Notebook on Bokaer's Ulysses Syndrome

Notebook on Jonah Bokaer's The Ulysses Syndrome, part of FIAF's World Nomads Tunisia:

Tsvi & Jonah Bokaer. Photo: Benedicte Longechal.

• Based on his father Tsvi Bokaer's Le Danseur Errant et La Méditerranée
• Contemplative, quiet, intimate
• Dream-like, at times ritualistic
• Pre-verbal, animalistic movement (crawling, lying) or childlike (step-hopping)
• Some OCD type gestures, like rubbing scalp or grabbing the floor with toes
• Tsvi uses his scarf to blindfold Jonah, who gropes along the perimeter
• This imparts a hostage situation feel to the work, which never entirely eases up
• Seated as if to play jacks, one slides his ring to bump the other's, making a sharp ting; following that, they fist bump 
• Jonah stands on one leg and cants his body forward and the other leg hooks back, creating an amazing sculpture
• We sense that this quite private artist has let us into his personal world for a night

Jonah, a sculpture. Photo: Benedicte Longechal.

• 6 fluorescent pan fixtures are suspended upside down like swings in a circle
• The two "shoot" out each light, "pew," in a humorous showdown
• Jonah dips his hands into the river of light that takes the place of the fluorescents, and you can almost feel it like a viscous substance
• A pile of newspaper pages sit at center; later separated and eventually hung on the swinging fixtures
• The soundscore, by Soundwalk Collective, is a hypnotic montage of found sound and utterances

Cunningham and Bokaer: Legacies Touring and Vanishing, 7/21/11

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Cunningham: Merce Fair, and Jonah Bokaer's On Vanishing at the Guggenheim.

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/museums/cunningham-and-bokaer-legacies-touring-and-vanishing/1481/

On Vanishing. Photo by Michael Hart.

The end of an era began two years ago, when Merce Cunningham passed away. After an intense period of (ongoing) mourning by the dance world and the world at large, plans were unveiled by the company for the ominously titled Legacy Tour, which is in its final stages, after which the company will disband. The third-to-last New York phase took place last weekend as part of Lincoln Center Festival. (It will appear in BAM’s Next Wave Festival in December with three programs, and then leading up to New Year’s Eve at the Park Avenue Armory. Then, kaput.) But meanwhile, at the Guggenheim a few days prior to “Merce Fair,” MCDC alumnus Jonah Bokaer was quietly adding to his own oeuvre (and, in a sense, to Merce’s) with a polished, solid work, On Vanishing.

Anchises: Intergenerational Respect, 11/18/10

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Jonah Bokaer's Anchises at Abrons Art Center

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/performance/anchises-intergenerational-respect/953/

Dancers: Jonah Bokaer, James McGinn, Valda Setterfield, Meg Harper, Catherine Miller. Photo taken at Arnolfini in Bristol, courtesy of: Ariane and Seth Harrison, Harrison Atelier (HAt), 2010.

Jonah Bokaer’s new dance work,Anchises, is a subtle reminder of how navel-gazing and ego-driven our daily lives can be. The cast mixes older (Valda Setterfield and Meg Harper) and younger dancers (Catherine Miller, James McGinn, and Bokaer). They frequently pair off, one older and one younger, prodding, leaning, and teasing one another gently. There is a great sense of familarity, respect, and devotion between generations, where a tender touch can be as moving as when Bokaer carries Setterfield across the stage. In a recent New York Times article, Bokaer cited as a point of inspiration how he and another dancer carried Merce Cunningham down the studio’s stairs during a blackout, in addition to the story from Greek mythology about Aeneas carrying his father, Anchises, out of a burning Troy. It’s a distant cry from so much of what we see in small dance venues.

The design firm Harrison Atelier created the intriguing, functional set, featuring gray foam cubes scattered on the floor, and white foam cylinders suspended in a cluster of plastic tubing; the cylinders are released to become additional props and furniture that the dancers sit on or move about. In fact, so much time is performing the task of moving the blocks that it evokes Judson, where any movement can be choreography. The dancier movement eschews virtuosic technique in favor of simple passages in which geometrical poses alternate with brisk lunges or tilts. In a duet between Miller and McGinn and a solo for Bokaer, the tempo quickens and the dancers eat up space more rapidly. Yet the dynamic is consistently gentle.  Loren Dempster created the ebbing and flowing score, performed live in the pit.

Dance Alfresco, 8/6/09

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Dance Alfresco—Cunningham, Jonah Bokaer and Judith Sanchez Ruiz, Nicholas Leichter and Monstah Black

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/performance/dance-alfresco/740/

This year, on paper, Evening Stars looked a little sad. The lineup had been reduced to one company, albeit Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and just three shows. In past years, the dance series, co-presented by the River to River Festival and the Joyce Theater, has featured a number of notable companies over the course of a week, or several themed programs. The venue moved to the open lawn of Rockefeller Park in Battery Park City, from a more ceremonious proscenium stage farther downtown. And overshadowing everything was the recent passing of Merce Cunningham.

And yet, as it should, art transcended all. Two smallish platforms separated by a path of about 50 feet were used continuously by the dancers. The Event comprised many short segments of old and new work set to music by David Behrman and Stephan Moore. We could position ourselves much closer of the dancers (or much farther away) than in a theater. We could process the constant nonverbal communication between partners, who checked one another with their eyes, their hands, whatever body parts touched. We saw the dancers make minute adjustments to their balances, their hard-working muscles trembling at times. We could more easily read the shifting dynamics between segments, the humor that arises from certain physical situations, the difficulty in maintaining stillness. The movement was different on each platform, demanding some peripheral viewing. The weather was ideal; the blue sky and setting sun provided clear, strong lighting—a live experience that matched the amped up mediation of HD TV and 3D films that we’ve become used to.