Ann Hamilton's Thrilling Event of a Thread

Experiencing Ann Hamilton's The Event of a Thread at the Park Avenue Armory is both exhilarating and humbling. Kind of like visiting the vast Armory itself, which makes you simultaneously consider humankind's ambition and peon-like size.

It's exhilarating, because even if you aren't much into audience participation (ahem), you'll probably be giddy with delight (double ahem) when you sit on one of the 42 broad wooden swings and begin to sail back and forth. The sheer joy of this simple action recalls all that is good about being a kid. The swings are suspended from the rafters by 75' chains, which are loosely tethered together near the top and attached to a vast silky cloth that divides the Drill Hall in half, Christo style. The "membrane" billows and shimmers in reaction to, as Hamilton so poetically put it, "the weather" of the installation. 

If you're on a swing, your flight trajectory neatly illuminated by a rectangle, by now you've passed two "readers" (members of SITI Company) who sit at a table stacked with 42 homing pigeons in cages. They read text that follows the graphic structure of a concordance, which essentially organizes variously sourced phrases by common words which align in "spines." This concept of the weaving of fabric permeates the installation; it is found here in the spoken text, which is transmitted to radios in neatly-wrapped paper bags that are scattered throughout the hall and are meant to be carried and passed along to others while feeling the breath—the vibration of the noise—of the speaker. You with me?

On the Lexington end of the hall sits a "writer," who writes with a pencil on a carbonized form in response to the read text and the goings-on in the hall. Nearby is a record lathe which will record a daily song sung by a soloist and chorus, from a balcony, to the fat homing pigeons, which are traditionally used as a means of communication. Recurring instances of action and documentation form a sort of metaphorical dialogue, or weaving, of the duration of the performance and installation. The desk set-ups are reminiscent of previous Hamilton scenarios—repetitive labor and language are trademarks—but the sheer visceral and emotional impact of the large-scale dramas are nothing short of thrilling.

Clearly there are infinite ideas in Hamilton's work, which reaffirms the power and potential of art, but there is also nothing quite like the simple thrill of sailing through the air on a swing. It's on view through January 6 (and free this Saturday, December 8).

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.

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark—Flying Above the Ruckus, 6/23/11

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Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark on Broadway

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/spider-man-turn-off-the-dark-%E2%80%94-flying-above-the-ruckus/1392/

Reeve Carney as Spider-Man.

It’s become bloodsport to pick on Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. But the question is, how is the show? The flying sequences are amazing, and it’s certainly entertaining, if with few plot surprises if you’ve seen the first movie. An army of muscular stunt doubles backs up the durable Reeve Carney as Peter Parker, who  pretty much carries the show on his slender shoulders, with his pleasing, caramel-pop voice and charming demeanor. He is supported by Patrick Page in a scenery-chewing turn as Norman Osborn/Green Goblin (plus a team of genetically mutated bad guys), whose gregarious personality shines even through a green plastic suit of armor. His voice is a force of nature, alternately rumbling like Barry White or wheedling his antagonists. Jennifer Damiano is sweet as MJ, although she sounds best in soft ballads rather than a higher range. And the added character of Arachne, a sort of spider-spirit, is played by TV Carpio, who possesses a voice with huge pop potential.

Yanira Castro’s Paradis in Brooklyn’s Eden, 6/10/11

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Yanira Castro’s Paradis in Brooklyn Botanical Garden

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/yanira-castros-paradis-in-brooklyns-eden/1350/

Pictured: (front to back) Peggy H. Cheng, Luke Miller, Shayla-Vie Jenkins. Photo by Yi-Chun Wu.

Site-specific dance works have a long history in New York, but amazingly, none have taken place in the lush eden of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden untilParadis, performed there last weekend by Yanira Castro/A Canary Torsi. Timed to coincide just as twilight knelt into darkness, the work began with Peter Schmitz isolated in the Desert House, a glass and metal birdcage. The audience was directed to ring the windows to watch; music was plinking live piano (Michael Dauphinais), piped in via walkie-talkies attached to ushers’ belts. There wasn’t much for a white-suited, zombie-like Schmitz to do—freezing in poses, occasionally darting down the dirt path that circled the exhibit of desert plants, raising his hand in a fist or shaking them at an unseen ghost. But it set a tone of isolation and anomie.

