light was shone through the lace to capture its textural pattern in shadow. 

The work is so stuffed that those who crave technique are rewarded, as are those who care more about ideas. Riener and Mitchell's focus, flexibility, and control are peerless; in one section, Riener relevés on his incredibly articulated metatarsals and ever so slowly rotates 270º, tracking Mitchell as he slinks around the perimeter, close to viewers. You can hardly see Riener moving, so great is his finesse, and even though his laser gaze directs you to watch Mitchell, it's impossible to stop watching Riener. Backgrounding the first half, over Muzak-style early music (Rameau and Lully) we hear a monologue (spoken by La Rocco) shifting between descriptive and postulative: what do we expect to see? How important is technique? After awhile, the verbiage devolves into noise, but the mere juxtaposition of the two "teams" and their respective activities calls into question many tenets of performance that have been raised since there was dance, and more frequently since the Judson movement.

The Way Out of Way In. Photo: Ian Douglas

The non-dancers were both ungraceful enough in contrast to the Riener & Mitchell that it was hard to resist feeling resentful toward their presence onstage, presumably intentionally. (I should add that nearly anyone would be ungraceful compared to those two.) This particularly held true toward the end, when Riener & Mitchell moved behind the scrim to change from their sleek black unitards and rehearsal clothes that they'd layered on, into silver, dollar-print trunks and pink lace jumpsuits. Onstage, the other two played catch-the-rolling-gumball for a long time. A dialogue between them played, and again became noise. (They also lay like odalisques, drank tea, and ate cake.) No doubt it was intended to ask what kind of movement constitutes performance, because the gumballers clearly were "performing." 

But we were given plenty of virtuosic dance by the trained ones, who had a sort of throw-down. They repeatedly ran at one another from opposite ends of the sanctuary, clashing like elegant wrestlers, lifting each other with effort. They circled the stage, doing bold assemblé jumps. Mitchell promenaded in arabesque led by Riener's hand in his mouth. Down to their trunks, they moved like powerful boa constrictors, sliding their legs up the columns into splits, bending and twisting in yoga poses, slipping into mid-stage splits done as close as shadows. They danced as one at times, their shared histories and understanding becoming rich fuel to add to their Cunningham superpowers. 

In the finale, Scandrett moved a bunch of spotlights into place around a mic. La Rocco changed from her jeans into a long taffeta skirt, untied her voluminous hair, pulled white tulle netting over her head, and began intoning into the mic like a priestess. "Why did you come here tonight? What did you expect?" Her speech echoed increasingly until it was unintelligible. Riener and Mitchell, sweaty, by now had squidged their way across the sanctuary, up the steps, and were posed fawningly at her feet, like sweet putti, before standing at attention. It seemed like they might be married, but perhaps it was more marking the union of collaborators, of ideas. But it was an odd, kitschy ritual capping a show that did indeed pose a boatload of questions—many old, some new—about a way in. 

Nox—Epitaph for a Restless Soul

Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener. Photo: Robbie Campbell

After Merce Cunningham company disbanded on New Year's Day, we were all so busy mourning and feeling sorry for ourselves that we didn't necessarily notice his dancers moving on with things. In the wake of Rashaun Mitchell's Nox, a collaboration with fellow alum Silas Riener, at Danspace Project last week, it seems now like a revelation: that dancers with immense skills, at once specific and broadly applicable, are now free to forge new artistic paths.

This epiphany was manifested in a meditation about writer Anne Carson's brother dying and being remembered in an accordion book epitaph and translated poem by Catullus; the performance "is a replica of it, as close as we could get," according to Carson. Riener seemed to embody the spirit of the lost soul, appearing in blindingly lit doorways and sprinting across the balcony and stage in abject recklessness. He tried to meld with the church walls, pushing on the immobile plaster pillars like Sisyphus in an absurdly unwinnable battle. His shadow drifted eerily past externally-lit stained glass windows. Riener tumbled down the sanctuary risers, or crawled down them arachnid-style on his elbows and knees. He seemed to be trying to cleave his body from his spirit, and very nearly achieved it, from what I could tell. During these exorcismic attempts, Mitchell largely observed him at a short distance. "I prowl my brother," intoned Carson, precisely.

