"Tanzt, tanzt – sonst sind wir verloren"

Sometime writer & journalist, NYC gawker, storyteller. Culture vulture. #Dance lover. Freelance communications/PR/marketing gun 4 hire. Stuff about dance, music, theater, NYC. Some notes, some thoughts.

[kamilaslawinski]

Not All of 2018 Sucked

In lieu of my Best of 2018 list - The Absolutely Best Things I Got at a Theater This Year:  In chronological order (omitting the shows I represented in the spirit of avoiding a conflict of interest):

- A post-show hug from Okwui (before she was a MacArthur fellow...), after Jim Finldlay’s magnificent ELECTRIC LUCIFER at The Kitchen

- A strong feeling that the illegal immigrant women are not voiceless (I was one during my first two years in NYC, just so you know), courtesy of Martyna Majok’s remarkable QUEENS at Lincoln Center Theater / LCT3

 - A conviction that theatre can save lives - twice: at Modesto Jimenez’  heart-wrenching, autobiographical ¡OYE! FOR MY DEAR BROOKLYN (at Abrons Arts Center) and at Komuna/Warszawa show HANNAH ARENDT. ESCAPE ROOM in Warsaw

- The best seat in the house that I did not pay for at The Wooster Group’s great A PINK CHAIR (In Place of a Fake Antique), at The Performing Garage

- An awesome evacuation drill from Antonio Ramos and Awilda Rodriguez Lora in ISLA DE LOS OBLIDADOS (work in progress) – at The Performance Project @ University Settlement and at Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church

- A temporary performance-induced psychosis, at TV’s SEHNSUCHT, written by Michael Norton and directed by Sarah Blush, with fabulous music by Deepali Gupta - at JACK

- Major goosebumps, twice from the same artist (!!) - Luciana Achugar, first at her Times Square show (technically not at a theater, but still mind-blowing), then at NYU Skirball

- A copy of the US Constitution from Heidi Schreck’s astounding WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME, at New York Theatre Workshop

- An awesome impromptu performance by my date Asia Z. at the equally awesome and timely THE EMPEROR, based on a book by Ryszard Kapuścinski, Theatre for a New Audience

- A wonderful sensory overload, twice – at Hope Salas’ HOPE directed by Erika Latta (The Wild Project) and Rob Roth’s SOUNDSTAGE, at HERE Arts Center

- A freshly washed grape from Gideon Irving, at My Name Is Gideon, at The Brick

- A desire for more shoes, from Larissa Velez-Jackson' delightful ZAPATOGRAFIA, again at Abrons - that was also where I laughed the most

- A handful of x-large confetti in my bag, from Lisa Clair’s THE MAKING OF KING KONG by the Lisa Clair Group, at Target Margin Theater

Sorry for omitting you, St. Ann's Warehouse, BAM, Soho Rep., Playwrights Horizons, Signature Theatre Company, Park Avenue Armory, and The Public Theater – I know you had some awesome stuff this year but the way things are, I will never be able to afford you. 😞

Thank you all who made my 2018 in theater memorable.

[kamilaslawinski]

The Emperor

I was in my teens when I first laid my hands on a copy of Ryszard Kapuściński’s seminal book The Emperor, a reportage volume chronicling the aftermath of the fall of Ethiopia’s Haile Selassie. Like most people of that day and age at the place in my home country of Poland, I have been deciphering as an allegory of the corrupted system we’ve been living under. But there was something else about the book, something truly Shakespearean in scope, chilling and universal: like no other I have ever read before, it was a book about power and what it does to people. Over forty years about its publication, this is what gives Kapuściński’s account its staying power. Now, this highly un-theatrical text has landed on stage, in a most riveting adaptation, written for the stage by Colin Teevan, directed by Walter Meierjohann and in the tour-de-force performance by the phenomenal Kathryn Hunter, aided in her many stage transformations by an Ethiopian musician Temesgen Zekee. The result is nothing short of stunning.

Why do people follow insane leaders? Why don’t they question the disgusting abuses of the few that brings on harm and disaster on many? What kind of madness makes the underlings complicit in the most abhorrent misappropriation of power and privilege, the most outrageous excess of it? The many servants of the His Most Puissant Majesty do not offer an answer to these questions. Neither in the book nor in this amazing piece of theater that left me breathless and crushed on one level but strangely uplifted on another. Crushed – because never in the million years did I expect that Kapuściński’s cautionary tale, set in exotic (and often overly exoticized) setting will be so relevant in the 2018 America. Uplifted - because scary as it is, this piece shows in the most amazing ways the gullibility of human nature but also the inevitability of change. In her chameleon-like transformations from one character to another, Hunter shows not only her characters’ folly - she also does justice to their most human need to believe in something, however bizarre, the need to identify with something larger and better than ourselves. In her portrayal, the servants of the tyrannical monster are not only grotesque; they are also deserving of a moment of reflection on what makes us all yearn for submission. This is the kind of theater I grew up with - political, urgent, uncomfortable and upsetting. Not even a few technical glitches during the performance were able to take away of from its awesome power.

One note to the non-Polish speaking reader: the adaptation, based on the great translation by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand, makes the text so flowing that one might forget that the original was written in a language that by its nature is not very economical. Polish often requires a lot of sound to deliver a little meaning, and what makes Kapuściński’s writing great is the elegant leanness of his style. This comes out great in this staging. No word is obsolete. Every adjective makes a devastating point, every pause is loaded with meaning. The few embellishments that were made by the adaptor make perfect sense: they liven up the story and bring out the points that otherwise would be lost outside the written page.

“Power requires the suspension of disbelief,” writes Teevan in the program notes (in which he also writes a few unkind words about Kapuściński I don’t fully agree with, but that’s another story.) What a pointed statement in the era we live in, the world where people’s decisions are so obviously and so harmfully driven not by logic but the need to believe. For me, the message of the show at the end is clear: however foolish our nature makes us, however slow the rise of inevitable outrage, this cannot hold, this will not hold. In the country where no one seems to be principled enough to yell that the emperor has no clothes, it sounds like a hopeful reminder. The show is still on at the Theater for a New Audience thru September 30. Do not miss it: it’s a must-see.

[kamilaslawinski]

You know the story: a chubby English boy, a son of a London cabbie, with no formal education, breaks into fashion world from the bottom up, goes to a prestigious arts school thanks to his aunt’s money, builds the most amazing portfolio of work by enlisting people to labor for him for free and pulling the stunning pieces almost out of thin air - with trash bags and latex and pieces of jewelry that look like particularly cruel bondage accessories.

You know how the story continues: he finds a champion in England, lands a job at one of the most venerable Paris fashion houses but manages not to lose his soul: funnels all the money into his own brand, churning a collection after a mind-boggling collection of pieces the world has never dreamt of – not since Hieronymus Bosch.

You know what comes next: personal demons win, and at the highest point of his fame and economic success, the boy kills himself at forty, a day after his beloved mother has died. It seems like there’s nothing new to know - and yet, the Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui documentary MCQUEEN, as every great documentary, tells the story that surprises, moves and adds to the understanding of a subject everyone thought they knew everything about.

