Murmurs and Rituals at Lincoln Center

Aurélia Thierrée... Just hangin' around. Photo: Stephanie Berger

Murmurs is a showcase of visual one-liners and sleights-of-hand, sewn together in a loose
narrative that follows a melancholy woman's reluctant move from her home to, seemingly, an institution. Aurélia Thierrée, the star, is from a supremely talented family that includes her mother, Victoria Thierrée Chaplin, who conceived and directed this show. (Aurélia's brother is James Thierrée who has created numerous highly popular nouveau cirque productions, seen in NYC at BAM, that have included marvelous designs by Victoria. And they are descendants of both Charlie Chaplin and Eugene O'Neill.) 

Of the burgeoning nouveau cirque genre, Murmurs sits on the quieter, more intimate end of the scale. Several of the skits involve Thierrée manipulating puppets with strings looped through her fingers; my close proximity demanded that I consciously suspend disbelief, which worked about half the time, but it's not as if she's trying for complete illusion. Such scenes included an encounter with a giant bubble wrap monster who nuzzled her nose, and a tipsy drowsy, then frisky, "man" at a table. In a later more successful example, Thierrée sported a zebra-striped feather headdress and tail that evoked a gazelle with delicate flickering ears. 

Aurélia Thierrée and Jaime Martinez. Photo: Stephanie Berger

Chaplin's numerous sets features several photographic murals of townhouses reminiscent of Venice. Strategic slits in the vinyl provided slippery exits and entrances. The most intriguing and original set was an ancient wall whose layers peeled off to reveal first a tropical locale complete with little waving palm trees and a removable boat, and then a Roman mosaic that sprouted an arm and hugged Thierrée. Murmurs can refer to this "wall" (mur, in French), or to the whispers that are pretty much the only verbal communication. Sentimental music, such as distant opera, mixes with ambient sound so that despite the dearth of dialogue, the quiet is never overt. 

Supporting cast members include the razor-sharp dancer Jaime Martinez, familiar from Parsons Dance Company, who slices through a couple of tango-esque duets with Thierrée, and the lanky Magnus Jakobsson, a rubber-limbed clown whose regard of the main character evolves from peeved mover to enchanted servant. During set changes, the men wear ghostly grey suits and masks which add to the chilling idea that Thierrée was in the process of being committed against her will, culminating in a scene with a bare hospital bed. In a couple of more daring bits that played with aerial suspension, she dangled from a laundry line, and appeared to dance on air. The genuinely surprising ending involved a cat who seemed to be the last inhabitant of a collapsing building. Ushers chased the cat through the aisles; he finally dashed backstage as the rest of the cast took bows. Murmurs was the closest thing to dance at this year's Lincoln Center Festival. 

Dendy's Ritual Cyclical. Yep, I had just been shooed from where they dance. Photo: Susan Yung 

Before Murmurs, I caught Mark Dendy's Ritual Cyclical, part of Lincoln Center Out of Doors, and performed all over Lincoln Center's north plaza. It's difficult to separate the experience of viewing the show from the actual performative elements of the work. That said, some impressions:

• Arrived a few minutes late; wedged myself into the crowds in the tree grove, facing the reflecting pool, where I saw... crowds of people facing the pool. A small percentage seemed to be performers, who eventually raised their hands (that's all I could see them do), waving them gently. Apparently performers had done stuff in the pool.
• Three dancers gamboled on the canted lawn above Lincoln (the restaurant), where, incongruously, al fresco diners ate.
• I was shooed off of the concrete bench lining the grove, so I could see even less. Went to the Met Opera house side of the park, and was promptly shooed off of that, too. Some of the dancers wore military fatigues, so their bossiness was in character. They assembled to raise a flag, Iwo Jima style.
• Others, in evening garb, arranged their hair and clothing just so, then langourously swept their arms and stretched into elegant poses. 
• In the Met's window bays, another group, in office wear, leaned and posed in tandem; one slowly tore strips of newspaper and let them flutter in the wind, which, combined with the vertical piers, recalled 9/11. 
• On a temp stage in front of the library, three of the soldiers changed into Elvises, though by now most of my view was of the head of the person in front of me. I saw a lot of viewers plugging their ears during Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner.
• The production by nature was meant to move the audience around, and presumably it was not really possible to see every piece of the action. But Dendy activated the whole sprawling north end of the plaza, luring a big crowd. And hey, it was dance.

Lincoln Center Diminishes Dance This Summer

New York is so dance rich that it becomes a bit of a perverse sport to complain about the plethora. But in a twist, Lincoln Center's indoor summer festivals are ditching dance this year.