Mitchell began the piece by entering, circling the stage periphery, and sitting on the the floor just in front of us, back to us, his bearing quietly powerful. He perhaps represented the family, or the rest of us—helpless voyeurs; catching Riener's falling body (and vice versa), interacting with him for spans and yet never completely connecting. Riener was fully present and yet in another psychic universe. He has that alchemical balance of being in complete control of his impressively skilled movements, and yet on the very edge of abandon. A memory of him similarly tearing up the stage in Merce's Split Sides last winter at BAM is forever branded in my brain.

Davison Scandrett designed the lighting, which with the inside-out staging, pushed into all corners and garretts of the church. Carson and artist Robert Currie scrawled magic marker drawings on two overhead projects, reminiscent of elementary school. They drew images of Mitchell and Riener, pinned to the wall where the projectors shone, in some futile attempt to capture them. Chunks of text were spoken, layered with Benjamin Miller's haunting sound score, mixed live. Carson's visible presence as an "artist" was conceptually at odds with her recorded/live readings. Her role as a big catalyst for literary/choreographic collaboration in recent years should be noted, particularly in light of her program bio, which says this well-known writer "teaches ancient Greek for a living."

In the searing, chaotic finale, Mitchell gave Riener "CPR," essentially dribbling his ribcage off the floor repeatedly. Riener folded into himself, grabbing his legs like alien objects. He rolled over the tops of his toes, arching into a backbend supported on the other end by his face, spirit nearly anarchically liberated. Mitchell could only watch, riveted as we were, and comfort him in his torturous transition.

Cultural Identity: Trope or Truth

In performance, the politics of identity is such a common stated theme as to be a default for artists who’d prefer to let their work do the talking rather than writing the dreaded artist’s statement. But is this acceding to cultural dynamics? Is it simply the easiest path, a one-size-fits-all panacea meant to try to shape the amorphous?

Last weekend, Danspace Project showed 80s videos of dance excerpts by black choreographers, chosen by Will Rawls as part of the Parallels platform, titled "Protagonists: Documents of Dance and Debate," at the appropriately alliterative Douglas Dunn loft. Shown were clips by Blondell Cummings, Ishmael Houston-Jones (the platform’s curator), Ralph Lemon (all three were present), plus a dialogue/demo between Steve Paxton and Bill T. Jones.

None of dances came from what Houston-Jones termed “the Ailey tradition,” a semi-codified blend of modern, jazz, and African traditions, with a theatrical bent. Nor do these artists describe themselves (at least firstly) as African-American choreographers. They simply happen to be African-American.

What came through was how personally specific these excerpts were, which is one of the few common denominators of post-Judson modern dance in New York. Essentially, the freedom to pursue a personal theater, regardless of technique, which nonetheless is continually at hand. It just doesn’t define these dances.

I’d never seen Cummings perform, which I immediately regretted after seeing her slippery, darting, detailed phrases accumulate like a dazzling mound of soap bubbles in Chicken Soup. Set in a "kitchen," she danced with a cast iron pan, tapping into the role of women in the family, as the family foundation, providing sustenance and comfort, and yet also somehow ineluctably and gravely bound to duty.

Houston-Jones’ work included his mother. He carried her onstage on his shoulder (a simple act that encapsulated the poignancy of a mother/son relationship) and she recited a monologue while painting eggs. His point was to try to ignore whatever she was saying, creating an complex tension between the connect and the disconnect.

Ralph Lemon’s segment was apparently one of the first choreographic efforts by him (and one he hadn’t seen in 30 years). It seemed strange, purposefully opaque, gender vague (he wore a skirt), but intriguing—a precursor to his later powerful mix of sheer kinetic impulse and anthropology.