What makes a truly great art documentary? One could say, the ability to present the medium not meant for a screen in a way that creates a 360-degree, sprawling image and an uncanny experience of art being present, and the artists coming to life before our very eyes. MCQUEEN has that: by very simple and effective means, the filmmakers introduce their dead hero seen through variety of lenses - beginning with videotapes that look like secret diaries, continuing with exquisitely edited interviews and recording of fashion shows and wrapping with lush images that haven’t been created by McQueen himself but could have well belonged into his visual vocabulary. What should be noted in the context of this particular, tragic biography is that the documentarians don’t overplay their hand when discussing the darkest, most disturbing, often controversial aspect both of the works and the man himself. They manage to steer away from too much glamour, too much polish - everything their subject would probably object to. You don’t see Bjork glossing over how McQueen designs added to her rise as an icon of style; instead, you hear from people who learned firsthand how impossibly hard it is to stay friends with a true and unquestionable but tormented genius.

What else makes this film so moving? So much to unpack here. For me, the striking and powerful realization was that the physical transformation of Lee McQueen into Alexander McQueen was the only, the single compromise this single-minded man has ever made. The narrative of the documentary makes it clear that the “prettier” the man himself got, the stronger his demons have become. In a way, this theme gives MCQUEEN the eerie quality of watching a filmic “Picture of Dorian Gray” a rebours: the darker the mind, the more conventionally attractive the body of the artist get - the more serene, ethereal, dreamy his designs. When the final, stunning, otherworldly PLATO’S ATLANTIS rolls in, it is almost clear that a flower this gorgeous is not meant to bloom for long.

One of the highest achievements of this 120-minute-long film is the way it presents the nature of McQueen’s art: it is clear to any viewer when the credits roll in that what this extraordinary man was doing has transcended and expanded the category under which his creations have been filed. Ever since I saw SAVAGE BEAUTY retrospective at the Met, I knew with certainty that what Alexander McQueen has been doing was *not* fashion. And it only seemed right: I fucking *hate* fashion, as I hate everything that's shallow, vapid, superficial and available for sale in identical packages. McQueen's designs have what every great art has: they stare right back at you and see deep into you, showing you things you don't necessarily want to know about yourself and the world around. Existing somewhere between sculpture, performance art, and experimental theatre, his collections should have been toured and shown as any groundbreaking, fearless, cathartic piece of performing arts - that much is clear from the very beginning. We have a reason to envy the few lucky bastards who saw them presented the way their creator intended; we should be eternally grateful to the filmmakers and curators and writers who enable the rest of us to grasp if only a small taste of how this was like.

Another thought - a rather depressing one, come to think of it. Those of us who lived through the 1990s should be thanking the Goddess every waking hour that we did have that experience. It is clear when one looks closer that today, in the world of corporate art and consumer-driven culture, the phenomenon like McQueen would have no chance of emerging. Today, the artists of such boldness and distinct style would have snowball's chance in hell of finding the means (read: money) to bring their concepts into being. Not without corporate backing, not without losing their edge and the uniqueness of their voice. Those of us who were old enough to see the likes of this man rise and share their visions with the rest of the world has been blessed with the opportunity of witnessing something real, deep and profound like nothing the generations coming after us will have to feed on. Tragic as this story is, we should be grateful for having him among us if only for a short while; it would be unbearable not to have him at all.

| MCQUEEN (2018), a documentary by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, now in selected theaters.|

[kamilaslawinski]

An excerpt from a nonexisting memoir

(You tell me if it’s worth writing.)

I pity families who don't have any weirdos among them. In mine, the resident eccentric was my paternal great-uncle – let’s call him Matt. The family legend says that he ran away from home at 18 to join the merchant marine, traveled all around the world, got back and breezed through law school to later become a prominent attorney - and then, when the political climate of the 1960s made him a persona non grata among the Communist loyalists on the local bar association, he decided to switch careers and became a horse riding instructor at one of those big breeding farms full of beautiful creatures meant to eventually be auctioned off to Arabian sheiks. To a widespread disapproval of the staunchly Catholic part of the family, he married his second cousin - a painter and an art restorer - and by the time I was four or five, they took over an old family summer house, some 20 miles away from my hometown.

The house was the last remnant of what, I have been told, was once and family estate, bulk of which has been nationalized after the war. It stood two stories high in the middle of the woods; from all the sneaking around did throughout the property, I don't recall any neighbors. Just a simple house, a hunting cottage, really; a humble wooden structure with a porch on one side and a huge veranda on the other. Everything about it was so different than what I was accustomed in the city life: a chicken coop in the backyard, the squeaky window shutters that would bang in the wind during terrifying summer thunderstorms; a smokehouse used occasionally to cure homemade cold meats; the moss-covered picket fence so dilapidated it could not even keep the deer out and away from aunt Hanna’s Boston lettuce seedlings. There was an abundance of birds I used to recognize by species, and of plants never seen in the urban setting. That’s where my olfactory and sensory vocabulary was formed, with the smell of burning wood and the musky, ominous odor of distant forest vipers, the sting of young nettle; the strangely satisfying squish that would accompany the popping of a ripe snowberry under your boot.

I remember trips from the town to the countryside on a bus with my great-grandmother, the impatience of “are we there yet?”, the heat of summer inside the bus, the smell of hard-boiled eggs people would bring as a snack for the trip. The winding sandy road from the station to the house. The warm welcome we’ve been getting from our crazy family members. Uncle Matt would greet us dressed up as Lawrence of Arabia and play strange songs on his mandolin. Aunt Hanna would emerge from her studio smelling of oil paints and mineral oil and start making dinner. Sometimes it involved dressing a chicken freshly killed to celebrate the occasion (the sight of underdeveloped eggs removed from its intestines gave me nightmares for days.) Sometimes there were sweet dried apple rings from the orchard, prepared on the old-fashioned wood-burning stove. Or, even better, a bowlful of sour cherry compote. Or a wild mushroom stew served as soon as one of the grownups was done pulling cobwebs from my tangled hair.

What I remember are just flashes, bits and pieces with no continuing narrative. The dogs, an odd couple plowing with me through the high grass of a vast, un-mowed meadow to the place so densely covered with blooming poppies it looked like a lake of bright red. The petrified seashells uncovered in the overgrown part of the garden (I was to learn at school later that geologically, this part of the country was the oldest structure to emerge during the Caledonian orogeny). The terror of counting seconds between the lightning and the roar of a thunder during the pitch-black July night. The joy of building tall structures out of old-fashioned wooden matchboxes the entire family was collecting for me. The ecstasy of leafing through horse auction catalogs with uncle Matt who would ask me: which of these horses would you like to have if you could? (I still remember the impeccably milk-white million-dollar Arabian stallion named Tristan da Cuhna which was the most burning object of my desire.) The thrill of finding fresh eggs at the coop in the morning. Everything was enormous and magical and just mine, with no other kids to share it with. And what strikes me now when I think about it, it was a world without buying and selling: what you got was the product of your own hands and sweat.

