Posts Tagged ‘Joe’s Pub’

DanceNOW Festival at Joe’s Pub

Thursday, September 6th, 2012

By Rachel Straus

Adam Barruch’s I Had Myself a True Love had my vote as the winner of the DanceNOW Challenge at Joe’s Pub. On September 5, Barruch’s competition was nine other choreographers. Just like a prime-time dance competition, the sold-out audience was invited to judge and pick a favorite. The challenge for the artists was  to create a work in under five minutes for the tiny cabaret stage which provides, in the words of producer Sydney Skybetter, “a clear concise artistic statement.” The odds were tipped toward Barruch. He was the only choreographer with two works on the program. Last year he was a DanceNOW winner. This year his new hyper-expressive solos to recorded music sung by Barbara Steisand opened and closed the hour-long evening.

At the smartly renovated Joe’s Pub, the boyish-looking Barruch danced from the gut. But his work wasn’t sentimental. It was intentionally overwrought. Like Pina Bausch, Barruch contasts sharp, vexed gestures with voluminous ones that wash over his body like a tidal wave. His small gestures—wrists curling up like a fern, fingers streching the lids of his eyes wide—become the places where Barruch dances a specific experience. To me it read as if he was seeing a horror and longing to transcend it. Barruch’s transcendence occurred through his loose-limbed body’s swirling and lunging and his speed that left behind distinct lines in space, like that of a painter’s brush. Barruch’s choice of Streisand songs I Had Myself a True Love and Lover, Come Back To Me grounded the two solos in a narrative. But unlike many Streisand dance tributes, Barruch’s didn’t stoop to camping this favorite diva. Instead, he channelled Streisand’s intensity and oddness through Charlie Chaplin-like facial expressions that expressed forlornness, hope and near madness.

Barruch studied for a year and a half at The Juilliard School and then launched himself as a choreographer-dancer in today’s hard knocks dance world. Multiple dance educational institutions have commissioned him to teach and make works. He has been a stand out in several group shows. Recently, the Alvin Ailey Foundation’s New Directions Choreography Lab invited him to be one of their initiative’s first recipients. Barruch is getting noticed.

As for the other artists, they made for an eclectic evening. Some were funny, others were earnest. If you feel like seeing new dance-theatre makers and voting for your favorite one, DanceNOW’s tenth anniversary Joe’s Pub festival continues (September 6, 7, 8 and 15). Producer-directors Robin Staff, Tamara Greenfield and Sydney Skybetter will help choose an overall winner of the DanceNOW Challenge. That artist will receive $1,000, a week-long creative residency, and twenty hours of New York City studio space. This prize is not Lotto, but these days dance artists need all the bits of help they can get.

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Deadly Downtown Shows: John Kelly and Young Jean Lee

Monday, April 25th, 2011

By Rachel Straus

Downtown New York nightlife is as good a destination for surveying America’s fixation with youth culture as there is. But last week, two established performance artists presented works created for downtown venues that focused on a most anti-youthful subject: Death. Young Jean Lee wrote and performed “We’re Gonna Die” at Joe’s Pub. John Kelly brought back to P.S. 122 his “Escape Artist,” which won him the organization’s 2010 Ethyl Eichelberger Award.

The two shows couldn’t have been more different. While Kelly sang alone on stage about his trauma, pain, and brush with death (alongside compelling visuals), Lee and four talented rock musicians sang about mortal issues in which they were not the direct focus. Guess whose show was more interesting?

It wasn’t Kelly’s. But to be fair, Kelly’s navel gazing wasn’t the problem. The former Trockadero Gloxinia Ballet Company dancer sang in a style, recalling a Stephen Sondheim musical circa 1984. Worse yet, Kelly sang off key; perhaps because almost all his vocalizations occurred on the horizontal.

In “Escape Artist,” Kelly lay on an operating-size table, telling the tale of taking a trapeze lesson, falling from a flip, and spending weeks in St. Vincent’s Hospital flat on his back—without pain medication. During this relived torture, Kelly drew occasional fortitude from channelling the life of Caravaggio, who escaped pain through art making, but also died young because of it.

