reviews near and far

Lindsey Drury was a 2007-08 Graduate Research Fellow at the University of Utah. She also co-founded GoGoVertigoat in SLC. She has been living, working and making dances in NYC since 2008. Last Friday was her 30th birthday. To mark the turning point Lindsey rented a 44-passenger school bus and invited friends and well-wishers to join her on “Totally Lost: A Bus Tour of New York as a Dance.” Lindsey is a trained tour guide; I had experienced a previous bus tour at the American Dance Festival; she described “Totally Lost” on her Face Book Event page: This tour peels away the superfluous layers of New York City to get at its essence: Dance.”

Because I had a previous engagement, I was picked up at 9:30 PM, about mid-way through “Totally Lost.” The 15 or so passengers had already imbibed wine and were in a celebratory mood. Our first stop after picking me up was on the Bowery at the former location of the legendary punk club, CBGB’s, (now the site of a vintage clothing boutique.) On the way there Lindsey quizzed us about our knowledge of CBGBs and gave us some factual history as well as some history that may have been a little less than factual. Upon disembarking she gave us a movement score which was to form a line in front of the building’s window, and to walk as slowly as we could “butoh-style,” to the curb, while whispering the names of artists who had performed at the former club – Patti Smith, Blondie, Talking Heads, The Ramones, The Misfits – over and over. We repeated this several times, a ritual to honor punk history. At the end, Lindsey led us in a loud cheer with the names of the artists. A small crowd had gathered.

Next stop: Washington Square Park. It was a balmy Friday evening at 10 PM and the Park was full. After giving us an (I think totally fictional) account of Marcel Duchamp picnicking on top of the Arch and having some sort of rendezvous with Carolee Schneeman one of us did a solo dance interpretation of the assignation. We were then instructed to walk around the park in pairs with one person having their eyes covered and the other telling them a narrative of what they were seeing.

On the way uptown to Central Park Lindsey asked me to describe the piece I made for my 30th birthday in 1981. In that piece – “DEAD” – I recorded the names of every death I could remember happening in my lifetime, I made a falling and standing solo of exhaustion to that score. Lindsey asked us to call out the names of our own dead. Then to shout those names out the bus windows. Finally she asked us to at the next 3 red lights for some one to use a name in a dance. At the first light a woman called out a name and she danced wildly at her seat. Lindsey then asked that the next person come to the front of the bus to dance; this woman chose Merce Cunningham and did a beautiful Cunningham adagio. The final person was told to get off and do her dance for us on the sidewalk as we watched from inside the bus; she chose Maya Deren and crawled on the sidewalk to the consternation of some onlookers.

At Central Park, so magical at night, though I would never chance it alone, we performed for one another and, of course, ate cake. Lindsey then had us form an outward-facing circle as she told the story of an academic paper she heard being delivered on the late Pina Bausch. The paper posited that Pina had been a great artist/choreographer because she had never found true love. Lindsey then had us all lie down in the circle on the grass. As we faced the stars we were to declare with a simple “yes” or “no” if we’d ever found true love, knowing if we had, we’d never be a great artist. I think all except one said “yes.” We got back on the bus. Drank champagne, and went home after a very full and satisfying tour.

Ishmael Houston-Jones is the prez of the board of directors for Ashley Anderson Dances. He has served on many a board, written many a paper & made many a dance. For a real bio visit www.ishmaelhj.com

Brolly Arts H2O

Brolly Arts transformed the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts into a playground for over 40 artists to fill vacant public space with aesthetic works concerning H2O. Whether it was a decorative umbrella laying on the ground or vessels made from recycled water bottles, there was always something that caught your eye. Unlike a playground, however, some of the works at the Rose were scattered in a manner that turned the evening into somewhat of a scavenger hunt rather than the intended gallery stroll. Nevertheless, a gathering line outside of the women’s restroom ushered viewers to what Kathy Adams names, “One of the two most intriguing dances of the night.”

This dance was Mallory Rosenthal’s driving work, titled with the women’s bathroom icon, in which six women – resembling a skilled company – displayed outstanding feats of technicality and intricate gestural play. Rosenthal’s use of space was imaginative not just in the foreground but also away from the audience’s immediate view; the dancers would leap behind a wall into pedestrian movement to provide a witty sound score involving the flushing of toilets, the jetting of faucets, and crinkling of paper towels preceding and subsequent to the pulse of “All The Girls Standing In Line For The Bathroom,” by N.E.R.D. This work’s success lies in its inventive craftsmanship and multi-viewer-friendliness. Perhaps the only thing lacking was a shift in dynamics.