The Power of Proximity, 4/28/11

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The Power of Proximity: Avi Scher and Dancers and Black Watch

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/ballet/the-power-of-proximity/1228/

Sofiane Sylve. Photo by Matthew Murphy.

Generally speaking, when we see ballet stars or Broadway-caliber shows in New York, we’re some distance away. But I recently saw two performances at arm’s length proximity to the performers, to predictably powerful effect—Avi Scher & Dancers, and Black Watch.

Last weekend, Scher presented a second annual program of big-name ballet dancers performing his choreography. Just 27, he clearly has ambition, connections, and good timing, scheduling several nights at Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater just a fortnight in advance ofNew York City Ballet’s spring season. And yet guests from that company included Tyler Angle and Ana Sophia Scheller (paired in a duet that displayed her diamond-hard precision and his plush muscularity) and the charismatic Savannah Lowery, who danced the finale ofDreamScapes with alum Sofiane Sylve (now atSan Francisco Ballet), still fierce and, at moments, transcendent. We usually see these amazing dancers at a cool remove in the capacious Koch Theater, where they seem almost alien in their perfection and effortlessness. But a couple of yards away, I an reminded of how strong their legs are, how hard they work, and how unforgivingly physical ballet is, even in the casual preshow barre warm-ups done onstage.

Verdensteatret—Theater Inside-Out, Plus Zorn, 3/3/11

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Verdensteatret's And All the Question Marks Started to Sing at DTW, plus Donald Byrd and Pam Tanowitz choreography to John Zorn at Guggenheim Works & Process

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/ballet/verdensteatret%E2%80%94theater-inside-out-plus-zorn/1087/

Verdensteatret's "And All the Question Marks Started to Sing," at DTW. Photo by by Yi Chun Wu.

Imagine a traditional theater—an empty stage surrounded by curtain legs which hide surrounding sound and lighting equipment. Then imagine all the people who operate this equipment—the sound engineers, musicians, lighting people, stage manager, moving silently but with purpose. Now imagine turning the whole shebang inside out so that all these normally invisible people and pieces of equipment were dumped and artfully arranged center stage, and the walls were pushed out to the edges to catch whatever sound and imagery were produced from within. And the audience watches the mechanics of the production as a choreographed ritual, a means to produce an often dream-like, sometimes nightmarish, soundscape and visual environment. The Norwegian collectiveVerdensteatret’s And All the Question Marks Started to Sing, last week at DTW (which co-presented it with FuturePerfect and PS 122), felt like this inside-out theater.

Prometheus—Landscape II: I Feel Your Pain, 2/3/11

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Jan Fabre's Prometheus—Landscape II at Montclair's Peak Performances

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/prometheus%E2%80%94landscape-ii-i-feel-your-pain/1050/

"Prometheus—Landscape II." Photo by Wonge Bergmann.

In Prometheus—Landscape II (closed), part of Peak Performances at Montclair State University, Jan Fabre enjoined the audience in sharing the suffering of his protagonist (Kurt Vandendriessche), suspended directly in the center of the stage, ostensibly tethered by ropes to the Caucasus. Indeed, we are tested, but not nearly to the extent of the resilient cast. We get the evil eye by the large, largely unclothed Larry Goldhuber (a choreographer who once danced with Bill T. Jones), wrapped in ropes and staring at us as we enter and fuss nervously with our coats. Then we’re the minimally engaged bystanders who catch the verbal flak and cussing spewed in by two performers in the prologue before the curtain even rises on the main action.

Rebel Prometheus gave fire to humans and was punished by Zeus, who was actually a pretty nasty, bitter dude. Prometheus is visited by a cavalcade of characters, including Oceanus, Io, Athena, Hermes, and of course a chorus to bear witness. The ample text (“I am the all-giver” by Jeroen Olyslaegers, based on Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, and Fabre’s “We need heroes now”) runs in projected surtitles, which aided in understanding the words, if not necessarily the narrative at hand. What did sink in were Fabre’s gorgeous stage pictures, framed by alternating projections of different shots of the sun—the contracting and expanding flaming ball of gas that it is; or its domed surface, tendrilled with licking snake-tongue flames; or the moon, pale and pocked; or the ocean, at once refreshingly cool and suffocating.