I don’t know exactly how many summers have I spent visiting this house, but I am certain that if I ever belonged anywhere, it was to that house, full of neglected antiques and old photos and strange smells. When we finally moved to Warsaw, there was no reason to go there, although I remember asking my parents repeatedly if that would be an option. Then the life took over, as it always does - with schools and friends and new places to go. I have been promising myself I’ll get back there one day, but when I was old enough to travel on my own, I have learned that the house has been sold among a bitter family dispute, that uncle Matt divorced aunt Hanna and took a mistress half his age, that there is no coming back and all turns to shit. I often wonder if it still stands there, full of stories and smells, my forest paradise, forever lost.

[kamilaslawinski]

Like many expats, I have a complicated relationship with my dead. In many cases, goddess have mercy on me, I don’t even know where their bones are buried. The mementos of many more have been left behind or lost during one of the countless moves. I don’t visit, and they have been kind enough to leave me be, except those rare moments when I see their faces in strangers on the subway or meet them in dreams. But my loved-and-lost ones are well-behaved: they do not haunt me, they don’t fling the doors wide open in a pouring rain. I am trying to convince myself that I am not guilty of the deadliest of sins, the sin of forgetting - but that does not fully abate my unclean conscience, and as the holidays loom, the memories grow more restless.

I wasn’t thinking much of it until the show started at The Bushwick Starr last night; in many ways, I was completely unprepared for what was coming. To be honest, I expected another ironic Bushwick product, smart and sleek and funny. I sat in the first row right in front of the piano installed in the middle of the tiny stage and inhaled the excitement of my first visit to the venue I have heard so much about. I knew nothing of the performer. There were no extended program notes in the booklet, printed in the type too small for me to read without my reading glasses I left behind.

It was probably about twenty minutes in when it really hit me, and when it did, it hit hard. I will not describe what’s in the show; you have Ben Brantley for that. Let me just say that there is a thought that  I have been returning to obsessively in these dark times: how the art does only deserve its name when it makes you feel like you are a part of something much bigger than yourself. And that’s what I got from Heather Christian, a diminutive blonde with a voice that can turn any interior into a cathedral and the beautiful soul she is not afraid to bare in front of the roomful of strangers. There is courage in this work that is really rare these days - an amazing bravery of being vulnerable and tender and honest about the subject that is guaranteed to break one’s heart in two even in a most intimate conversation, much more so in a public ritual of a requiem mass.

But the intent is not the only brilliant thing about this piece. It’s been a long while since I was in a live music performance and I almost forgot how powerful this medium can be. The ensemble behind Animal Wisdom (Sasha Brown, Fred Epstein, Eric Farber, Maya Sharpe and a choir) is nothing short of amazing, and their talents multiply the impact of what is already a powerful and gorgeous material. Trust me, on my way to Starr Street I was still obsessing about not being able to witness Patti Smith saying goodbye to Sam Shepard; true, I don’t really know what I missed, but something tells me that I might have gotten a much better deal.   There are singers, a very rare breed, who sing like their life depended on it. Heather is definitely one of them, and her musicians work their magic in reminding us all, even the civilians, that there is something absolutely amazing and incredibly empowering about the experience of collective music making, even if one gets the smallest possible part in it.

The show is completely sold out for the rest of the (already extended) run, but if you can think of a way of cheating, lying, or stealing your way to see it, DO IT. Heather Christian is a force of nature, and I guarantee you that since the golden days of Diamanda Galás you haven’t seen or heard anything so profoundly moving about how we deal with our dead. Not to mention that the staging is magical - and the flickering lights designed by another wizard, one Andrew Schneider, added another level of enchantment to this already overwhelmingly beautiful show.

Two hours, no intermission. It flew like a blink. And as I was sitting there when the lights came back up, with a bell Heather handed me and others to ring for the grand finale, something opened inside, something long silenced and repressed, and the voice said: You were given a voice, and with it, an obligation. This voice is not yours to keep. Go sing for your dead, go sing for your dead.

[kamilaslawinski]

From the Drawer, 1

Funny  how people meet. All these months I haven’t seen this guy before. He  just shows up right on the other side from me and does what I usually  do: dip in and dive, all the way across the pool, lap after lap, all the  time, without stopping. It almost seems awkward: as if we were on a  secret date that occurred totally unintentionally. It happened like few  things ever happen in life, not even when all the careful planning, tiptoeing, arranging, compromising, pleading and oh-please-don’t-you-hurt-my-feelings-ing  is executed in the most minute of details, and with the most carefully  heartbreaking of efforts. Here we are: him and me, two slowly moving  parcels of human flesh and thought, immersed in bluish fluid, passing  each other smack dab in the middle point of the pool in an unusually  well-orchestrated contrary motion. I go, then he goes; we pass each  other in the middle like two trains, forever riding in opposite  direction on eternally parallel tracks, never meant to cross each other’s way.

I almost feel like waving at him, but I don’t. I  almost feel like smiling at him, but I don’t. It’s better this way: and  as you all agree, it’s always tricky to show that one cares, isn’t it?  If one does, before one knows that, one is putting oneself in a  vulnerable position, doesn’t one? So here we go, shuttling to and fro,  fully immersed in fluid, and fully immersed in being what we are, doing  what we do. We dive and we emerge, each on their own track, each in  their own thoughts. Sometimes each of us is coming from opposite side.  Sometimes from the same side, and then I am racing him like crazy  although it’s obvious that he is a much better swimmer -- and it makes  me feel so much better about myself every time I manage to get to the  finish line before him. No explaining is necessary and no discussions  are held, no word exchanged; as if we agreed from the very beginning of  this unusual encounter that Antoine Saint-Exupery is right, and speech  is nothing but source of all misunderstandings. He does his thing, I do  mine, in perfect harmony. And as we both know well, each of us is buoyed  up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by our bodies:  that is the one of very few things to be sure of.

Am I  attracted to this man? No. Do I long to know who he is, and what he  does, what are his dreams like, where he is from, why is he here and/or  what wine he drinks with his dinner? None of the above. I just think  this is a most remarkable of miracles that we both are here. And I am so  eternally grateful that for a few fleeing minutes I can get this one  thing from a total stranger who encroached on me in my secret hiding  place, a thing  I don’t have any strength left in me to ask from the  dearest of my friends. It almost feels like I knew him all my life  without knowing him at all -- because for a brief moment I am certain  that he understands this one thing I keep trying and failing to explain:  how does this feel to be me.

[kamilaslawinski]

To say that Stacy Sperling’s new work hot dark matter should be seen is a serious understatement: it should also be smelled, heard, and touched. Designed as a site-specific project at JACK, it takes full advantage of the space’s quirky surroundings. At the beginning, I was concerned about the seating: arranged in rows on house left, it seemed like the setup was misconceived as from where I was I could not have a full view of dark space where everything was happening. It quickly turned out, however, that this precarious arrangement was as carefully thought out as the rest of the work.