Taking place on a table in the laundry room was “Divided,” from which flowed a tensely elegant duet composed by Sofia Gorder. Dancers Ursula Perry and Jersey Riemo embodied Gorder’s visceral movement beautifully. The most interesting movement took place in the dancers’ torsos wherein a collapse or a slight shift was repeated consistently throughout the piece, yet by the end the viewer still could not grasp which bones they had moved. The pace of this work was adverse to the mercurial lure of the lighting, albeit a short stillness, in which one dancer was on top of the table and one beneath, which cast a beautiful but fleeting image. I craved more of these moments.

Trailing in after the dancers were images of rivers agleam in willows, light moving from waters, and quiet trees holding their breath in lavender. In a brief poetry reading, Joel Hall eloquently conveyed these images that persisted in my mind even as I ascended the staircase to see Brent Schneider’s water/video installation. This installation allowed the visitor to walk into a dark space where the shroud of lobby chatter dissipated and where crystalline shimmers illuminated a mesmerizing video in which a dancer, totally submerged in a body of water, reeled and twisted to the trickle of delicate water. This installation was not complex; there were a few facets that had been flourished enough to keep the visitor interested for the duration of the video, however the decision to leave this world was a difficult one to make.

I have never seen the Rose in such great spirits. The opportunity to walk leisurely around among works of art before taking your seat is more than enjoyable. For those of you who arrive exceedingly early to formal performances, suggest more pre-shows because Brolly Arts’ “H2O” was thirst quenching.

Becca Dean is a BFA candidate at the University of Utah

Salt Lake Art Center -- Dark Horse

Sometimes I get tripped up by the labels of things. “Installation” is a term in particular that I can be very picky about. The word makes me yearn to be immersed in something otherworldly and strange, something I can enter into and wonder whether the rest of my day was more real or less real than this other environment.

SLAC’s main gallery this weekend has been (and currently is) the site for a “nonstop performance and site specific installation”. There is a large square of white on part of the floor, with lighting trees at each of the four corners. One edge is lined by sixteen metronomes. There is a chair, and a red phone. A cord separates this area from another in which there resides old wooden bleachers. There are two gramophone horns on one side pointed at two chairs on the other. Finally, there is a small staircase that bridges the two spaces. Couples are invited to enter the space and slow-dance in silence. Individual performers wander the space doing their own dances. An ambient electronic score washed over the room.

Here’s my line of thinking as I entered this space: I thought there would be more. I’m happy there’s less. It’s nice to watch people dance. I don’t want to slow-dance. I don’t have a partner anyway. Maybe if I take my shoes off I can pretend to be one of the performers and dance my own way by myself. Why is there the sound of a woman panting? Is she running from something? Is she having sex? Somebody just came out of the bathroom. Wait a minute… this installation is remarkably like a stage.

And there you have the more-or-less ten minutes of immersion I could sustain before I realized that there was literally no reason this “installation” couldn’t just be some stage somewhere. Moreover, the space has windows into upstairs hallways, and the orientation of the audience to the stage meant that everything we saw was framed by us also watching people enter and exit the bathrooms behind the stage.

Still pondering what slow-dancing and horses had to do with the various bodily functions being performed in the background, the special 9pm performance started up. Here I feel like we arrived at the meat of the work. The dancing was splendid and the choreography was fresh. I was glad to be watching this in SLAC’s gallery-turned-black-box, and I hope that SLAC continues to explore the idea of providing an alternative venue for the performing arts.

In sum, it was an evening of some very refreshing dance presented in an unusual space. I wish the installation aspects of it were stronger and better integrated. Why bleachers? Why rules about what we can do or how? Why not let us wander the space freely? Why not construct the dance to immerse us more instead of maintaining a traditional audience/performer barrier? While the invitation to cross this barrier and become performers ourselves (in couples, dancing in a specific way, in silence) was intriguing, why not create a situation in which perhaps we’re not sure anymore who is watching and who is doing?

And please don’t pretend that we’re not going to notice the bathrooms, or that having the bathroom hallway as background isn’t going to change the meaning of your work. I’m interested in many of the ideas that went into Dark Horse, and I was impressed by the dance that was embedded in it. But for me the execution did not support those ideas enough and left me with a lot of questions about what the artist really intended. Or maybe I was just disappointed that this idea of installation didn’t fit my idea of installation.