Because this show’s strength rested with projections of Caravaggio’s paintings (in which beauty and violence collide) and with Kelly’s quirky video design (created with Jeff Morey), it’s best to describe the visuals. Behind Kelly, three video screens’ content created a triptych-type feast for the eyes. The projections included Caravaggio’s paintings (i.e. “Judith Beheading Holofernes”), moving montages (such as a filmed visit through a MRI machine), and live video recording (of Kelly’s face as recorded by a camera perched above the operating table). The combined technological effect produced a time traveling sensation. It called to mind Salvador Dali’s “Persistence of Memory,” in which melting clocks make reference to the psyche’s indifference to chronological events.

In “We’re Gonna Die,” Young Jean Lee’s chronologically unfolding family tale moved forward with a structural elegance that felt spontaneous. Alternating between speaking to the audience and singing with the band Future Wife, Lee became a modern-day bard. Her rich, melodic voice exponentially increased as her confessional-style self-ribbing grew. She began “Die” describing her uncle’s isolated self-loathing. She continued with love life experiences that crashed. Lee ended with her father’s death; he stopped breathing hours before being given life-saving medication. All the while, Lee spoke a truth most of us dare not speak: We believe, somehow, we will be exempt from suffering and dying.

In the finale, Lee, three guitarists and a drummer sang, “I’m gonna die some day. Then I’ll be gone and it will be okay”. Most of the Joe’s Pub’s crowd spontaneously joined their refrain. This sounds maudlin, but Lee’s intimate performance style possessed the quality of a lullaby. And the audience rocked in her cradle.

As for the dancing, it came briefly and unceremoniously as an encore. When Benedict Kupstas raised his drumsticks in the air, the cast commenced a casual jig. Arranged into tableaus, thanks to choreographer Faye Driscoll, they resembled holiday picture postcards, which make life look sweeter than it is.

“Gonna Die” will be repeated at Joe’s Pub three more times (April 29-30). It’s a feel-good show, uncannily leading us to consider the inevitable: Death.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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April Dance Happenings: New York City

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

By Rachel Straus

 March 29 – April 9

Eiko & Koma

The Japanese avant-garde artists, whose home has been the U.S. since 1976, present the New York premiere of Naked at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. They will be intermittently naked, but what will stand out are their glacially slow movement tableaus that change one’s perception of time. Come with your patience, but know that you don’t have to stay the whole evening. The duo is offering Naked as an art installation. Audience members can come and go.

April 2

Dance of the Enchantress

At the Peter Norton Symphony Space, the South Indian classical dancer Vijayalakshmi will present herself in the dance style Mohiniyattam, which translates as “the Dance of the Enchantress.” According to ancient Indian legend, Vishnu the Preserver transformed himself into Mohini, an enchantress, in order to protect the universe from evil. Femininity and grace pervade the codified movements that alternate between pure dance and story telling. Performing along side Vijayalakshmi will be Palakal Rajagopalan (vocal), Muralee Krishnan (veena – lute), Sreekumar Kadampatt (edakka – hourglass-shaped drum), and Jayan Das (maddalam and mrdangam – double-headed tuned drums).

April 4

Merce Cunningham

On a monthly basis, the the Baryshnikov Arts Center has been showing Charles Atlas’ films of Merce Cunningham’s dances. Seeing Cunningham’s out-of-repertory works on a big screen is a boon to dance lovers. The next BAC flicks is eyeSpace (2006), which features music by David Behrman, costumes and sets by Daniel Arsham, and performances by the Cunningham dancers. The event begins with the webcast series called Mondays with Merce, which gives viewers deeper insight into Cunningham’s choreographic process. Valda Setterfield, a Cunningham performer from 1964-1974, will narrate and comment.

April 5-10

Stephen Petronio Dance Company

At the Joyce Theater, Stephen Petronio Company will present the New York premiere of Underland (2003). The work premiered with the Sydney Dance Company. It’s set to 14 songs by Australian rocker Nick Cave. It features multi-media projections by Mike Daly, another Down Under artist. Petronio’s evening-length work, now set on his 11 company members, is thick with movement and hipness.