For what seemed like a long time we all sat in the dark, listening to Messiaen’s music seeping from the speakers and waited for something to happen. And it did. An armless, long-haired creature in the corner (who later turns out to be the perfectly human and amazing Tuva Hildebrand) started moving in a spastic, tense way that suggested something being born or released from a dormant state. It was a strange, animal, primal kind of movement, only made even more bizarre by the fact that the performer’s leg was locked in an orthopedic shoe. Things started going “boo!” in the dark. One could not see exactly what, but the more room to play with was opened to one’s imagination.

It’s not just about seeing, mind you. Strange thumps, rattles, incomprehensible murmurs, sudden shouts and heavy breathing, intense smells coming from no place in particular, objects and figures that beg for touch or really touch you  – all this constitutes the dense texture of this piece, which suggest things rather than showing them in the open. Scenes appear like in a dream – surreal figures, movements, noises, aromas. Before any certainty sets in, they’re gone. Three human sculptures (Dana Florin-Weiss, Monica Hunken, Kadence Neill) appear and shuffle back and forth across the stage, wearing nothing but big, black, shiny, mushroom-like collars. Silver-clad dancer  (Rebecca Warner) performs a strange gymnastics. The hooded figures (Joomin David Hwang, Darren Liff, Kevin Luparello, Stephen Zuccaro) hidden in the back step in and do their shady work, only to reappear as a small army of suits later in the piece. Two performers completely covered in black (Stacy herself and Rebecca) except their pale-white hands and feet and faces join forces in a strange, disembodied crawl.

The writeup available on JACK’s website suggest that the piece was inspired by stories of physics of subatomic particles – and whether it is true or not, I am convinced that the world where Stacy’s stories take place cannot be seen with a naked eye. If you ask me, I do hope the world of neutrinos and quarks is as amusing as portrayed in this humorous, hectic and surprising choreography. I also hope the nano-world is as stylish as Jeremy Lydic costumes, reminiscent of 1970s space movie as dreamed out by Salvador Dali. And that is as ingenious as the movable set, and it is as exquisitely lit as JACK was last night, flooded in Joe Levasseur’s mysterious chiaroscuro. If this curious visualization indeed reflects what happens on a subatomic level, the absurdity of the visible world suddenly makes perfect sense.

I’m not trying to tell you all that’s there; one, it’s impossible, because everyone will experience something different, depending on one’s own memories, fears and sense of humor; two, it would spoil the surprise. One thing that is worth noting is, when it was over (and I am not even going to mention the hilarious last act, one of the best uses of the space and video I have seen recently!), the head remains open. I was walking down Fulton Street on a preposterously gorgeous spring evening and gathering smells and flashes of light and noises and sights in the twilight. And when I finally got home, I was waiting for any faint rattling sound that could possibly indicate there is a beautiful monster hiding in the closet, and it will emerge from there and dance for me.

Go see the show.

[photo by Maria Baranova-Suzuki]

[kamilaslawinski]

I don’t usually envy people. But having just seen the extraordinary documentary on Reza Abdoh I feel the strange, unfamiliar, prickly feeling that is, by all appearances, the envy. I am jealous of the people who knew this extraordinary man, and I covet the kind of experience they describe when talking about how it was like to work with him. The intensity, the incredible ballsy-ness and uncompromising honesty of what the work seems like – even seen just on film, in snippets, frozen, preserved like the living art should never be, it is something one does not forget. It crawls under one’s skin, dilates one’s pupils, makes the heart pump faster. Was it the awareness of his own inevitable and quickly approaching end that made him who he was, as a man and as an artist? It must have been important, but there is something much more stunning that emerges from testimonials of the actors, artistic collaborators, stage crew, producers, colleagues.

“We all were giving him much more than we were in a position to give,” says one of the performers. It is awe-inspiring to realize there are, once a generation, maybe even less often – people whose vision is so compelling that others trust them completely, blindly, beyond reason. There was much talk in the film of how Abdoh was capable of exposing, perhaps even exploiting, dark sides of people who entrusted him with their bodies and souls. They shake their heads when reminiscing on what he has made them do, how far he has pushed them beyond what they believed were their hard limits.

If this expression sounds like something from a BDSM site, it probably touches right on a subtle but powerful thing about theater when it is at its greatest. It is supposed to be a power exchange. It is supposed to be about complete, blind trust that makes one delve into a space unreachable except for this special, intense, vulnerable and incredibly empowering experience. A collaborative living art, when it really is what it should be – brave and uncompromising and transformative – is possibly even more intimate than sex, more overwhelming, more all-encompassing. In the context of what Abdoh’s oeuvre must have been like when experienced directly, the sexual analogy does not seem far off. Who knows, perhaps this is exactly what he was doing in the deepest, spiritual plane of his theatrical work.

The documentary directed by Adam Soch is an extraordinary piece of work, even from a perspective of someone – like yours truly – who watched it with little knowledge about the work of the late theatre visionary whose name is in the title. Its unabashedly emotional approach to the man and his work allows the unsuspecting audience to experience, if only second-hand, the urgency, the authenticity, the truth-ness of what Reza Abdoh’s theater must have been like. In some ways, it feels like a documentary on an extinct, ancient civilization (who could possibly dare produce and present a work like this in our era?) – but also brings to mind the line that indeed comes from the ancient times, but occasionally rings true, and that makes the lives of artists bearable, and at times rewarding: Exegi monument aere perennius.

Bad news: so far, the film has no US distribution. Can we please have this film in theaters? Do I know anybody who can make it happen?

Good news: video recordings of Reza Abdoh’s work will we made available online. I never expected to say that about a recording of a live performance –  but I can’t wait.

https://vimeo.com/93815467

[kamilaslawinski]

There was more than one moment in LEIMAY’s borders that had me literally hold my breath, but I will remember one more than others: an incredible sequence about an hour into the work, when six dancers get suspended for almost ten minutes in a most unnatural, concocted position you can possibly imagine, a compressed shoulder stand that reduces them to perfectly symmetrical, abstract shapes that get to unravel as the scene progresses. I held my breath because it seemed like the slightest external interference could tip these tense figures into oblivion, destroy the delicate balance existing on the verge of impossibility.

It was like watching a moon landing. Or a birth. Something of huge importance and great fragility. It seemed like a moment of great transformation, a border right between ‘before’ and ‘after’ that will never look even remotely alike.

I always admired the great skill of working with light that was a building block of at least two LEIMAY works I have seen before, but in borders, there is a special, three-dimensional quality to the lighting that defines special relations, shapes, and colors beyond what things look like. There is something highly sculptural in it. The most immaterial of all things seems to have its weight and density, and power to influence physical objects in its path. It literally builds something out of nothing, suggesting shapes and textures. It feels tactile. It feels no less material and real than dancers’ beautiful, athletic and sexless bodies.

The sound accompanying this scene is as minimal as the set in this minimalist, almost austere production. Squeaks and scratches barely recognizable as sounds grow into more discernible, aural tones as the shrunk bodies unveil like plants growing from strange seeds. This is the moment in the work when those shapes finally become bodies – or, for lack of better expression, become recognizable as such. Up till now, they were for most of the time almost nonfigurative: dark, sculpture-like silhouettes cut out of darkness and fog by intense, sharp, unrelenting white spotlight; or impressionistic blobs, liquefied by pale-blue light into human watercolor paintings; or abstract collections of stripes, or slices, carved from thin air and held together by darkness. Now they reveal themselves as humans – although watching them move puts their assumed humanity into question in a mind of anyone who understands psychical limitation of a human bodily form.

