Focusing on the Mount Tremper Arts Blog for the Summer

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www.MountTremperArts.org

photo by Mathew Pokoik of Brian Brooks Moving Company at Mount Tremper Arts

Merce Cunningham's Nearly Ninety at BAM

A spaceship arrived at BAM tonight. And mysterious godly creatures danced their hearts out, roaring with commitment.

Merce Cunningham’s Nearly Ninety is an ode to his dancers. They find center and presence within the impossible. Over and over, they tilt inhuman balances until they fall backwards. They tumble through space for precarious moments to be caught, just in time, by one another. Theirs is a familiarly complex proposition. They leave, and soar, in order to return back home.

In this piece, dancers wind themselves around one another, looking for all possible ways to share weight. They really touch. And they really counterbalance. Often they are two people, preposterously balanced, completely dependent.

These are tasks completely of the body and demanding complete attention from much more than just the body. There is no second-guessing. There is no comment. There is no room for anything outside of pure human endeavor. The only meta-level is the inherent metaphysics of human effort expended so fully.

John Paul Jones, Takehisa Kosugi, and Sonic Youth play live music from an outer space satellite metal contraption complete with a stairway to heaven. Lighting and sound emphasize a relationship between the space age, man-made set made by Benedetta Tagliabue and a bubbling, gurgling, elemental video projection by Franc Aleu.

In the tension between industrial and organic, and within the relentless difficulty of the dance, brief moments of delicious personality emerge. Rashaun Mitchell’s hips feel satisfyingly (almost orgasmically) obscene as they slowly shift to the side. Andrea Weber’s fingers tingle so slightly, gently touching the air as her leg slices another direction. Silas Rainer catches his jumps off guard-- a mad man risking all.

They transmit electricity generated only by a certain kind of being alive. And I imagine that they have learned much about this from the man they dance for. At 90, Merce Cunningham is still relentlessly and rigorously exploring what it means to move. Which is really the same thing as what it means to be alive.

After a packed BAM opera house gave many standing ovations, much cheering, many tears, and a happy birthday song, Merce Cunningham spoke gently from his wheelchair.

“After my first year at Cornish, my parents had a discussion. My mother didn’t see a future in dance. My father said, ‘If he didn’t have that dance game, he’d be a crook.’ I’m delighted to be here and able to tell you that story. And I’m delighted to be able to give you something you may not have seen before.”

We are delighted too.

Aynsley Vandenbroucke Movement Group premieres new piece in NYC May 14-17

Aynsley Vandenbroucke Movement Group premieres
3 Dancers, 4 Chairs, 26 Words
Thursday-Sunday, May 14-17 at 8pm
Center for Performance Research (CPR)

Choreographed by Aynsley Vandenbroucke in close collaboration with performers Djamila Moore, K. Tanzer, and Kristen Warnick
Lighting Design by Nelson R. Downend, Jr.
Costume Design by Liz Sargent
Technical Direction by Kryssy Wright

Tickets $12
Reservations (no additional fee) SmartTix.com or 212-868-4444

Center for Performance Research (CPR)
361 Manhattan Ave
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY

www.movementgroup.org

Performance coincides with Simulacrum, Signs, and Stacks
An exhibition of photographs by Mathew Pokoik (May 14- June 7)
Gallery open Thurs - Sun from 12-6

Opening Reception on Thursday, May 14 from 5:00 - 8:00 pm
followed by the premiere of
3 Dancers, 4 Chairs, 26 Words

Jerome Bel, Veronique Doisneau

A woman stands onstage at the Paris Opera. She talks with a quality that is soft, open, a bit hesitant. A light pink rehearsal sweater, reminiscent of little girl dance tights, frames her 42 year-old woman’s body.

This uneasy relationship between girl and woman is one of the elements that choreographer Jerome Bel elicits so naturally and poignantly in Veronique Doisneau (both the name of the performer and the name of the performance). In his piece, seen in a film version at Baryshnikov Arts Center on Sunday, Mr. Bel literally gives voice to an artist whose primary job has been to be beautiful and quiet, not drawing attention to herself.