Blutwurst, Bitte, 12/16/10

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John Kelly's Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte at LaMaMa

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/performance/blutwurst-bitte/1009/

John Kelly and MacKenzie Meehan. Photo by Steven Schreiber.

With seemingly the entire dance world obsessed with some combination of the tribulations of training for Black Swan and real-life dancers being accused of eating too many sugarplums (gee: BALLET IS HARD!), John Kelly went about his Zen-like way, channelling Egon Schiele inPass the Blutwurst, Bitte, at La Mama, which ends Dec 19. Artistic polymath Kelly taps choreography, acting, vocalization, and film to craft a multi-faceted, sublimely poetic portrait of the painter which was first performed 28 years ago — coincidentally, the terribly young age at which the painter passed away.

The performance feels pared away rather than built up, as reduced to its structure as Schiele painted himself in his portraits. The Vienna Secession seemed to embody the conscious correction of excess with an imposed asceticism. Schiele embraced this reductive attitude, in opposition to fellow Secessionist Gustav Klimt’s visual opulence. Schiele boiled down his fraught portraits into a spaghetti bowl of lines and some strategic patches of acid hues against a white ground. Kelly relies surprisingly little on depicting Schiele’s actual artwork, though one of the few instances is memorable — he scrapes away a thick layer of vanilla pudding paint to reveal the portrait of muse Wally, intriguingly played by Timberly Canale (who impressively chugged several steins of beer to accompany her wurst).

The Pitmen Painters, 12/9/10

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The Pitmen Painters on Broadway

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/home/the-pitmen-painters/984/

The Pitmen Painters. Photo by Joan Marcus.

The Pitmen Painters tells the true tale of a group of Northumberland miners who took up painting and distinguished themselves enough to found a small movement, the Ashington School. The play, a production from London’s National Theatre presented by Manhattan Theatre Club, was written by Lee Hall after a book by William Feaver and directed by Max Roberts. Hall wrote the screenplay for Billy Elliot, and the two stories follow regular guys becoming artists against the odds. In Pitmen, set in the 1930s and 40s, it’s not simply circumstance that leads these men to art. Dilettantes in all but the mines, their intellectual curiosity and union bonds conspire, leading them to hire an art teacher for their next “project,” to learn about art, which they’ve never actually seen in life. Ironically, perhaps the physical restrictions and the mental strains of having to be ever-vigilant in the mines about the potential for death fed their insatiability for knowledge, their openness to experiment and question things.

Comfort and Faith Healing, 11/4/10

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Jane Comfort's Faith Healing at Joyce Soho

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/performance/comfort-and-faith-healing/937/

Jane Comfort recently revived Faith Healing, a 1993 dance-theater retelling of Tennessee 

Photo of Mark Dendy by Johan Elbers.

Williams’Glass Menagerie, at the Joyce Soho (closed). It’s a bit of a departure from her recent work, which has tended to concern a topical issue, or a mash-up of several themes, told with dance, song, text, and visuals. (Although it is clear that “typical” is not a word that can be applied to Comfort on any level.)Faith Healing is intimate, quiet, at times thrilling, and stars the incomparable Mark Dendy in the lead role of Amanda.

Dendy originated the role, and is joined by the excellent Heather Christian as her daughter Laura, Sean Donovan as son Tom, and Matthew Hardy as the Gentleman Caller. (More ample evidence that Comfort’s performers are consistenly accomplished at dance, acting, and singing.) Rather than wearing a wig, Dendy simply poufs up his shortish hair and wears conservative dresses, pumps, and makeup, when he’s not in a frumpy pink robe. Costume and makeup is fairly superfluous however, as he perfectly inhabits an old-fashioned, fading Southern belle, akin to Blanche Dubois. Amanda deploys her sugar-coated voice, her trippingly delicate movement, her absolute, overweening eagerness to please or to try to sweettalk those around her into doing her futile bidding.