I have seen a lot of good performers in dance, but what LEIMAY crew has shown tonight will significantly change my expectations from a live movement-based work. Borders is one of the most trying pieces of dance I can think of. For its running time of eighty minutes, it leaves no space for rest, no single moment when a tired muscle can be unnoticed. There is no escape from being constantly exposed, watched, and naked. How are people even able to do one sequence of that, much less the entire work? What a gorgeous ordeal are they going through; how on earth are they able to deliver? Mind you, there is so much more than craft in this performance. The dancers contributed to the overall choreography, and one can clearly see when individual imagination and awareness add personal touches, custom-made for each – very different – physicality.

I love works that make me think of dance both as a very sensual, bodily activity deeply connected to our external shells – but also as a language, existing on the very border (that word again!) of what can be verbalized and what cannot. There is a lot of talking in the piece from the beginning, starting with the intense sequence where what we’re hearing strongly suggests a half-faded transmission in an unknown language (I thought it was Japanese until Shige told me it was completely made up.) There are moments when the verbal and the physical converge, like later in the work, when word-like sounds articulated by the dancers seem to be propelling them from one position into another. And as in every piece that makes the best of the strange dichotomy of dance as a language and as a movement in time, there is no single answer to the question: what is this work about? The eponymous borders are always there, palpable yet fluid, inescapable but possible to circumvent – and as the piece winds down to the same darkness it emerged from, there is a feeling, a goosebumps-inducing flash of understanding. Don’t ask me to put it in words, but I could swear I touched it.  

borders  by LEIMAY

Performance Direction, Visual Design, and Concept: Shige Moriya & Ximena Garnica

Performed by Masanori Asahara, Andrea Jones, Derek DiMartini, Lindsey Mandolini, Jeff Shortt, Emily Smith

At BAM Fisher, opens tomorrow (Feb 18th) thru 22nd. Go.  

Photos by Pavel Antonov

[beckittns]

dance first, think later

[kamilaslawinski]

My day is officially made. 😻

[kamilaslawinski]

Shore is not one of these big, showy dances that photograph well for the front page of the Arts section. It's more like a Terrence Malick movie: it will enthrall you with its unhurried pace and dazzle with its wizardry – or it will leave you cold and confused. Either way, you should go, because there is not enough pieces like this one: it’s rare for a piece of Tanztheater to reveal itself as work of truly wordless work of space and movement. It’s rare for a piece that uses language to be beyond words, and rare for a piece of music to have you waiting for each pause between the sounds.

It stars outdoors: the audiences are led into a school courtyard and left there, with no instructions other than a flimsy sign that says GATHER HERE. It's cold, so some of them will get a red blanket to keep warm. Everyone is waiting. A woman begins to sing in a clear, bell-like voice. Some other voices pick the singing up. Or maybe it’s just a recording? Who is performing, and who is a civilian?

There is no point in telling scene by scene what happens: enough to say that every block around becomes stage and every pedestrian a performer - even before the show actually moves to NYLA, whet it is officially presented. Maybe there is no dance before you get there, or maybe every movement is a dance you came to see? You won't be sure until it's all over, or maybe you won't be sure even when it does. 

Once on bare NYLA stage, the dance begins – or just continues. Hard to say. You'll be the judge. One thing I can assure you of: you will not find a coherent way of putting what you saw in words. And if you do, there will only be snippets.

The light, bright and sharp, and harsh, and pointed. Red. Yellow. Orange. Sound of the performer's breath, amplified and rhythmic like the sound of a drum. Thumping. Silence. Words. A song. Silence again. Heavy breathing, a stark reminder of the effort that goes into making bodies move. Is that a solo or an ensemble piece? Thirty people on stage, only one of them moving, and even when she does, you can't really tell for sure if she's dancing or just trembling.

Are these parkas costumes, or are the dancers simply trying to stay warm in his windy weather? Is it a ritual solo, or a stranger reenactment of an unidentifiable sporting event, complete with the murmur of spectators gathered in the bleachers? Are these characters the Indians? Or are they aliens? Or both? Are they supposed to signify the past, or the future? Are we the eponymous shore, or standing on it, or looking at it from afar and barely seeing anything at all?

Are these guys NYLA staff? Where did I see aluminum foil on walls before? Is this woman who left her cellphone on just rude, or was she hired to just sit there and ignore the beeping?

Why are these gestures so familiar, have I seen them? The circle? The closely crowded group of people old and young? Where does this song come from? Is it familiar? If so, what does it remind of? Is it over when they leave the stage? Or is it just beginning?

You see, I can’t tell you what I saw exactly. It was more like a mood than a story, more like a dreamy poem than a fact. What I took with me was the sense of wonder. It spun from this eerie, silent walk through the streets of Chelsea, together with all the others, but at the same time alone. There was a sound, a bell-like soundscape that started at the playground, and walked right with us, turning a schlep through windy weather into a celebration. It made me think that what I love about art is that it has the power of spilling beyond the walls of a theater, and when it touches reality, it becomes pure magic, too.

 There was a busker on the platform when I was boarding a Brooklyn-bound train. He played xylophone, the same bell-like sound. What I was just a part of still continued. And just when I thought that was it, this note (see above) slid out of my NYLA program booklet.

I’ll open in four days. I don’t want it to be over yet.

[Top photo by Erin Westover, stolen from DanceEnthusiast.]

Emily Johnson/Catalyst, SHORE in Lenapehoking (NYC), New York Live Arts, Apr 23-25.                                      

[kamilaslawinski]

APAP Diary, Week 1

It was not a curated/deliberated choice, but most of the works I got to see during the first week of APAP-related festival cornucopia was created by and/or performed by women. I picked them based on a personal hunch, friends’ recommendation and the previous work of the same artists. It wasn’t – at least not consciously – a backlash against what one of NYC’s finest presenters summed up in one pointed and true-to-live sentence: “Well, that’s what we present: boy choreographer, boy choreographer, boy choreographer…”

For the record, I always considered myself a person interested in good art, not necessary gender-specific art, and I do hope to live and die this way. However, it’s a well-known fact of life that dance world – the community I feel the strongest affinity with – is dominated by men, and to be specific, by men completely uninterested in the opposite sex. It goes without saying to the point of never being honestly discussed. It’s an open secret that in many, if not most, performing arts companies and venues female artists often feel treated like they are a dime a dozen. I doubt there is a conscious bias behind it, although many of my female friends may feel and say otherwise. That is simply how things are, and statistics seems to show that “boy choreographer” is indeed the most popular preference of our city’s performing arts luminaries. Anyway, what I am trying to say is: I did not choose my lineup based on chromosomal differences among the artists who have made them. It just so happen that XX model turned out to be, well, overrepresented in my selection.