April 8

“Ballet with a Modern Sensibility”

The 92nd St. Y’s “Fridays at Noon” free performance series continues with “Ballet with a Modern Sensibility.” Three choreographers—Christopher Caines, Brian Carey Chung, and Helen Heineman—will present excerpts of their new works, set to Italian Baroque music, and composers Meredith Monk, Arnold Schoenberg, Frédéric Mompou, Debussy, Beethoven, and Lou Harrison.

April 6-17

Ailey II

At The Ailey Citigroup Theater (the black box in the dance organization’s west 55 St. home), the second company will hold a two-week season. Six works and two programs will be danced by the 14-member Ailey II troupe, which travels the world almost as much as the parent company. The premieres include The Corner, a full ensemble work by Kyle Abraham—known for his fusion of popping, locking and post-modern dance—Doscongio by Robert Moses, set to two movements of Chopin’s Sonata for cello and piano (op. 65), and Shards by Donald Byrd, with music by Mio Morales.

April 14 – 16

Paradigm

At St. Mark’s Church, the pick-up troupe—comprised of dancers whose stage careers span several decades—will present two world premieres by its founding members, Carmen de Lavallade and Gus Solomons, Jr. The opening night performance will be followed by a celebration of Paradigm’s 15th anniversary and Carmen de Lavallade’s 80th birthday at Lautrec Bistro. You can join them, for a price, or just go to the show, which features a cast of eight veteran dancers, and a solo performance by Kyle Abraham, Solomon’s former student.

April 11

Dance Theatre of Harlem

At City Center Studio 5, Dance Theatre of Harlem’s artistic director Virginia Johnson and former New York City Ballet principal dancer Damian Woetzel will host an informal evening, focusing on the history of the first American black ballet company, founded at the height of the Civil Rights movement by Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook. The pared-down company of dancers will perform excerpts from the repertoire.

April 12-24

DanceBrazil

DanceBrazil returns to The Joyce Theater with A Jornada (The Path), the high-octane 2001 work by artistic director Jelon Vieira. The evening-length piece is said the chart the path of Africans to Brazil. The Afro-Brazilian martial arts form Capoeira is used to express the emergence of Afro-Brazilian culture.

April 13-16

Juliette Mapp

At Dance Theater Workshop, Juliette Mapp will present her newest work, The Making of the Americans. Based on Gertrude Stein’s namesake novel about being from two worlds, Mapp’s evening-length, multi-media piece will investigate her mother’s family who emigrated from Albania to Gary, Indiana. The most famous citizen of Gary was Michael Jackson. He too will be part of Mapp’s dance theater work performed by eight dancers.

April 13

Ron Brown, Sean Curran, and Nelida Tirado

At the Museum of Art & Design’s black box subterranean theater, Ron Brown, Sean Curran, and Nelida Tirado will present works of whose content remains unknown. Fear not. Brown choreographs delightful concoctions drawn from West African and modern dance. Sean Curran does the same with Irish step dancing and contemporary concert dance movement. Tirado approaches the Flamenco tradition through her wide-ranging, eclectic performing experience.

April 15

Weidman, Maslow, Dudley, and Yuriko

At the 92nd St. Y, the free “Fridays at Noon” performance series continues with “Legacy Performance: Weidman, Maslow, Dudley, Yuriko.” Performed by students and professionals, the event will offer four works by three choreographers, who represented American modern dance’s second generation, interested in political activism. Weidman’s masterwork Lynchtown (1936) remains a powerful, seminal dance work.

April 15-30

John Kelly

At P.S. 122, performance and visual artist John Kelly will present The Escape Artist (2010), which “traces the story of a man who has a trapeze accident while rehearsing a theatre piece based on the life of Italian Baroque painter, Caravaggio. Stranded on a gurney with a broken neck in the hospital emergency room, he finds refuge in the images that flood his mind—the sinners and saints, prostitutes and gods that populate Caravaggio’s paintings. The Escape Artist contains seven original songs by John Kelly & Carol Lipnik, as well as covers of songs by Claudio Monteverdi and John Barry.” (from P.S. 122 website)

April 17

Swan Lake

At the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts, the Russian National Ballet Theatre will present their version of Swan Lake. The company was founded in Moscow in the 1980s, when many artists from Soviet Union’s ballet institutions were forming new companies. Former Bolshoi Ballet principal dancer Elena Radchenko helms the company, known for performing works from the full-length, late 19th-century ballet repertoire.