Selective Memory at the Chocolate Factory, 9/9/10

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Brian Rogers and Madeline Best's Selective Memory at the Chocolate Factory

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/performance/selective-memory-at-the-chocolate-factory/872/

I’ll admit it—I have the attention span of a flea, painstakingly cultivated from years of tv, multi-tasking, and computer work. So when I sat down to watch Brian Rogers’ and Madeline Best’sSelective Memory at the Chocolate Factory last night (through Sep 18), it took a whole lot of concentration to watch the first 20 minutes, which primarily features Best’s face projected onto a horizontal, door-sized panel that hangs in front of her cameo as she stands in one place, shifting her head angle very slightly every now and then. Best (director of photography, creation, performance, choreography and video) stands in the cup of a seamless, white, omega-shaped scrim. Rogers (concept, direction, sound) sits at a computer to one side, working controls, proximate enough to be in one’s field of vision as he focuses intently on Best and casually sips from a drink.

At one point, that side of boredom, this stillness seeped into my bones, as it seemed to do for the entire SRO audience, to the extent that all movement—coughing, throat clearing, and paper rustling—ceased and time stood still, or convincingly felt like it. In the concentrated quiet, details emerged. Best’s face gradually enlarged, as cuts between two cameras swapped the slightly differing angles onscreen. (She has two earrings in each ear, a nose ring, and a tattoo on one ankle, for starters.) Just as I’m counting her jewelry, she starts to stare at us with now huge eyes, even though her actual head is obstructed. At first it’s unnerving, but then I thought, she’s looking into a camera, not at us. And yet the effect was startling, as if she finally realized that she was being watched and decided to push back.

Constructing with Light, 7/13/10

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Saboru Teshigawara at Lincoln Center Festival

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/performance/constructing-with-light/863/

When Saboru Teshigawara was last in the Lincoln Center Festival with Bones in Pages (2006), the set was a huge part of the performance. A wall of wooden cubbies, thick books with their pages fanned out, shards of glass. It seemed that the theatrical setting was every bit as important as the three performers. (Four, if you count the raven.) So it came as a surprise to see that Miroku (which ran last week as part of Lincoln Center Festival) employed no set, and also that it was a solo for Teshigawara. It wasn’t a question of whether this respected performance artist would take command of the theater with such minimalist elements, but how?

The elaborate lighting was key. Designed by the choreographer (who also did the varied sound with Neil Griffiths and Kei Miyata), it ranged from a dangling, manipulated bare bulb to make shadow puppets, to straightforward spot and focused lights, to creating architectural constructs with myriad projected rectangles of blue. In one version, it appeared to be a wall made of huge blocks of ice. Other versions, with horizontal sections partly lit, hinted at the arctic sky, or being deep underwater. Still other iterations had the state-of-the-art light grids flash vertical segments sequentially, very quickly.

Despite vying for attention with the lighting for much of the hour, Teshigawara’s precise movement held the eye. It largely avoids describing anything specific, and is unconnected to classical or familiar vocabularies. At times, he withdrew into his body, and at others, he opened up, releasing all his stored energy. And yet each mode — jittery, lyrical, heroic, feral — seems to allude to some archetypal emotional or physical state of being. Evoking psychologically and materially universal states of being in the Time Warner mall — now that’s magical.

Image: Saboru Teshigawa in Miroku. Photo by Stephanie Berger.

Gaff Aff (Rhymes with Laugh), 5/7/10

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Zimmerman and de Perrot's Gaff Aff (Rhymes with Laugh), at Baryshnikov Arts Center

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/performance/gaff-aff-rhymes-with-laugh/835/

Gaff Aff, the first performance in the newly renovated Jerome Robbins Theater at theBaryshnikov Arts Center after the Wooster Group’s North Atlantic, defies genres. It’s tempting to call the work (through May 8th) by the Swiss duo of Zimmerman and de Perrot dance, but there isn’t any, at least along familiar lines—it’s more movement theater. Or nouveau cirque, but while there’s humor, there’s an equal amount of Beckett. Or art installation, as the set is populated with banal looking yet ingenious multifunctional objects made of cardboard, fiberboard, and wood, that whirl around on a two-piece turntable. Whatever you want to call it, it’s coy, goofy, and entertaining.