The work I picked turned to be really strong and universal, and to my surprise, there is a palpable and consistent trait that connects most of the pieces in my APAP showcase. Most of them happened to be about the experience of community rather than the expression of an individual, and very much about debunking the model of a performance as a product/commodity. All this may or may not be related to the gender of their creators; what matters to me is there was no weak work among them.

The bar was set at exorbitantly high already by the first of the performances I have seen: Faye Driscoll’s THANK YOU FOR COMING: ATTENDANCE at Danspace Project (COIL). Having watched Faye’s work so far only on video, I was eager to experience it live – and what I saw completely blew me away. I won’t describe the performance’s content in order to keep the readers innocence intact: the less you know, my friends who haven’t seen it, the better for ya. The strongest asset of many brilliant things about the Faye Driscoll Group’s magnificent ensemble is their ability to constantly surprise the audiences with every new sequence – and all that without resorting to a gimmick. The 80-minute show starts as a relatively small affair, only to mushroom into an all-encompassing, engaging, communal experience that pulls one in without being obnoxious about it. In equal part serious and whimsical, ATTENDANCE was by far the most fun I had in years in a major festival in an established venue. Not to mention that these people, the dancers, are so beautiful in their diverse and unique ways it’s just a pure pleasure to watch them interact in perfect harmony of a single performing organism, driven by well-negotiated communal intent that is amazingly harmonious even in the moments of extreme tension (Looking especially at you, Giulia Carotenuto and Brandon Washington!) In other words, I am completely sold on this lady’s work and will follow her and her ensemble every way I can. It is a done deal: I love you, Faye Driscoll.

I saw my second APAP show in tech rehearsal, but the strength and beauty of the work was there already. I have been watching Luciana Achugar with interest and big respect for some time now, and based on what I have seen of her work I am completely convinced that she deserves to be called much more a shamanness than a choreographer (which is not to say by any means that here is no high skill in what she’s doing! Also, I am sure it would raise many eyebrows if she'd identify herself as such on grant applications…). The woman has both the sense of esthetic that makes the show enthralling, but also a spirit that makes it feel much different than countless “participatory” shows proliferating widely on the NYC scenes.

luciana achugar's OTRO TEATRO: The Pleasure Project at American Realness 2015 started as a site-specific series, driven by the public spaces it was performed at and often affected by the random intrusions from the passers-by who happen to be watching. I had no idea how Luciana was going to make it work in the historic interior of the Abrons Center’s beautiful Playhouse, and to be completely honest, I did not think it is possible to make it work. But she did. Big time. It is a mesmerizing thing to watch (not only for the “initiated,” as it turns out; my date, who is not a frequent guest at dance shows, seemed to be fascinated by the thing as much as yours truly.) Again, the less you know about what’s about to happen, the better: one thing to know that the experience is almost guaranteed to change your perspective of a stage as a performance space and of a performance as a process distinctly separating the watching and the watched. As much as I am concerned it is an absolute must-see.

Royally screwed by the MTA’s 7 train SNAFU on the day of my scheduled performance of Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith’s RUDE WORLD at The Chocolate Factory (COIL), I was ready to cry myself to sleep when one Ivan T. suggested that I get my butt to @St. St. Ann's Warehouse to see TOXIC PSALMS by Carmina Slovenica (Prototype). I did. And it was the right thing to do. It is thanks to great help of SAW team that I was able to watch this piece in a sold-out house – so major “thank you” is in order to those who made it happened for me. Carmina Slovenica’s 39-piece all-women ensemble was impressive to behold not only for their great voices (TP is a music-driven theater and the sound – both live and pre-recorded – remains the most important part of the fabric it is made of.) The visual and (yes) olfactory parts of it were as impressive; the only complaint that I may have is that the piece would probably benefit from editing down to 60 minutes. Indeed, its brightest moment is a gorgeous rendering of a tune from Rachmaninov’s “Vespers.” Lit by a dim blue light, the ladies of the ensemble pass a flickering light from hand to hand, playing with light as with a flying ball. Once this scene was over, whatever followed seemed slightly smaller and duller by comparison… but maybe it’s just my Slavic bias and a thing I have for flickering lights that look like fragile candle flame.

Saturday was Catch COIL night at The Invisible Dog Art Center. As much as I admire its curators’ wide range of interests, the subsequent iterations of this project are always a mixed bag for me. The festival issue featured a few reasonably big names, but again – surprise, surprise! – the pieces with ladies at the helm turned to be highlights of the evening. My favorites include Cori Olinghouse’s CLOWN THERAPY (what an amazing trio! Can’t wait to see their work at the upcoming DANCE ON CAMERA) and Nellie Tinder’s whimsical EMILY CLIMBS (again, hope to see the whole piece the ladies are working on at TID in February.) The glorious Larissa Velez-Jackson swept me off my feet by the humor, bravura and skill of her STAR CRAP METHOD; Tyler Ashley and Talya Eptain absolutely rocked in it. But “The Most Memorable 5-Minute Piece Ever” award goes to Mallory Catlett and her wonderful performers Jim Findlay and G Lucas Cranen; DECODER 17 is Borroughsian and hallucinatory in the best sense of the word, and brings a promise of a magnificent evening-long work. Can we have June already so I can go see it at Gibney Dance?

Oh, and for the record: I am hoping that jello shots by Lucien Zayan, duly recorded in the evening’s lineup, will make a comeback as an evening-long production also.

If that wouldn’t be for Brian Rogers’ goodness of heart I would have missed RUDE WORLD, so a huge kudos is in order to the great personnel of The Chocolate Factory Theater for letting me see this work at the last of its scheduled showings. Unfamiliar with Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith’s previous work I wasn’t sure what to expect from their duet; I did my best to come to the show with open mind – and was richly rewarded for it. First off, the piece starts very slowly, with Lieber rubbing gently Smith’s disrobed body, as if she was charging her batteries for an extended solo the latter lady performs in the first part of he work. It has a mesmerizing quality of a Muybridge projection: the body, naked but abstract and asexual, performs a series of intense movements that stretch its abilities to their very limits. What follows – a slowly unveiling duet of two entangled bodies – has been called “sculptural” for a good reason. It’s amazing how watching two gorgeous naked chicks rolling on the floor can be the most remote thing from experiencing bodies as objectified and eroticized. There is something in this part of a fascinating, glacial slowness known from stop-motion videos of growing plants and changing cloud formations; time seems to stand still as the performers go through their silent constellations, dimly lit and accompanied by nothing but the rising sound of dancers’ breath. It was by far the most abstract work I have seen this week – and in the context of highly political and involving pieces of this long week, its stillness and silence were a much-needed breath of calm.

On to the week of Andrew Schneider, zoe|juniper, and Miguel Gutierrez. Boy choreographers, you better make my day.*

[kamilaslawinski]

A Year of Lost Earrings

            It was a year of lost earrings.