Ms. Doisneau discusses her life as a ballet dancer, part of that group of women who, although fully adult, are still called mesdemoiselles backstage at the Paris Opera. She shares information about her salary, her children. She reveals a mature, regular person going about her work. In a soft aside, she wonders if she wasn’t talented enough to become a star.

She speaks about Giselle and begins to dance. In a moment that is simultaneously public and intensely private, she gently hums music to accompany her own dancing. She evokes all of the little girls who perform, by themselves, in living rooms and bedrooms across the world.

Veronique Doisneau alternates between fact and fully embodied fantasy. The piece, and the woman, present the contradiction that is dance performance. In the hierarchy of the Paris Opera Ballet, Ms. Doisneau is a Sujet, a mid-level status in which she can perform corps de ballet roles as well as soloist ones. In Mr. Bel's performance she becomes the literal subject as well as a powerful narrator. And she makes clear the ways in which she is expected to be an object.

In the understated and powerful climax of Veronique Doisneau, Ms. Doisneau performs a corps de ballet role from Swan Lake, alone. She stands still in choreographed poses while perhaps the most famous and gorgeous music in ballet dances around her. Audience members who know the ballet can imagine what the principal ballerinas would be doing while Ms. Doisneau stands on the side, filling in the picture.

And yet she doesn’t just fill in the picture. In this context, her role becomes an exquisite-- and still --solo. Ms. Doisneau inhabits her poses with the breath and life of a master performer. She exhibits the depth of presence that transforms spectacle (interestingly, the French word for show) into something more metaphysical.

Ms. Doisneau’s ability to fully inhabit her body within an imaginary world is both child-like and also the most profound kind of adult activity. She finds a way to deeply engage, even in the midst of disappointment and just-missed dreams.

Mr. Bel has, once again, created a precise and moving performance that turns around and questions its own nature. He looks at, and critiques, the very particular world of dance. But he also gives his work the space to move into the most tender, and broad, and complex corners of human experience.

Disfarmer by Dan Hurlin

Photo by Pavel Antonov

A man wakes up. He puts on his glasses, pulls out a tape measure and checks the size of his foot. He drinks a beer. Answers the phone. Looks for something to eat. He hits his head on the red lamp in his darkroom.

The next day the man wakes up. He puts on his glasses, pulls out a tape measure and checks the size of his foot. He drinks a beer. Answers the phone. Looks for something to eat. He almost hits his head on the red lamp in his darkroom, but ducks instead.

In his puppet portrait of a portrait photographer, Dan Hurlin looks at the non-events that make up an artist’s life. These are not dramatic, break-through moments. The artist, Mike Disfarmer, is not crazy, or particularly inspired. His is a life of tedious repetition and meticulous attention.

Disfarmer seems like someone who is not particularly likeable, and yet I like him. I watch five grown men gently handle a puppet one-fifth their size. They breathe with him and pay attention to him in a way that taps my human urge to love anything that is small. They also remind me that puppetry acknowledges, so fundamentally and satisfyingly, that we humans make worlds. We make our own worlds and try to find order and meaning in the best ways we can.

As the evening progresses, the small Disfarmer puppet gets smaller. At first the change is imperceptible but, eventually, he is miniscule. His bed swallows him up. His camera is twice his size. He is nowhere near hitting his head on the red darkroom lamp.

Like a Kafka metamorphosis, this seems like a familiar bad dream. Disfarmer is old, overwhelmed and under-equipped for simple everyday tasks. And he is an artist, small in the face of a looming passion. His is a profession in which there is no easy way to measure success or accomplishment; it is built detail by detail. He makes me think of all the tasks we set for ourselves. And the ways we achieve them, one small step at a time.

Photo by Mike Disfarmer

W.A.G.E.