April 25

Dance Against Cancer

At Manhattan Movement & Arts Center, the benefit performance “Dance Against Cancer” will offer performances by New York City Ballet dancers Daniel Ulbricht, Robert Fairchild, Amar Ramasar, Tyler Angle, Craig Hall, Wendy Whelan, Maria Kowroski, and Sterling Hyltin, as well as appearances by other well-known New York-based dancers. There will be three world premieres, created by fledgling ballet choreographers, and six short dance works created by George Balanchine, Christopher Wheeldon, Benjamin Millepied, Larry Keigwin, Lar Lubovitch, and Earl Mosley.

April 26-May 8

Armitage Gone! Dance

At The Joyce Theater, the company called Armitage Gone! Dance is back with a world premiere called GAGA-Gaku. It inspired by Cambodian Court dance and includes performances by Dance Theater of Harlem dancers. The two-week season features two programs, the second of which is a full-evening length dance based on Einstein’s theories of relativity and matter.

April 28–29

Valley of the Dolls

At Joe’s Pub, Nicole Wolcott and Vanessa Walters present their new cabaret piece, Alley of the Dolls (This is not a sequel). Inspired by the characters from Valley of the Dolls and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, the dance ladies and their cohorts will likely spoof the B movies’ clichés about femininity with their popular brand of athleticism and tongue-and-cheek vulgarity.

April 29

World Dance Day

April 29 is World Dance Day, according to the International Dance Council CID, UNESCO.

April 29

Pearl Primus

At the 92nd St. Y, the free “Fridays at Noon” series continues with “Legacy Performance: Celebrating Pearl Primus.” One of the most important black American modern dance choreographers, Primus made three groundbreaking solos The Negro Speaks of Rivers, Strange Fruit, and Hard Time Blues. Students will perform the dances. A new book, The Dance Claimed Me (Yale University Press), will be on sale. The authors will read passages from their biography.

 

 

 

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Valentine Dances

Monday, February 14th, 2011

By Rachel Straus

When the pressure is on to be romantic, delivering the goods is a challenge. The week before Valentine’s Day, four dance events intentionally (and unintentionally) dabbled in matters of the heart.  Merce Cunningham’s 1998 Pond Way—as filmed by Charles Atlas—was surprisingly the most romantic. (It was screened at the Baryshnikov Arts Center on February 7 as part of “BAC Flicks: Mondays with Merce.”)

Dressed in Scheherazade-meets-minimalist costumes (by Suzanne Gallo), the dancers circumnavigated each other with the aplomb and gentleness of amphibious courtiers. Roy Lichtenstein’s pointillist Landscape with a Boat served as the backdrop and Brian Eno’s New Ikebukkuro (For 3 CD Players) proved subtle and serene. As Banu Ogan traversed the length of the downstage space, a male dancer gently stopped her. Cunningham’s reference to The Rose Adagio in Sleeping Beauty is unmistakable. But instead of being given a flower and striking a virtuoso balance on pointe (as is the case in Beauty), Ogan was neither held nor presented. One by one, a male dancer appeared, placed his palm on a different part of her body, and then evaporated into the wings. Each touch was delicate, almost unobtrusive, like a soft breeze that comes out of nowhere and gives one pause.

**

Mark Morris is not known for his high-flown treatment of heterosexual love. His 2007 Romeo and Juliet (to Prokofiev’s original score with a happy ending) lacked romantic fire. In his choreography for John Adams’ Nixon in China (1987), which is making its Metropolitan Opera House debut (and which I saw on February 12), Morris reinterpreted the propagandist Chinese ballet The Red Detachment of Women (1964). Under Peter Sellers’ direction, Morris choreographed a ballet within a ballet in which President Nixon (James Maddalena) and Mrs. Nixon (Janis Kelly) leave their opera house seats and become involved in the ballet’s action: A peasant girl (Haruno Yamazaki) is whipped to a pulp, then given the Little Red Book. She becomes a rifle-wielding revolutionary comrade. In Act III, she dances with a soldier (Kanji Segawa), once a “decadent” in a European white suit.