That is how it all started. Innocuously. A small loss preceding the big one that was coming right after, but little did I know. First, the silver hoops, a gift from my mother who – heavens bless her heart – rarely knew what to get me to comply with my taste. She really got it right with these. An inch or so in diameter, made of a bunch of thin silver wires bound together, they came with a ring of the same design and make. A pair of beautiful, understated, flirty little loops that looked like no other loops people are wearing. I had them for so long – possibly a decade – that not owning them seemed unimaginable. I still cannot imagine how this could have happened, but one of them disappeared. They had those push-back thingies that are supposed to never let them slip away... and yet. I looked for it everywhere, unwilling to accept that it was gone; I was hoping to wear that pair for the upcoming pre-wedding party I was invited to. The party happened without me: the night when it was held, my black cat died, and part of me died with it.

“It may sound like morbid curiosity, but I am really wondering, what do you do with a dead cat?” – someone has asked me as we were walking down the street in Chelsea on a cold and windy day. I held my breath and answered the question, surprised that I could do it without crying. You are not supposed to bury your furry friend, unless you can afford a pet cemetery. If you can’t, they may cremate it and give you the ashes, but this also going to cost quite a lot. Otherwise, they just put it in a trash bag – and that’s it. Can’t believe I just did say that, like none of the feelings were there, like this was not for real, like it was all happening to somebody else. Well: I did say that. And it still seems off. And the other silver loop was put aside, useless, but too much of a sentimental item to just throw away. A nice set with the ring that was damaged long before.

Next, the black-and-silver pair of fishhook ones, made of beautiful ebony wood and sterling silver. A present from someone in my family who understands me best and knows my taste better than I do myself. I exactly remember the moment I lost it; it was the end of February and days were slowly getting longer, and I was busy and blind and hopeful – and very, very distracted.Loss of the black earring did not look like much to worry about: just a small pinch in the heart, so quick and superficial I though it barely was there.Then, in short two or three weeks, I lost my mind and I descended in the darkest blackness, reduced to a sobbing bundle of flesh curled up under the covers.

It lasted days, or maybe weeks, I am not sure. I was rescued, or perhaps just rescued myself, pulling up by my own hair like Baron Münchhausen escaping from the swamp. Things got better. I got up. I put on my bravest face and tried to keep up with my life. Unlike my mind, the black ebony earring was never found or seen again.

Then there was this pair of opalesque purplish stones,shaped like Advil caplets and enclosed in a swirly mini-cage of sterling silver, with lever-back closing. Also a gift, one of those that are completely off when received, but then somehow grow on you in the long run. The earrings were a set with a pendant, which I never wore – and the only pair that would go with my non-black outfit, once I decided in favor of putting it on. It was June; the end of June, to be precise – and the beginning of the summer, when a lavender-colored blouse seemed like a good idea. I thought I knew what I was doing making choices I made. I thought I was part of something that was exciting, and held a great promise to become much bigger, brighter and stronger than it already was. I was convinced that I was a partner; as it turned out later, I was just a tool. That day, I must have been running home from a meeting to take care of what seemed worth all of my involvement and attention. When suddenly I realized that I had lost a friendship – one I thought I had, but really didn’t, ever – one of the purple stones was gone. The other earring and the pendant still can’t believe they were left behind, incomplete and obsolete, just like that.

My favorite pair was acquired through a trade-off from one of my oldest friends from Poland. She was in town the year before this one, and stayed at my place; we had a marvelous  time catching up after many years of not seeing each other. The gifts were received; a lot of wine’s been drunk; many nights spent talking till the crack of dawn. We traded stories about our marriages and longings, about the things we have learned since we last saw each other, twenty years earlier. Before she left, I gave her a pair of small titanium studs that went well with her new, shorter haircut. In return, I got two shiny disks of silvery metal – not even sterling silver – hanging from long wire stems, clutched on fishhooks. I loved those. Perhaps they were not of particularly high value, but to me they were unique and I never saw any just quite like them. There was something bohemian about this pair, and I would feel a tiny bit special every time I put them on. And I lost one, just this October,few days before I lost what I thought was the most important thing in my life. Strange as it was, impossible as it was – I did survive; scarred, but not broken. Back in square one, with one suitcase and no idea what I will be getting myself into, I felt like I had just arrived from a foreign country. Which, in a way, was exactly what it was.

The new country I entered was, and still is, a bit strange. And earrings still get lost in it. Like one of other favorites, two small bundles of sterling wire that looked like miniature balls of silver yarn. I know exactly where it was left behind (at the top, deserted floor of a theater building in west Midtown) and why it got away (and I am not telling.) Yes, there was a loss that was tied to that one, too. Not a big one, but a loss, nevertheless.

I have only one pair left, a pair of pearl earrings, simple,classic ones. They make me think not of Vermeer and his mysterious, innocent, pale blonde, but of Audrey Hepburn, playing Miss Holly Golightly (traveling). I am seriously hoping to hold on to these ones. They are both fishhook and push-backs, to make it easier on me.

So it goes. Things get lost, perhaps only for someone to find them and wonder what was the life like that they once were a part of. I’d love to think there is somebody out there who picked up each of those lost ones and made them useful and needed. Perhaps someone with just one ear pierced.Perhaps someone with just one ear, period.

Three hundred sixty days gone; just five to go. Then 365 new ones to be lost and found. If you want to make me a present before this year is over, or just give me something to celebrate the one that is about to begin – get me earrings. I’d like to think I still have something to lose.

[kamilaslawinski]