Matthew Beals is a Modern Dance MFA candidate at University of Utah.

inFluxdance

This weekend Sugar Space presented the premiere of their artists-in-residence inFluxdance. The group is a dedicated team of women under the direction of cross-continental collaborators Alysia Woodruff & Rose Pasquarello Beauchamp. With a large team of video, sound and design artists, inFluxdance certainly presented a lot of material to consider.

In its best moments, justice for all some presented honest and complex partnering between the uniquely all-female company. Their energy toward one another was sensitive and engaging. No matter your opinion of the topics they tackled each performer maintained strong investment in their subject matter and in one another. In that way, the piece was a pleasure to see.

In other moments the piece resembled another recent work which tackled protest and social justice. The work was reminiscent of David Dorfman’s underground and both dances feature strong performance and physical research. Unfortunately both works also share problematic parts. Featuring a lack of performers of color yet employing traditional iconography of civil rights creates tension. Both also use strong visual and aural components like video montage and an identical “step forward if, step back if” dialogue regarding the dancers’ relationship to social struggles like internment or suffrage.

In the end was another startling similarity where all the dancers started placing cloth figures of people about the space. Dorfman did the same thing but with graphics. And in both cases there was a startling sense that the piece was still figuring out its ultimate direction and what it wants to show regarding such a massive topic as protest.

inFluxdance seems at a crossroads of choosing whether the subject matter of the protests they support is where the piece lies (let’s not forget the Tea Partiers are protestors too) or whether, (as I imagine) that the piece lies more in about what protests do– bring bodies together and then watch bodies dissipate, show bodies in both revelry and suffering. The lingering image of all those small figures in the space alludes to this idea, that it’s more about the body and less about the design elements. In  justice for all some the dancing told the story and I would be interested to see what more it has to tell.

Ashley Anderson runs loveDANCEmore programs through her non-profit, ashley anderson dances. 

Black/Light

I went into Allen Gardner Dance Theatre’s presentation of Black/Light with a lot of questions. I had heard that Jerry Allen, director of the group, had studied with Kazuo Ohno and was heavily influenced by Butoh. Through the program notes, I learned that he also studied kung fu and corporeal mime, two disciplines that I have also had experience with. I read several articles previewing the show, some calling it Butoh, some calling it Butoh-influenced, some trying to explain what Butoh is. My experience with Butoh has been through Dairakudakan and Eiko + Koma. While these two groups in some ways represent opposing ends of the spectrum of whatever Butoh is, I believe there is a common seed.

Here’s what myself and some friends came up with over post-show gelato: when a child drops their ice cream, they do Butoh. We all know what this feels like. The incredible upwelling of emotion and sensation overtakes the nervous system from within, and the body becomes accessory to this outpouring of raw expression. It is overwhelming, and even casual spectators cannot help but be engulfed. One of the original goals of Butoh was to subvert other forms of dance that were seen as too superficial.

So let me rewind and say that Black/Light is not a “Butoh show”, as many people described it. It was an eclectic evening of performance, some of which was Butoh. But it also included a comedia dell’arte piece, dance, and video. So all of the questions I came in with, including “What does American Butoh look like?”, were overtaken by another question: “Can Butoh share the stage with these other forms?” The answer I came away with was a solid “No.” The rawness and depth of the Butoh elements made everything else unpalatable. This means there was some very solid Butoh happening, in particular from Patrick Barnes and of course Jerry Gardner.  But it also means that the dance was out of place, the comedia dell’arte seemed farcical, the photo collage distracting, and the silhouette work sort of boring. This wasn’t a flaw in performance. The performances were quite good, in fact. I could have watched Michael Watkiss run in circles, mouth agape and arms pathetically extended, for hours. He was a pleasure to watch throughout. It was the course of the show itself that confused.

Another aspect that was less than satisfying was the use of music. I felt that the choices of music were such that they forced some of the other creative choices, particularly the timing of certain sections. Often I felt that a moment was cut short, or that a piece was stretched too thin, because a musical cue had to be met. Please, let’s all find a composer or sound editor who can work with this group. I think it will give them the freedom to do some really excellent work.

Perhaps my Butoh beef is also ultimately about creative freedom. Jumping from one form to another is not as satisfying as abandoning form and just doing the work that feels true. I think this was a fascinating presentation, and I would love to see more work from Jerry Allen. But next time I would like to see his work, in his style. Maybe it will be Butoh, maybe it will be dance theatre, maybe it will be some sort of crazy synthesis of all that he has studied. But Black/Light felt like he forced his work to fit the styles of others, each piece a distinct element that had his creative touch but ultimately was not well integrated into the whole

Matt Beals is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Utah