another pic..
“Stranger” Gets an A
Big Range Dance Festival 2009 — Program A
Andee Scott / photo by Simon Gentry
On Big Range Dance Festival’s opening night, I Am Stranger was a stand-out. The piece, conceived and directed by Jeanine Durning, is one of five works commissioned by solo-performer, Andee Scott for her project Woman’s Work: Reconstructions of Self. Austin was treated to the performance in its entirety last year. However, with an amendable structure, I doubt any two stagings of this segment are exactly alike.
The work explores themes of location, presence, and self. Movement vignettes are set among cameras that toss Scott’s image between video monitors like a game of catch. She endears herself to the audience, flawlessly pulling off a series of self-effacing and witty monologues. Her account of burning “the organ that covers her entire body” on a “box used to heat nutritious substances that people eat” is deliciously clever. And, Scott is laugh-out-loud funny as she makes dedicated attempts to trace her own body. Though clearly the least “dance-y” of the program’s offerings, I Am Stranger is the one viewers went home talking about.
Kristen Frankiewicz’s self-choreographed I’m So Alone is as informal and youthful as the contraction in its title. She is charming and unassuming. And, though the dance seems trapped in its linear pathway across stage, rapid-fire articulations and floor work showcase Frankiewicz’s fluid strength.
Scatterplot presents Leslie Scates and four student performers in an improvisational score. Earnest and committed, the performers (with the exception of Scates herself) simply lack the improvisational experience and the technical mastery of the more experienced dancers on the bill, making the whole work feel out-of-place. Jeremy Choate’s skill at lighting wasn’t enough to hold the scattered arrangement together.
Toni Leago Valle’s Baptism exhibits a trio of strong female performers, Lindsey McGill, Nicole McNeil, and Brittany Wallis. Valle always surprises with inventive devices. Water flings from the dancers limbs and hair after they’ve doused themselves onstage. It’s cool but treacherous. After two slippery missteps by the dancers, who recovered well despite conditions, my attention wandered from choreography to casualty.
Also on the program, were sneak previews of upcoming fall performances. Jane Weiner’s work, Village of Waltz incorporates the most lyrical segments of Eno’s Music for Airports and an assemblage of other ambient compositions. The dancers tread on books like stepping stones. It’s an elusive image. Will it be more defined in the whole of the work? Dancer, Lindsey McGill shines brightest in this segment. Her lengthy solo demands challenging sequences entirely en relevé and includes more than one lingering arabesque. She captivates with a girlish, yet melancholy, innocence.
Philip, Philip Glass, Philip Glass Glass Glass, Philip Philip Glass. The minimalist composer is a favorite of choreographers but Becky Valls crafts a kinetic equivalent in Territory. The dancers, including Valls herself, draw circular lines and boundaries which are crossed, entered, and over-stepped. As the perimeters become more linear, we see Valls take the reins as border control, literally painting her dancers into a corner. An excerpt of Valls’ Memoirs of the Sistahood: Chapter Two, this study on defining space satisfyingly completes a thought.
Reprinted from Dance Source Houston
Posted in News and Reviews Tagged: Andee Scott, austin, big range, festival, houston
Spring concert
The Shanghai Pimp Limp and the Soul of a Career Whore
Leonard Nimoy in Star Trek
It was very moving to see Leonard Nimoy in Star Trek. Until then I couldn’t associate the man who made the photographs for Spirit In The Flesh with Spock. Now I can. His voice was laden with his deep commitment and identification with the deepest meaning of Star Trek. Perhaps it is: putting us in direct contact with the cosmos, and through this encounter putting us in relationship to each other and to encountering the unkown in ourselves. He is the still center in the wild, careening film. The heartbeat behind the scenes.