So there it was, the last performance of the year. I left Movement Research at the Judson Church and walked down the Sixth to Houston in the thickening drizzle, feeling elated and blessed. It still startles me how many amazing artists I am fortunate to know. And if at the end of really sad and shitty day something pulls me up and shines in the dark, it's the art that they are making. It was an amazing year to see art, and it's hard to pick and spotlight one work over another – but let me share my private "thank you" list, more than "the best of" list of 2014. Thank you, storytellers, dancemakers, singers, actors, dancers – all of you, wonderful creatures: you rock my world, and your work brought me inspiration through a year that otherwise was full of sorrow. Here it goes, in more or less alphabetical order. 4:48 PSYCHOSIS, Tr Warszawa, @St. St. Ann's Warehouse. Being part of this project was a highlight of my year. Magdalena Cielecka: you are a shining star. Grzegorz Jarzyna: you managed the impossible task – turning a suicidal rant into a story about longing for love and connection. And I miss you so much, St. Ann’s Warehouse peeps! AGE AND BEAUTY Part 1, Miguel Gutierrez, Whitney Biennial 2014. I never expected a work about a gay man’s mid-life crisis would move me so. But it did. I loved it. Don’t tell Miguel, but I spent the whole week thinking of this show. ARENA, Walter Dundervill, JACK. Most beautiful, sophisticated, elegant fusion of stimuli for almost all senses.This work should not only be watched, it should be touched for it rich textures, from naked skin through smooth plexiglass to fabric. If ARENA could smell, it would smell of Hermès. . THE ANGOLA PROJECT, Jeremy Xido, COIL 2014. Amazing story told with great passion, and full of twists that made my heart skip a bit many times throughout the evening. You are such a presence, Jeremy. Thank you. ANIMALINSIDE, JaroSpring Vinarsky, Abrons Arts Center. Part heartbreaking, part fun, wild at heart all the way. The first, incredibly tense section is probably the most extreme display of what an exceptional body (speaking of you, Jarko!) is capable of. Don't try this at home, even if you are a well-trained dancer. BEGIN AGAIN, zoe|juniper, The Joyce Theater/3LD. What a beauty. Where do I begin? Perhaps at the very end: I can’t wait to see it again at COIL 2015. CONCEALED, Demdike Stare Stare & Sinfonietta Cracovia, UNSOUND Festival NYC 2014. Amazing sound in an amazing interior, an experience unmatched by any I still have a major crush on Michael England, the mad genius who made visuals for this piece. (FYI, I have never met the man and have no idea how he looks like, or if he even is a nice person.) CROSSING OVER, featuring LEIMAY/ Leimay ShigeMoriya XimenaGarnica , Green-Wood Cemetery, BEAT Festival 2014. Pure magic, a night of many wonders. Hope my favorite butoh-inspired artists will come back sometime to my favorite cemetery. DIGITAL SOULD CYCLE, VV/LD TØR∇S, JACK. Mág Ne Tá & Vlady Voz Tokk, they’re stark raving mad. 'nuff said. DRELLA (I love you Faye Driscoll), Raja Feather Kelly & the feath3r theory, The Invisible Dog Art Center. I wrote about it when it happened. You are worth twice your weight in gold, Raja. Can’t wait to see more of your work. EXIT STRATEGIES, Chris Masters Dance, Triskelion Arts. See note from a few days ago. Along with THE WILLFUL HOST – another work by Chris – hands down the most touching duets I have seen this year. GRASS AND JACKALS, LeeSaar The Company, The Joyce Theater. Simply fabulous. Quirky but smart. Funny but moving. A miracle made of glue. I have watched these guys (Saar & Lee) work with their amazing dancers like one watches a magician performing a trick: I know it should be fairly simple to explain, but I still don't know how they do it. And I am grateful for that. PARADISE NOW?, Komuna/Warszawa, undergroundzero festival 2014. They got their own note in the summer. Grzegorz, how is the American Play doing, are you guys bringing it to NYC? PHOENIX FORCE, Stanley Love Performance Group, JACK. Sigh. RITE OF SPRING, Basil Twist, White Light Festival 2014 at the Lincoln Center. My jaw still does not want to get back to its normal position since I have seen this huge sheet of silk float as if it was alive. See my rave from October. SADEH21, Batsheva Dance Company, BAM Opera House. The final scene still plays in my head. Then She Fell, Third Rail Projects NYC, Kingsland Ward, Brooklyn. I still have the prescription for the anti-melancholia potion the good Doctor gave me that night. About time I use it, don’t you think? It’s this time of the year. Will be coming back to see it again and again and again – let me just finally hit that jackpot. (And yes, I will fund you all when I win!) THIS WAS THE END, dir. Mallory Catlett, The Chocolate Factory Theater. This lady enchanted me more than once this year (I also saw and loved BROTHER BROTHER at Abrons), but this little gem should have gotten all the Bessies it was nominated to. Can’t wait to see more work by this amazing woman. TIMELINING, Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly, The Kitchen. Simple and complex at once, as life always is. Wish I could see more than just one iteration I was fortunate enough to catch on a very cold and very slow day. TOO MUCH TOO SOON MR. ZUCCOLO, Greg Zuccolo, JACK. I think I said it more than once, but here it is again: most storytellers/comedians, and also most dancers, should see this work to learn how it is done. u, Greg, you impossible, grumpy you. TOUR, David Wumpach, Abrons Arts Center. Still can’t believe what I saw with my own eyes. David Lynch should take serious interest in this guy. UNSETTLED, David Dorfman Dance and Korhan Basaran Company, BAM Fisher. Ask Dean how it was. I still get speechless trying to describe what I saw. (I am not listing works-in-progress, and my list includes productions done on mega-budgets and on shoestring budget side by side, which, obviously, makes no sense... so please, cut me some slack.) Thank you all, the artists mentioned above and those I did not mention but have been watching throughout 2014. Have the most wonderful holidays, and keep doing what you do. Love, K

[kamilaslawinski]

There were very few shows this year that actually gave me goosebumps, but this one succeeded at that much more than numerous works by acclaimed choreographers I have been watching throughout the entire 2014. Ever since I saw his dances for the first time, I noticed a great and unique sensibility in Chris Masters' approach to movement. It shows especially in duets, which are both dynamic and intimate, and show often overlooked nuances of interpersonal connections with great insight, wonderful use of technique, and very personal formal "idiom".

EXIT STRATEGIES –  inspired by concept of a black hole as an actual, gravitational and metaphorical, emotional pull – is a work dealing with macro- rather than microcosmic phenomena. When I saw it as a studio showing, initially it was not readily approachable for me as a bigger structure, and it has nothing to do with the dancemaker's skill (the man can handle a big ensemble, all right.). That said, the more surprised and delighted was I to watch the wholly produced work last night – and finally grasp the bigger picture of this complex choreography, beautiful score and haunting visuals. Whatever the intended wider context is, for me ES is an amazing, emotionally stirring story about how we connect and disconnect, how we rise and fall, how we attract and repel each other. Instead about galaxies, black holes, and parsecs filled with dark matter, I found myself thinking about my own life, the connections lost and found, the light, the darkness, the joy, the heartbreak. And at certain point I just started nodding silently: Yes, this is EXACTLY how this works. Yes, this is EXACTLY how I feel.

Chris Masters Dance is a great ensemble, capable of amazing things both technically and emotionally. These performers display fabulous connection and understanding among them, so it's hard (and a little unfair – I am the first one to admit it) to single out anybody... But I can't help myself. Nico Li and Paul Vickers, you had me on the edge of my seat and moved beyond what I was comfortable with. I see great things ahead of you; keep doing what you do.

And yet (to channel my inner Brian Seibert, heehee): As much as I was, and still am, absolutely in love with this work, I think EXIT STRATEGIES – a solid, beautiful and emotionally effective piece – has another work inside of it. One that is just pure brilliance, but involves six dancers and running time of 60 minutes maximum, and better integration of Chris' movement/ Sven Britt's music/ Robert Flynt's visuals/David Fishel's multimedia. My new year's wish is to see this work, maybe as a totally new one – but I know it is there, and that we will be talking about it for months and months when it is finally shown.

For now, there is at least weeks of conversations to be had among what transpired last night - and if you are lucky, you can still see it tonight (Sun Dec 21) at Triskelion Arts. Run, the clock is ticking.

Thank you Chris, Sven, Robert, David, and ChrisMastersDance. Great job.

[rosalindrobertson]

A while ago, I penned a fairly angry response to something circulating on the internet – the 21 Habits of Happy People. It pissed me off beyond belief, that there was an inference that if you weren’t Happy, you simply weren’t doing the right things.

I’ve had depression for as long as I can...

[kamilaslawinski]

Wonderful timing, Rosalind. Thanks, and stay warm and cheerful wherever you are.

[kamilaslawinski]

Not a cheerful one, but still rings true. Happy Turkey Day.

Music video by William S. Burroughs performing A Thanksgiving Prayer. (C) 1990 The Island Def Jam Music Group