ADF
Friday, July 29, 2011
ADF 2011 Season Wrap II (Extended Dance Remix):
When the Music Takes Control. And Then Doesn't Give It Back.
NOTE: As happens every year, we had a lot more to say about the AMERICAN DANCE FESTIVAL than we could ever fit into the print version of the INDEPENDENT. Thus these expanded essays, which delve more in depth into some of the issues that came up—plus one or two that didn't—during the season: our extended dance mixes for the 2011 ADF.
IN THIS REMIX:
THE ALTERNATIVE HERSTORY OF ANNE TERESA DE KEERSMAKER
CRASH-COURSE BUTOH CRASHES ONCE AGAIN
MUSIC TO, THROUGH, AND AT TIMES IN LIEU OF DANCING:
HUBBARD STREET, SHEN WEI, EMANUEL GAT, DOUG VARONE, RON K. BROWN, PILOBOLUS & OK GO
THE ALTERNATIVE HERSTORY OF ANNE TERESA DE KEERSMAKER
After executing a nearly mathematical set of lockstep moves, tossing and turning on a dimly lit floor that permitted them no rest, the quartet marked time in permutations of poses while seated in a Kafkesque waiting room. We then saw the numbing monotony of endless renegotiations of gender and interpersonal boundaries, necessitated by bodies that constantly disclose their sexuality—whether their inhabitants desire to or not.
ROSAS DANST ROSAS concluded with a dutiful—and equally endless—labor march, a zero-sum endeavor in which two steps in any direction inevitably resulted in two steps back. The arms that swung, with clenched fists, as the foursome charged one way and another on an invisible but all-important grid, repeatedly intensified this final part. Still, within the crisp unison of these tightly circumscribed movements, each dancer subtly individualized their delivery, emphasizing not only their characters' resilience, but their resistance as well. If the four sections of the work all but pummeled us with the inescapable demands of their characters' lives, their ceaseless and subtle personal responses served notice of a human spirit yet uncrushed.
When four women examine on stage the needful, quotidian movements of rest (and its denial), dress, waiting and work, they are undeniably telling the stories of many more, across a number of generations. In this way, ROSAS DANST ROSAS constitutes a most compelling alternative history of Everywoman. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, that noted feminist historian whose landmark works have focused on the "silent lives of ordinary people," would be pleased.
CRASH-COURSE BUTOH CRASHES ONCE AGAIN
When we learned that one of PILOBOLUS’ world premieres was a collaboration with Dairakudakan choreographer TAKUYA MURAMATSU, we wondered if all would end well.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
NOTE: As happens every year, we had a lot more to say about the AMERICAN DANCE FESTIVAL than we could ever fit into the print version of the INDEPENDENT. Thus these expanded essays, which delve more in depth into some of the issues that came up—plus one or two that didn't—during the season: our extended dance mixes for the 2011 ADF.
THE YEAR IN SCIENCE, GAME (AND CHOREOGRAPHY):
SHEN WEI, EMANUEL GAT, THOMAS DEFRANTZ, PILOBOLUS
What has taken the place of conventional (or even unconventional) narrative, so devalued among some contemporary dance artists? One answer: the scientific and mathematical frames around several major new works, a development suggesting, among other things, a future in which a number of choreographers might also be termed chief investigators.
At least since 2002’s Rite of Spring (Part I), SHEN WEI has set up various “games”—increasingly complex parameter sets governing movement and interaction—for his dancers to negotiate and solve, in real time, in sections of many of his works. In early sections of this summer's world premiere, measurement scales projected over dancers evoked physiological motion studies, conducted climbing stairs at mid-stage while performing various tasks (carrying a series of differently-weighted objects, dodging a tossed ball), as a series of computer-generated visualizations of motion studies were projected above the dancers. Even the name of the new work, LIMITED STATES, seemed lifted from a dissertation title.
But one week before, audiences who stayed for a post-performance discussion heard EMANUEL GAT delineate the underpinnings of his captivating new work BRILLIANT CORNERS in a manner eerily similar to a psychologist or sociologist describing the protocols and methodology of a behavioral experiment.
“We don’t invent. We discover,” Gat asserted. “I choreographed none of the movement. It was generated by the dancers through a long process in which I define their environment. The movement doesn’t precede the situation; the movement comes as a reaction to the environment and situation they are in... I try to determine a very clear environment: what are its mechanisms, what are the rules, the constraints they have to work in. The movement is a by-product of the situation.”
Indeed, what initially struck me upon first viewing as enviably articulate—but essentially random—phrases and gestures (so much so that an early line in my critic’s notes included the Pirandellian assessment, “Six dancers in search of a choreographer,”) slowly revealed a deeper structure and organization. Looking back, both were required, in significant amounts, to keep that number of people moving at that velocity from devolving into a mosh pit of collisions. In BRILLIANT CORNERS I saw a work filled with fast and agile changes, accompanied by (or in response to) similarly drastic variations at times in sound and light.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Exclusive ADF video preview:
PAUL TAYLOR's THE UNCOMMITTED
Exclusive video footage from the world premiere of THE UNCOMMITTED by PAUL TAYLOR DANCE COMPANY at the 2011 American Dance Festival. Taylor has dedicated the work to departing ADF president Charles Reinhart. The Paul Taylor Dance Company closes the 2011 ADF with performances at the Durham Performing Arts Center through Saturday, July 23.
Regular viewers will note the brevity of this entry when compared with the eight other video previews we have produced during the 2011 ADF season, and the one company-produced video we reposted, Emanuel Gat's "trailer" for BRILLIANT CORNERS.