But first, we're on the eve of New York City Ballet's spring season, and two weeks hence, ABT's, which take us halfway through July. That's an insane amount of the finest repertory in the history of feet, danced by the finest feet in the history of dirt. 

ABT ends in July, and Lincoln Center Festival begins. Right after that, in August, Mostly Mozart takes over Lincoln Center.

This year, however, looks like I've got many free summer nights after ABT since neither the LCF nor Mostly Mozart is presenting any dance. 

LCF used to heavily feature dance. In 2006 alone, there was a mini-festival of Israeli dance with Batsheva, Yasmeen Godder, and Emanuel Gat, plus San Francisco Ballet with three programs including Mark Morris' Sylvia, STREB, Saburo Teshigawara, and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane. In 2010, the Mariinsky Ballet visited, and the festival hosted the clever Merce Fair.

Sure, LCF is further cultivating cross-genre performance, where the lines blur between music, theater, and everything else. One show, Murmurs, features the movement theater (or nouveau cirque) of Aurelie Thiérrée and Victoria Thiérrée Chaplin, but it is not dance. What happened?

Plus, Mark Morris has waved the baton in recent Mostly Mozart seasons, and usually brings one of his splendid full-length works, such as L'Allegro, or the sublime Mozart Dances, which premiered in that halcyon 2006 season. This year—nada. 

Lincoln Center Out of Doors just announced the season's lineup. Huzzah—it includes the companies of Mark Dendy, Kyle Abraham, and John Heginbotham.

So, dance mavens, more nights watching baseball this year. Now I've really gotta roots for the Mets. Maybe the timing is providential, because they need my support.

Kimmo Pohjonen's Accordion Wrestlers

Man hugs galore.

Kimmo Pohjonen/Helsinki Nelson's Accordion Wrestling, part of Lincoln Center Out of Doors, was a bracing antidote to all the ballet I've seen lately, not to mention well-timed to coincide with Olympic fever. Who knew that old-time wrestling matches in Finland were accompanied by an accordionist, who often had a following as strong as the athletes', and would provide post-match entertainment as well?

The performance featured 10 real wrestlers, representing the 10 Finnish gold medalist wrestlers from the country's history. The performers ranged in age, including two women (apparently women are not uncommon but train essentially segregated), and all possessed varying degrees of swagger and bravado. Pohjonen, the accordionist, roamed the stage like a circus ringmaster, at times providing background music, at others goading on the competitors, and on one occasion, switching into charming troubadour mode.

The most fascinating sections featured training and warm-up exercises done by the wrestlers, with plenty of reminders that it takes two to wrestle. One did sit ups with his legs laced around another man's waist, reversing it to do back lifts; a man grabbed another in a cat pose around the waist and, never letting go, walked in circles around him. Impressively, one fellow planted his head on the ground and ran circles around it repeatedly in an eye-popping display of flexibility and strength.

Then there were choreographed segments of one wrestler shoulder-throwing another (I'm sure there are terms for all these moves, comment if you know them), or funny solo dive-and-flip-onto-the stomach moves, plus lots of macho provocation and tomfoolery. Toward the end, the wrestlers kneeled centerstage in a circle, backs to us, and swayed like gospel chorus members as a soloist or pair flashed some moves. They broke out into silly dances, disarming for their dorkiness as well as their lack of guile. Projected text gave some history, though it was difficult to read amid the splashy graphics and busy lighting schemes. And yet the zany combination of wanting to inform while entertaining, and the unselfconscious dedication of the wrestlers, proved appealing. It ain't ballet, for sure.

Swan Songs, Debuts, and a Big Birthday, 8/5/10

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Paul Taylor Dance Company at Lincoln Center Outdoors

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/dance-blog/swan-songs-debuts-and-a-big-birthday/867/

A 16th birthday symbolizes a point in one’s life when big changes are sure to follow. Less pivotal (if nonetheless a major milestone) is one’s 80th birthday, but sure enough, on this occasion for choreographer Paul Taylor, revolution is positively rife in a free, celebratory program tonight at Lincoln Center Out of Doors, at 7:30pm in Damrosch Park.

First of all, there’s the program format. Taylor has perfected the art of the balanced program in the course of his long career. Generally speaking, three dances of no more than 25 minutes each are separated by intermissions. Each dance reflects a different genre within Taylor’s oeuvre, be it funny, dark, lyrical, political, joyous, philosophical. Individual programs are put together so that no two of a type are included. Tonight, however, Taylor 2 is crashing the big company’s party, leading off the show with two works (Three Epitaphs, from 1956!, to live music by Asphalt Orchestra, and a small-cast version of Esplanade), after which Paul Taylor Dance Company performs Airs, Syzygy, and Company B. Now that’s radical, and a veritable feast for Taylor fans.