One of the amazing things about Kabbalah is placing human life in relation to the cosmos. The Shekhina is the link between cosmos, the animation, the spirit of our world and the residing of spirit within us. The Shekhina is the healing power in the world.I felt that in making Spirit In The Flesh and felt it in Leonard’s words and in his face. Spock was no longer Spock the first officer but the Wise Old Man with the healing power of unity within him, uniting future and past, uniting planets, uniting the two main characters by uniting feeling with logic.
The Vulcan greeting is the sign for the Hebrew letter, the “Shin”, which is the first letter of the word “Shekhina”. It goes back to Leonard’s childhood in Brooklyn - in the Synagogue when the priests, the Kohanin, would call the Shekhina to enter the temple. Nimoy relates how his father told him no one could look as the light from the Shekhina was too powerful to behold. But he looked and saw the Kohanin with their arms outsetreched, in ecstacy, their hands in rhe sign of the Shin. So he chose that sign as the Vulcan greeting.
In some of Nimoy’s Shekhina photographs, the women have the Shin written on them, sometimes like tatoo, sometimes the letter printed as if on their palm reaching out to us, sometimes floating in space above them. A sign of power, of magic, or a brand of yhe sacred upon the body? Uniting the female body with divinity.
At the end of Spirit in The Flesh I have one of the dancers, Andrea Beeman, standing covered with a black shawl, making herself the middle prong of the “Shin” Vulcan greeting, then she spins, with the real cosmos as see by the Hubble telescope on the film screen behind her and embedded in the stars, one of Nimoy’s photographs, a star-women, looking down in blessing. the worlds united- going where no woman has gone before.
In Star Trek Nimoy seemed a messenger from a timeless realm beyond. The future beyond death. Or reincarnation? Certainly a visitation of blessing for us. For us to feel. A most un-Spock-like wish. And he isn’t an alien destructive creature form beyond, but a visitation of ourselves from beyond putting us in contact with ourselves beyond ourselves.
(Lots of) Falling Water
He forgot to mention the water.
On the road from Talca to Temuco, a road which doesn't bend (can someone say I-80 in Iowa?), Isabel turned from her front seat vantage point in the bus and said that the driver asked if we wanted to see an extraordinary waterfall along the way. I asked how far off the road it was, and how far away it would take us. I thought an hour perhaps. She looked at me strangely and said, "it's Chile. About 5 minutes." The point being that in a country 5,000 miles long and 5 miles wide its not really possible to go too far east or west.
So I said sure, lets stop.
We pulled off the Pan American, which is a toll road in this part of the world, and drove to the waterfall. About, oh, 1/2 a mile. Now, spectacular nature isn't supposed to exist within spitting distance of the major highway in the country, but there it was. The falls themselves were all the you could imagine and hope for. The strange proximity of a hotel, with a dozen back porch sliding glass doors just about 50 yards from them, and the empty swimming pool, with its inevitable, unearthly green/blue paint, threw the bucolic nature of a stunning cascade of water hurling over the lip of the earth off. So did the 50 gallon drum upended on the north bank. But the falls themselves were exquisite.
The contrast in those falls, where so much water falls from the sky throughout the drainage basin for just this one river, to that of the arid Middle East, where the dominant talk is of Amman, Jordan (and much of the country itself) running out of water in 30 years is startling. From desert to deluge in four weeks time on tour -- at about 8,500 miles distance. I honestly doubt as much water flows through the Jordan River in an entire year as flows
over just these falls alone in a single day.And it wouldn't have surprised me if someone went F.L. Wright one better and built a house over these one day. (that's not an endorsement in any way of that idea). Call it "madly falling water."
(M) Rhythm In Bronze (RiB)
22 to 24 May 2009
Flipside
Esplanade, Singapore
After shopping for four hours, I was a proud contributor to Singapore's economy! Give me another four hours and I would have lifted the republic from its recession. I chose a seat with a pillar behind me because I was feeling rather tired and spineless (by then). I wanted a good break and was looking forward to Flipside, the daily free performance at the open air theatre in conjunction with the Singapore Arts Festival. And lo behold! It was Rhythm in Bronze, our home-grown gamelan troupe performing that evening.
