Anything but Empty Moves

Photo: Jean-Claude Carbonne

If you stripped away the soundtrack for Angelin Preljocaj's Empty Moves Parts I, II & III—John Cage's Empty Words—it would still be constitute an immensely gratifying experience. The movement that the French choreographer created for this 1:45 work is jammed full of modern dance invention and exploration into the possibilities of the human body times four. It was performed at the Joyce by Nuriya Magimova, Baptiste Coissieu, Yurié Tsugawa, and Fabrizio Clemente (the latter two performed parts I & II at BAM in 2010), to a recording of Cage's 1977 Milan performance, at which the audience members at his 1977 reading essentially staged a revolt while Cage serenely reads his deconstruction of Thoreau's text. They shouted, clapped, stamped, and howled in protest.

Preljocaj's choreography is only nominally linked to the Cage score, most notably in part III when some of the dancers' rhythms mirror the riotous clapping. For most of the work, there's great tension between the movement onstage and the mental action summoned by the aural anarchy. The impact of the sound is so mentally powerful, however, that many Joyce viewers were compelled to walk out, despite the rewarding dance taking place. Or perhaps they were expecting to see ballet.

Photo: Jean-Claude Carbonne

That said, the choreographer often works in the classical ballet lexicon, and many of the works seen in New York, particularly at BAM, tend to have elaborate sets and are composed of many sections which vary in narrative and dynamic. Empty Moves departs from what I have seen of Preljocaj's work, to the extent that it seems that quite another person created it. It feels rooted in the structure and approach of Merce Cunningham, with whom Preljocaj studied, further underscored by the use of a score by Cage, Cunningham's life partner. 

The several measures of movement that form the opening section act as a kind of reset button between parts, augmented from the second repeat on with a bottle of much deserved water passed among the dancers. But for the most part, the movement does not repeat, nor is it of a common canon. It is made on specific bodies so closely interlinked and dependent that after a time they seem to move as one large organism. Experiments with cause and effect, gravity, and geometry are endlessly explored. An occasional emotional reaction or humorous gesture warms the proceedings, which can come across as nearly scientific in their procedural pace and exhaustive depth.

Trisha Brown's Astral Converted at the Armory

Astral Converted, performed in inner space. Photo: Stephanie Berger

The name Trisha Brown immediately conjures upright choreography, a deceptively plush style with ample leg brushes, twisting upper bodies, and rapid direction shifts. Or perhaps, her early, action-oriented pieces, involving wall walking or leaning. But watching Astral Converted (1991) at the Armory last week was to revisit the rigorous Valiant period of her career. Of particular note are the knotty still floor poses where the shoulders and head are treated as equal support elements to the limbs, the dancers' bodies folded into blobby pyramids, morphing into abstract sculptures. 


The collaboration with Robert Rauschenberg (visual presentation) and John Cage (sound score) might suggest that the piece was created earlier, since they contributed elements to dances decades before. There is an odd temporal tension between the Judson swag (push brooms) and the taut, formal choreography in which they're used. There's none of that shaggy incidental aspect here; everything is deliberate, designed, constructed. 


Rauschenberg's rolling towers are brilliantly economical, compactly serving the functions of set, lighting, and sound. He assembled auto parts in a metal framework, powering the headlights with car batteries, and employing car stereo systems and sensors for timing and triggering. The directional lighting amid the yawning dark of the Armory evoked images of midnight dancing in a parking lot lit by parked cars.


He garbed the dancers in silver unitards with contrasting silver panels; the womens' had sheer panels between the legs, like bat wings. Cage's score was fairly tame for him, sustained brass notes and bleats that felt somewhat distant due to the speaker locations. From time to time, a dancer would roll a tower to a new location, once more shifting the aspect.


Momentum built as time passed. Rather than loose-knit groups, Brown used straight lines of four dancers, or neat pairs. A late trio featured careful, yet daring, partnering, the men swooping a woman from the floor and flipping her rotisserie-style, with her leg and torso as a spit. Leanings did appear in sections, which when combined with the brooms, braided Brown's past with a more modern, stringent period. It's humbling to realize these were but a couple of genres within this inventive choreographer's creative output. While Astral used the Drill Hall's spectacular vastness less than previous productions, it did take on an otherworldliness from the void, like a glimpse of a beautiful, intelligent alien civilization.