Their final pas de deux occurs behind the Nixons (Pat and Richard) and the Tse-Tungs (Mr. and Mrs. Mao), as performed by Robert Brubaker and Kathleen Kim. The singers describe their early years in which sex and love played a greater part in their lives. The fact that Peter Sellers obstructs Morris’ choreography—placing the formidable dancers behind six beds and five singers—says a lot about Sellers’ opinion of Morris’s duet, which does little to support the lyrics about love and loss.

**

Martha Graham wasn’t exactly a romantic, but she sure knew how to choreograph sex. In preparation for the Martha Graham Dance Company’s 85th season at New York’s Rose Theater (March 15-20), the troupe presented their second informal showing on February 9 at DANY Studios. Graham dancers excel in staring each other down with an intensity of gaze only a bull could countenance. When Tadej Brdnik and Xiaochuan Xie locked eyes during an excerpt from Robert Wilson’s Snow on the Mesa (1995), it became clear that their relationship was not the PG variety. That said neither Mesa nor these dancers’ interpretations were overwrought. Brdnik and Xie’s physical beauty and technical command will make this Wilson ballet worth seeing. The other excerpts presented included Graham’s Appalachian Spring (1944), Cave of the Heart (1947), and Deaths and Entrances (1943)—as well as Bulareyang Pagarlava’s work in progress, based on Deaths. It is neither sexy nor romantic. It seems to poke fun at Graham’s seriousness.

**

Seriousness and silliness shared equal billing at Joe’s Pub on February 11, with the kickoff of Dancemopolitan’s 2011 season. Called  “Kyle Abraham and Friends: Heartbreaks and Homies,” the cabaret-style event  (produced by DanceNOW [NYC]) featured seven works by Kyle Abraham and one by three guest choreographers: David Dorfman, Faye Driscoll, and Alex Escalante. On the Pub’s kitchen-size stage, the costuming placed the dances squarely in the retro past. Hot pants prevailed. Afros and beards were in the house. However, when Abraham began short-circuiting his body to the music of Love Me by Sam Cooke—a pioneer of soul music who was shot dead at the height of his career—the evening lost its playful tone.

Like an electric switch, Abraham altered his mood. This fast-firing, dancer-actor expressed heartbreak, rage, innocence, bawdiness in moment-to-moment slices of bodily action. Abraham also shape shifted into a lover because “Heartbreak and Homies” was made with Valentine’s Day in mind. Abraham intermittently mingled among the audience (and in his last solo he curled up in some of their laps). Upon returning to the stage, Abraham flicked his emotional switch down to a dark place: He silently wailed. His body sputtered. It was shocking, its pathos mesmerizing.

Less shocking but equal absorbing was Alex Escalante’s solo about getting dumped via cell phone. As the dancer repeatedly mouthed his disappointment into a microphone, his words looped back into the sound system. An echo chamber of voices chaotically intermingled, in which  Escalante’s laments, his conversation with his lover, and the crooning lyrics of Kiss and Say Goodbye by the Manhattans developed a three-way conversation. At the work’s beginning, Escalante asked the audience: Have you ever been in a relationship that had a total communication breakdown?

Broken down by too many voices, Escalante eventually staggered away from the microphone. His gait resembled a boozer’s drawl. He never fell down. Any amateur who loosened their limbs like Escalante’s would be on the floor, nursing his knees, crying for help.

 

 

 

 

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February Dance Happenings in New York City

Monday, January 31st, 2011

By Rachel Straus


February 4 and 5 @ 8:00 p.m.

Miro Magloire’s New Chamber Ballet at City Center

Magloire’s choreographic inspiration is music. Lately, the German-born, composer-choreographer has been inviting emerging dance makers to his evenings at City Center’s studio. The program will include three world premieres: Constantine Baecher’s Sketches Of A Woman Remembering (a trio to music by Debussy), Emery LeCrone’s solo to a violin sonata by Saint-Saens, and another trio by Magloire, which will uncharacteristically be performed in near silence.

 

 

February 7 @ 7 p.m.