The Paxton/Jones segment consisted of short solo performance clips, followed by a heated dialogue about aesthetics and authenticity. The original talk from 1983 was provocative then, and still gives off a static charge years later. An example: when Jones does an arabesque, what are the associations it brings that could be questioned as emotionally authentic? Jones insisted that performing it elicited certain genuine emotions. Clearly, just watching a few minutes didn’t allow time to absorb much, but apparently it can (and should)  be seen at the New York Library of Performing Arts.

So rather than creating any sort of definition of "black dance," this program seemed to toss a loosely woven net around a number of imaginative choreographers working in the 80s, who happen to be black. Like their non-black counterparts, they inserted details that either read clearly, or added some mysterious personal texture, but in the end felt universal.

Pam Tanowitz at Danspace Project, 5/26/10

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Pam Tanowitz's The Wanderer Fantasy at Danspace Project

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/ballet/pam-tanowitz-at-danspace-project/845/

You have to wonder that if Pam Tanowitz were male, would she be twice as well-known as she is now? Her talent is at least as deserving as that of some of her male counterparts, and in fact the choreographers whose work hers occasionally elicits—Merce Cunningham and Mark Morris, to name a couple—are household names. In any case, her latest work, The Wanderer Fantasy (Dances 1 and 2), performed at Danspace Project last week, further etched her name into the “don’t miss” pantheon of contemporary New York choreographers.

The SUNY Purchase Dance Corps performedDance 1, augmented by Cunningham dancer Daniel Madoff, set to a taped score of music by Schubert and Liszt and performed before Philip Treviño’s cheap-chic set of squiggle-painted cardboard boxes. Though they may be students, the dancers showed a technical refinement and polish necessary to perform Tanowitz’s structured hybrid of modern and ballet that often evokes Cunningham. It is a natural fit on Madoff, and on Dylan Crossman, another Cunningham dancer who joins in later. Crisp right-angle arabesques and attitudes mix with contracted torsos and rocking pelvises in Tanowitz’s particular blend of casually formal and intentionally relaxed. Five pairs freeze in quasi-serious ballet poses; the group links arms and steps slowly, ceremoniously. The dramatic, romantic music is sometimes visualized, other times refuted. Black light set off the painted motifs, plus the white shirts and programs in the audience.

So much more than solos, 2/5/10

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Danspace Project's i get lost: An Evening of Solos curated by Ralph Lemon, with Judith Sanchez Ruiz and Souleymane Badolo.

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/performance/so-much-more-than-solos/795/

After watching i get lost: An Evening of Solos (February 4-6), part of the platform curated by choreographer Ralph Lemon at Danspace Project, I wondered why more solos aren’t paired on programs. Then again, that’s part of the allure of this new series, to allow accomplished artists to juxtapose other unique artists in ways that reveal so much more than if they were isolated. By nature, a soloist is both form and content, and so can be very difficult to execute, but both Judith Sánchez Ruíz and Souleymane Badolo excelled in the medium.

Sánchez Ruíz, from Cuba, performed And They Forgot To Love. Instantly striking was her costume, which appeared to be a lace-front, sheer-back top, when it was actually white tape applied carefully, her back bare above a black lace skirt. This immediately set forth the idea that our perception was one thing, reality another.Sánchez Ruíz didn’t do anything particularly revolutionary, yet at the same time, nothing was really familiar about the flat, parting palms, the crab-like sliding in a yoga bridge, or pushing herself backward on her thighs, back arched. She managed to create a half-hour of dance that seemed entirely new. Movements that seemed related to gesture didn’t actually carry any overt meaning or function. She performed in silence, until toward the end that we heard a woman’s voice speaking a monologue in Spanish; it eventually changed to English, a possible metaphor for geographical transplantation, or gradual enlightenment.