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.*