BAC Flics: Mondays with Merce

Two films by former Cunningham filmmaker-in-residence Charles Atlas will be screened at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. The first, Sounddance (1975), includes a percussive score by David Tudor. The second, Pond Way (1998), features a pointillist backdrop by Roy Lichtenstein and a Brian Eno score, said to be mesmerizing. Regardless of the sounds, the Cunningham dancers possess a physicality found nowhere else. Think panther meets machine.  

 

 

February 8-13 (curtain times vary)

Ronald K. Brown/Evidence at the Joyce Theater

Brown’s 25th anniversary season will include the world premiere of On Earth Together, set to music by Stevie Wonder (program A only). The Brooklyn-born choreographer grew up performing modern dance, but he found his choreographic voice through Cuban, Caribbean, and West African dance vocabularies. His work is joyous and thoughtful, a rare combination.

 


February 11 and 12 @ 7 p.m.

Dancemopolitan presents Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion and Friends (Joe’s Pub)

Called Heartbreak and Homies, this cabaret-style, laidback Valentine’s day-inspired event should be sweetly sly and definitely silly, thanks to the invited dancers, which include Alex Escalante and Faye Driscoll. Out Magazine recently called Abraham, who will perform, one of New York’s 100 most eligible gay bachelors.

 

 

February 15-20 (curtain times vary)

Buglisi Dance Theatre at the Joyce Theater

Artistic Director Jacqulyn Buglisi made a name performing principal roles with the Martha Graham Dance Company. Her 17-year-old troupe offers highly dramatic dances that feature strong women. Buglisi’s choreography is painterly, occasionally overwrought, but always beautifully performed. For her New York season, she will present two world premieres: Letters of Love on Ripped Paper and Requiem.

 

 

February 22 – March 6 (curtain times vary)

Paul Taylor Dance Company at City Center

In 12 days, the company will unfurl 16 dances by its namesake choreographer. Two works—Phantasmagoria and Three Dubious Memories—are New York premieres. One—Orbs (set to Beethoven’s late string quartets)—is a revival. The tickets for March 1 have been slashed to “Great Depression Special Prices:” $19.29 for all seats normally $25-$150, $5 for all seats normally $10.

 

February 19 @ 2 p.m., 
February 23 @ 7:30 p.m.
, February 25 @ 8 p.m., and 
February 26 @ 8 p.m.

New New York City Ballet work by Benjamin Millepied (David H. Koch Theater)

With a commissioned score by David Lang, who won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Music, Millepied’s Plainspoken promises to be a well-attended City Ballet event. The work premiered last summer at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, months before Millepied became renowned as the ballet consultant for Darren Aronofsky’s vampire film Black Swan. Plainspoken, says Millepied, is inspired by the personalities of the dancers who helped realize the ballet.

 

 

February 24 @ 8 p.m.

Paco Pena at Town Hall

Guitar maestro Paco Peña and his Flamenco Dance Company will present their new production Flamenco Vivo, which includes a cast of guitarists, percussionists, vocalists and three male dancers—Ángel Muñoz, Ramón Martinez, and Charo Espino. This should be a Gypsy-style, testosterone-fueled, must-see event. Ole!

 

 

 

February 25 and 26 at 8 p.m. and at 3 p.m. on the 27th

Christopher Williams premiere of “Mumbo-jumbo and Other Works” at 92nd St. Y’s Harkness Dance Festival

As indicated by the title of Williams’ latest work, this dance-theater choreographer isn’t into minimalism. Mumbo-jumbo will reference controversial 19th century juvenile literature, which traffics in xenophobia and racism. It might pack a punch.

 

February 27 and 28 at 7:30 p.m.

Guggenheim Museum’s Works + Process: John Zorn, Donald Byrd, Pam Tamowitz

Choreographers Donald Byrd and Pam Tanowitz each create new works, commissioned by Works & Process, set to the music of composer John Zorn. Byrd, known for his beautiful yet volatile work, will choreograph a piece with his Seattle-based company Spectrum Dance Theater set to Zorn’s ∴ played by pianist Stephen Drury. Tanowitz, known for her unflinchingly postmodern treatment of classical dance, sets a work to Zorn’s Femina, written as a tribute to the rich legacy of women in the arts. (Taken verbatim from Guggenheim website)

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