Taylor's company restricted our finished video preview of THE UNCOMMITTED to 30 seconds, permitting us to film no more than three minutes of raw footage over the course of the 28-minute work without seeing it beforehand. The results appear above.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Exclusive video footage from the world premiere of ETUDES FOR ITALY by MARTHA CLARKE at the 2011 American Dance Festival. The work is part of ADF's PAST/FORWARD concert, in Reynolds Theater through Wednesday, July 20.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Exclusive video preview: BULAREYAUNG PAGARLAVA's LANDSCAPES 2011 ADF
Exclusive video footage from the world premiere of LANDSCAPES 2011 ADF by BULAREYAUNG PAGARLAVA at the 2011 American Dance Festival. The work is part of the ADF's PAST/FORWARD concert, in Reynolds Theater through Wednesday, July 20.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Exclusive video preview: SHEN WEI's LIMITED STATES world premiere at ADF (NSFW)
Exclusive video footage from the world premiere of LIMITED STATES by SHEN WEI DANCE ARTS at the 2011 American Dance Festival. The company performs at the Durham Performing Arts Center through Saturday, July 16.
Friday, July 8, 2011
First facts: Shen Wei's upcoming world premiere,
LIMITED STATES, at ADF
- photo courtesy Shen Wei Dance Arts
- Hunter Carter, Jessica Harris and Brandon Whited in STILL MOVING.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, June 2011
Its name is LIMITED STATES. Rumors concerning a video component designed by the choreographer are now confirmed, and parents in the viewing audience may want to know the new work involves nudity.
But the big reveal—thus far—is that patrons who attended his company's two performances of a work called STILL MOVING in June at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art may have gotten more than just a glimpse into the work that's headed our way. More on that in a moment.
For the most part, the information available at this point leaves us with an intriguing array of question marks. We've learned that a New York-based media design firm, FAKE LOVE, is credited with "video projection: effects and production." After digging a bit into Fake Love's track record, we found a group whose “experiential designs” have involved projecting arresting visuals onto a cloud of 500 balloons for a Microsoft rollout, CG-enhanced media support and commercials for fashion designers and high-line cosmetics, the History Channel and Google, as well as atmospheric animated and video backdrops for Girl Talk and Phantogram’s concert tours. Particularly given Fake Love's trippy clips reel, in this case the term "effects and production" leaves plenty of room open to interpretation.
LIMITED STATES is divided into three movements over 65 minutes. The first, “Dimensions,” is set to an intriguing soundscape including Rossini, NOAA weather reports, ethereal, ambient audio by Asher Thal-Nir and decidedly minimal percussion by Jarrod Fowler.
The second movement, “0-11,” honors the 11 years founding company member Sara Procopio has danced with Shen Wei since her first work with him (as an ADF student) in 2000’s NEAR THE TERRACE. Her solo is set to the controlled feedback of noise composer Daniel Burke’s group, Illusion of Safety.
Burke is also credited for the music in the final section, “Internal External #2,” which we've learned is based on a similarly-named piece that concluded Shen Wei Dance Arts’ evening-length performance, STILL MOVING, in the courtyard of the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in June of this year.
- photo courtesy Shen Wei Dance Arts
- Shen Wei Dance Arts in STILL MOVING. Metropolitan Museum of Art, June 2011.
The rest, we learn at DPAC next Thursday night.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
When a film studio foregoes all previews of an upcoming release, that usually conveys a certain lack of faith in the finished product. This week, we'll find out what a similar circumstance means in choreographer EMANUEL GAT's case when his company performs during the American Dance Festival at the Durham Performing Arts Center.
The festival scheduled no photo shoot for Gat. There was no need for one, since the company wanted no press photography of any kind taken of his latest work, BRILLIANT CORNERS, which premiered two weeks ago in Vienna.
The company has made its own trailer for the work. For three minutes we watch a cascade of partial body shots while dancers are apparently warming up: socializing, stretching, sitting, doing neck rolls, walking, rehearsing moves, gazing up at the lights.
All of that is followed by 50 seconds of the full ensemble in what appears to be actual dancework. More accurately, it's 15 possibly connected clips of the group, ranging from less than one to 7 seconds, shot from various angles, while a single, ambient passage suggesting chamber music for long strings plays in the background. See for yourself:
It's a decent commercial. It establishes a certain ambience, even generating a sort of suspense, before providing a series of brisk—but fragmentary—glimpses of the ostensible performance itself. And all those camera angles are just there to let us know that more action's going on than any one vantage point could hope to capture.
The quick edits flit from place to place: look here—no, here! To see all the camera sees, we'd have to move as fast as Gat's dancers, or faster. Our point of view is as kinetic as the dance—if not more so...
Yes, the trailer is quite impressive. And with only it to go on, we'll just have to wait and see how it syncs up with the actual experience of the dancework when Emanuel Gat Dance presents BRILLIANT CORNERS, Thursday through Saturday nights, in DPAC.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Exclusive video preview: SERAPH, Pilobolus world premiere
Exclusive video footage from the world premiere of SERAPH, a collaboration between the dance company PILOBOLUS and the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Lab, at the 2011 American Dance Festival. Pilobolus performs at the Durham Performing Arts Center through July 2.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Video footage from the world premiere of Rosie Herrera's DINING ALONE at the 2011 American Dance Festival. Herrera's company performs DINING ALONE and PITY PARTY through June 29 at Reynolds Theater.
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