This is a very belated post on an interesting meeting of Working Artists and the Greater Economy (WAGE) that took place in December at Judson Church. (They have a 2nd meeting coming up this Thursday. Info below.)

Started by a group of (primarily visual) artists with the intention of looking at the economics of art, the meeting was a mix of information-sharing, organizing, and looking at practical steps that can be taken towards a) opening up clear dialogue around issues of money and art and b) getting artists paid.

Some of their inspiration is CARFAC Canadian Artists’ Representation/Le Front des artistes canadiens, an organization that has advocated for, and gotten, clear pay scales for artists in Canada.

Of many rich and sometimes tangential threads, I was particularly interested (as an artist, and now presenter) with the discussions that focused on a perceived divide and almost animosity between presenters/galleries/museums, and artists.

It seemed that in some cases this divide is real. (A few big organizations, like MOMA, apparently have abominable financial / interpersonal practices. And the visual art world is quite different from the non-profit performing arts world. In visual arts there is actually the possibility of real money being made.) But my experience of making dances and presenting them is that presenters and artists are people who, together, deeply believe in and support the art form. We are all struggling with a greater cultural issue about the importance of performance and dance making. Since performance has not, of late, been a priority in our culture, we are all struggling with money and exposure.

So for me, at least within my small dance community, the more productive discussions are the ones around gaining exposure and respect for our field and also looking at best practices within the field.

How do we talk about money with presenters, with granting organizations, with our dancers? Are we clear and upfront?

How do we find new ways to earn money for the field?

How do we continue to work for fair compensation and yet respect ourselves and our collaborators and our work even in the absence of money?

And then there are even bigger questions about the fundamental place of art within economy. See Lewis Hyde's The Gift and New York Times Magazine Article about it. Another interesting resource is the Dancers Forum Compact.

W.A.G.E. will be working on some practical steps, including looking for that popular word, “Transparency,” in art finances. One first step is to start collecting information on artist’s fees. In our field this would meaning learning about the ranges of fees for performing in specific spaces, the fees paid for rehearsing, choreographing. (See W.A.G.E.'s website or attend the next meeting to find out how you can help gather this information.) It would be helpful to know what these practices really are. Then we can look, together, at how to improve them.

Info on the next meeting of W.A.G.E.:

Thursday, January 22, 2008
7pm
Judson Church Assembly Hall
239 Thompson St., NYC 10012

On Miscarriage

(dance of life...)

Sometimes it hits me.

I clean the apartment and find a piece of paper with a doctor’s name and the word anesthesia.

A friend of a friend posts a photograph on facebook. A young mother I don’t even know snuggles a newborn.

The gory details are not necessary here. But a child was made. And then, one day, an expectant mother, alone and shivering on a metal table, is told that the child will not make it. The doctors don’t allow the husband in the room.

More moments follow, spanning an incomprehensible four months. At first it is unclear, in fact, whether the child/fetus is dead or not. The remaining months are spent waiting for signs of pregnancy, and the dead fetus, to leave her body.

The waiting ends with a switch of doctors and a surgery. The anesthesia is a welcome relief from feeling.

And still, two years later, that time period requires third-person writing. She cannot write from within it.

Much was learned: what to say and what not to say. But mostly to stay. To learn to meet and be met within raw human pain. There was nothing like the man who ran across the street to cry together, nothing said or fixed, just held. The mystery of presence. And past and future.

My life is dedicated to creation. I make art and, in the two years since the miscarriage, have given birth to a center that supports many other artists. My husband and I dote over it and obsess about it and lose sleep over it in the ways that parents of young children do. We go out to dinner and can only discuss its teething and tottering first steps.

I am full. And sometimes I also miss one of my most magical creations, the one I’ll never meet.


(I debated about whether to post this. But one of the things I learned in this experience was that people don't talk enough about these things. We don't share, we don't hear, and then we don't know how to be around each other in the midst of these natural and poignant human times. I think it's important to share.)