Dimitri de Perrot plays the straight man, sitting to the side at a few turntables, studiously spinning and scratching. (In preparation, he selects music and sounds and presses them onto vinyl.) Martin Zimmerman is the clown and main performer, alternately manipulating the props and trying to keep his feet and his head facing the same direction—no easy task when the turntable’s two sections move in different rotations. His persona is the familiar grey-suited office worker, so ineffective that his briefcase seems in command of his actions; so disconnected to the real world that he doesn’t fall when his chair is pulled out from under him. His rubbery face and go-for-broke behavior recall a young Jerry Lewis or Chevy Chase—ironic because this kind ofunironic work feels like it could never be done in the US now.

The Wooster Group's North Atlantic, reprised, 4/21/10

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The Wooster Group's North Atlantic, reprised
http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/blog/theater/gravity-and-the-wooster-group-at-work/

The Wooster Group‘s North Atlantic is a dense, corrugated, verbal and sensory assault. Cliché riddled, it begs for clichés to describe it—rapid-fire, pedal to the metal, take no prisoners. James Strahs wrote the play in 1982, and this production, directed by Elizabeth LeCompte, has been presented many times since its premiere two years later. The relentless way the soldiers of this military unit work and play directly contrasts its purpose, as a decoy message intercept center with no purpose at all. These soldiers, led by Ari Fliakos, Paul Lazar, and Scott Shepard, bluster on about chain of command, leadership, sexual prowess. Segments dense with text mix with folksy American tunes, both sung and danced. As absurd and intellectually and aurally powerful as the text is, its impact is exceeded by the sheer physical properties of the show (designed by Jim Clayburgh and lit by Jennifer Tipton), which inaugurates Wooster Group’s new partnership with BAC and runs through April 25.

American Idiot, at Home on Broadway, 4/28/10

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Green Day's American Idiot, at Home on Broadway

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/musical-theater/american-idiot-at-home-on-broadway/832/

Green Day’s American Idiot absolutely belongs on Broadway. The punk label always seemed somewhat disingenuous for this band, now 23 years old, that is cleaner, shinier, and more sentimental than punk would ever want to be. And Green Day’s songs, with Billie Joe Armstrong’s lyrics, have unnervingly infectious hooks, harmonies, and major chords to match the best of recent Broadway scores. It doesn’t hurt that a good number of songs in the show are very familiar already. And the cast can first and foremost belt the songs loud and clear, with none of the dreaded distortion of the Broadway vibrato.

But the major supporting element is the set, by Christine Jones. The St. James Theatre has a very high proscenium. The walls, which define a pretty shallow stage area and climb upward ad infinitum, are covered with newspapers and propaganda, and pale enough to receive projections and lighting effects. About 40 TV screens of various sizes punch through the wall or hang; they not only display video (live and recorded), they occasionally become lighting fixtures as well. The sum effect of the set is a never-ending vertical chute, the bottom of which collects the angsty teen detritus of society. Every time they climb up the clever “ready-made” rolling ladder and staircase, they tumble right back down—onto the floor, a mattress, or the hospital gurneys that wait to catch them once more. Panels open to become windows and doors, revealing a world beyond to escape to, but they always slam shut like a trap.

The Ever-Present Marina Abramovic, 3/16/10

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Marina Abramovic at MOMA.

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/performance/the-ever-present-marina-abramovic/810/

It’s natural to associate MoMA with cutting-edge. But a visit to Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present retrospective on view through May 31 is a reminder of just how staid the institution is, nominally ignoring performance art. Here are actual live people doing re-performances of the artist’s original works, which have nearly always involved herself and her ex-partner, Ulay. So wherever you look there’s an often naked person, usually a woman, pinned to the middle of a wall, lying under a skeleton, wedged in a doorway. And in between are many small, medium, and large video screens showing recordings of the original performances. Although in an understandable, if toothless gesture, the museum has added an alternative passageway toImponderabilia (1977/2010), in which a naked woman and man line a narrow doorway, causing viewers to brush against one or the other.

