Bush and Helstroffer: To dream without cease
posted by InfiniteBody on February 8, 2010
The Himalayan imagery on display in Chelsea's classy Rubin Museum of Art has found a champion in Nadine Helstroffer, a French-born dancer-choreographer with a Ph.D. in Philosophy. Helstroffer's commissioned solo, Absence Presence, was premiered in the Rubin's special exhibition gallery, surrounded by Eternal Presence: Handprints and Footprints in Buddhist Art. The record of that performance--filmed by John Bush, edited with exquisite sensitivity by Brent Felker--received its world premiere last night at the Rubin along with another Bush film scored by Felker, the quite enchanting Dream on Me.Helstroffer's snaky dancing evokes the couple's shared spirituality and pleasure in nature; her perpetually inward expression gives a poetic, even solemn flavor to her work. But she is not just Bush's ethereal muse but also his anchor. Like the hyper-energized, exalted beings at the center of the Tibetan images that flicker through Absence Presence, Helstroffer acts as the radiant core from which Bush's loveliest light can flow in the dream-inspired Dream on Me. The ripples of reflections in water; the deep, resonant clang of super-saturated color; the languorous bobbing of blossom-laden trees in lingering moments of drowsy beauty and gentle humor: They all seem sourced and grounded in this...