In the crowd, there was a good mixture of locals and foreigners. An Indonesian man sat right in front wearing a batik headscarf on his head tied to look like a hat (what do you call this?), and wearing a t-shirt that had “Visit Indonesia 2008” boldly written on its back. And because he was sitting on the front-most bench, everyone behind him could read it. I loved the irony…hah! What also caught my attention was the number of young Singaporean Malays - dressed as if they’re going for Avril Lavigne’s concert – making this an outing with friends. What this proves is that RiB, despite its obvious traditional genre, has managed to find its appeal, through its innovation and use of some Western instruments, amongst the young seeking an identity they can relate to.
Photos courtesy of RIB.
Butterflies in concert
These are shots from the opening night concert in Talca.
StealThisDance.com – Examining Intellectual Property Through Dance
The intellectual property debate has affected everything from rap mix tapes to illegal downloads. As part of their new work, Punk Yankees, Lucky Plush Productions of Chicago have created a website that (rather humorously) examines this debate as it exists for dancers. In an art form where creation can often be largely comprised of a reordering of known material, the lines between sampling and stealing can be quite blurred. Where is the line between appropriate borrowing and stealing? How do you steal respectfully? Lucky Plush explores these and other questions on their new website: StealThisDance.com
The site features many videos that explore various forms of appropriation. Some particularly interesting selections explore the idea of teaching an impersonation of a re-choreographing of a remembering of a phrase (a true brain teaser). This convoluted method of developing material rather puts one in mind of the game of Telephone. The end result is quite different from the original, which itself is questionable in integrity because it is remembered rather than created. These videos make the viewer question the originality of the newly-developed material.
The most memorable video shows a dance that is a mash-up of different iconic moments of dance in the media. The piece is set to Beyonce’s song-of-the-moment, “Single Ladies.” The song’s music video has gained notoriety because it features Beyonce performing a routine that is heavily influenced by Bob Fosse, making "Single Ladies" an excellent music choice for a dance that focuses on appropriating movement. The finished product is entertaining and, oddly enough, puts me in mind of the days when I would watch and re-watch TRL every afternoon until I had the moves to “Bye Bye Bye” down pat. At the same time, the piece gets me thinking about the difference between an homage and appropriation. Fosse’s material is well-known enough that it doesn’t really need to be specifically cited in order for people to know that it is his. However, use of any material without proper acknowledgement of the original author is generally considered plagiarism. Did the “Single Ladies” choreographer, whoever s/he is, pay tribute to Fosse or steal from him? It’s a question I’m not sure I can answer, but I will say that given a choice between Lucky Plush’s Single Ladies (Stole This Dance) video and the new iconic-dance-moments-mash-up movie Dance Flick, I would much rather watch Lucky Plush.
The highlight of the site, however, is the Moves Boutique. Various movers (including Peter Carpenter and David Roussève) donated video-recorded moves and suggested a price at which the moves can be purchased. Of course, as the website acknowledges, it is up to the individual whether or not they will pay the full price, a portion of the price, or steal the moves instead of paying. While this is obviously a humorous spin on the concept of stealing movement, the idea of putting a dollar value on a given movement really gets me thinking about what the value of dance is in this society and who gets to decide which dances are move valued than others (in terms of dollar amounts).
The only criticism of the site that I have is that there is no discussion forum available to the visitor. I would love to discuss some of the questions that these works raise for me with others. However, I’m sure that Lucky Plush is receiving reactions to the site, thanks to an open invitation to share any work that includes moves, bought or stolen, from the website. There’s a lot to explore on this site, all of it thought-provoking and entertaining. I highly encourage everyone to check it out.
Punk Yankees is set to premiere in October of 2009 at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago.
NYCB: Allegro Brillante, Opus 19/The Dreamer, Swan Lake