Despite all the live elements, the most powerful artifacts in the show, curated by Klaus Biesenbach, are the wall labels. Without them, we most likely wouldn’t get the point of all the action. Besides provocation and shock, this is one consequence of conceptual/performance art, and a testament to the power of language—the ideas are so powerful that the re-enactments can be secondary. It was curious how unaffecting the re-performances of Point of Contact(1980) and Relation in Time (1977) were; perhaps it was the sterile enclosed white cube setting, the inherent stillness, or the necessity for the audience members to spend more time. And I only felt sympathy for the naked woman in Luminosity (1997)—straddling a bicycle seat, suspended high in the middle of a wall, she engaged viewers’ attention, only to have them hurry away in embarrassment. And yes, part of the point is to make people confront their own limitations, so mission: accomplished.

Armed with Dance Moves, 2/25/10

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Brennan Gerard/Ryan Kelly’s Armory Show, site specific performance at Park Avenue Armory

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/performance/armed-with-dance-moves/803/

The Park Avenue Armory has become an increasingly alluring venue for performances in the past few years, as the location for events such as Lincoln Center Festival’s Die Soldaten,Ariane Mnouchkine’s Les Ephémères, and now Brennan Gerard/Ryan Kelly’s Armory Show, co-presented by Moving Theater and the Park Avenue Armory. Performed last weekend, the company of dancers and actors, plus the musicians of ICE, inhabited the ornate side halls, capacious even though minute compared to the main Armory space, and bedecked with wrought-iron candelabras and sconces. The audience sat on risers watching the action performed in between two halls; we later followed the players into another room with a small Juliet balcony. Live, close circuit video was projected onto two screens overhead, so we were able to watch live the dancers as they gamboled in the hallways of the complex.

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.

Too Cute, 12/7/09

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Jeremy Wade's There Is No End to More at Japan Society.

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/performance/too-cute/777/

Jeremy Wade’s There is No End to More, through last weekend at Japan Society, is like being inside a restless web surfer’s brain for an hour. It veers from a fantasy narrative, to comic book, to variety show, to LOLcats and dogs, to speeches on community, family, and consumerism, to the end of existence. And Wade, who lives in Berlin, has found a stellar interpreter of this marathon solo in everyman Jared Gradinger, eyeglasses and all.

There is a roller coaster dimensionality within the multiple sections of the work, on the Japanese concept of “kawaii”—cute—which can morph into bizarre. The fantasy story that begins the piece (whispered loudly and creepily in a voiceover) shifts from rainbow-and-unicorn pastel imagery to intergalactic warfare. Gradinger moves frenetically through task-miming actions to simple physical punctuation, like punching fists or contorted poses. He wears fanboy clothes—cartoon-print boxers, a football jersey—and takes the mic to speak for parts. The production is so well-executed that voiceovers and live sections blend seamlessly.

Heavenly Guises, 11/4/09

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Kurt Hentschläger’s Zee at 3LD Art and Tech Center and Morgan Thorson's Low at PS 122.

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/performance/heavenly-guises/766/

In our busy daily lives, we don’t often have the opportunity to be immersed in anything outside of the regular stuff… I mean transported, outlook altered, mood changed. I sampled a couple of cultural experiences offering such a chance this week, Minneapolis-based Morgan Thorson’sHeaven at PS 122 which closed Oct 3 and Kurt Hentschläger’s Zee at 3LD Art & Tech Center.

As the audience entered, the tightly bunched group of performers walked very slowly around the periphery of the stage, quietly demanding all attention. Everything was white—the marley, the curtains that lined the walls, the columns (with pleated skirts around their bases), the dancers’ costumes, crafted of quilted fabric with Ace bandage accents. White lace even trimmed all of the industrial audience chairs. Lenore Doxsee designed the superb lighting; Emmett Ramstad the costumes; the two with Thorson designed the visual setting.