Beth Gill & Daniel Linehan

My body is buzzing. A strange electrical current runs through. I’ve seen and experienced a very full and alive evening of dance.

Beth Gill’s Eleanor & Eleanor and Daniel Linehan’s Not About Everything take me on a physical journey during their split bill performance at DTW.

In Gill’s piece, which opens the evening, I settle down. I feel quiet. I indulge in the stillness of the theater.

Four dancers clearly and simply move against a stark metal set that reminds me of repeating minarets. I shift between seeing geometry and seeing flowing, human bodies. They are quite beautiful. It is the beauty of form and pure space. I feel the presence of Merce Cunningham. The dancers make eye contact with the audience only a few times. At one point one of the dancers gently lifts another. He carries her a few steps in his arms. He lets her down. The performers continue standing, walking, sitting, lying down. They inhabit their own worlds, yet graze one another’s. The dance ends and intermission arrives. I can’t even think about leaving because I am still.

In Linehan’s piece after intermission, I can barely stay seated. My body pulses with his as he rhythmically and unceasingly spins.

He has transformed the theater. Seats form a semicircle on the stage. We are invited to sit in them or in the front rows of the theater. We surround Linehan. Narrow rolls of paper hang from the rafters down to the floor creating an even a smaller space around him. He spins and talks, almost chants, about how this piece is not about everything, or endurance or desperation or whirling or nausea or Iraq or being better than Gill or… He says, “If I were in a war zone, I don’t think I’d be spinning.” He wonders about the moral value of art and then also says “moral inclination should have no place in art.” He writes a donation check, while spinning, to be mailed to an environmental agency by an audience member. “This is me. This is you. You are free from this dance. This too will pass. This is this. Everything. This is everything.” He stops and leaves the circles. Finds grounding, twisting moves down to the floor. Touches his forehead to the floor. These seem like strange and necessary bows. He pulls the paper down from the rafters. My brain spins, dances, and frantically searches for something I can hold onto.

This is a marvelously paired evening. Linehan looks at (or adamantly does not look at) the meaning of making art. And while Linehan does a lot and seems to allude to just being, Gill’s piece is. Her piece exists in a being place. I’ll be chewing on these for a while. And trying to get Linehan’s chants to finally leave my head.

Blogging, Dance, and the Cultural Moment

Carla Peterson talked about artists and the “Cultural Moment” in her toast following Beth Gill and Daniel Linehan’s performances. See Review.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. What is this Cultural Moment? And how is a cultural moment created? Does it require dialogue? Does it require private, in-depth exploration? Does it begin as a discussion, a number of adventurers? Does it begin as one person, alone, seeing things from a unique perspective? As a working, questioning artist, am I automatically part of the moment?

There is an element of cool in the cultural moment. If this cultural moment is consciously cool and radical, what then is truly radical?

Blogs and the discussions sparked by them seem to be an important part of this new cultural moment. Can they help bring art back into our daily cultural consciousness? What happens when many voices see and discuss dance? What happens when it is an informal, normal part of life to talk about art? What happens when, instead of reading an article, we engage in a living, growing discussion about this living, growing art form called dance?

Addendum
I just went to the MOMA retrospective of Martin Puryear's beautiful, touching, playful sculpture. In the notes for the exhibit, Puryear is quoted, "I think there are a number of levels at which my work can be dealt with and appreciated. It gives me great pleasure to feel there's a level that doesn't require knowledge of, or immersion in, the aesthetic of a specific time and place."

What is it that brings art beyond its "Cultural Moment?"

Ways of Seeing (Hollowing)

When we name a movement, we can see it and experience it more clearly. This series explores the many names that Laban Movement Analysis (See post on LMA) offers. While these often sound like regular English words, they sometimes have slightly different meanings when used in an LMA context.

Shape Flow refers to the subtle, personal movement that underlies all movement and breath. For more information on Shape Flow, see previous post.

One element of Shape Flow is Hollowing.
Left: Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange Above: Canyon Country, Califonia by Joel Sternfeld.

In Hollowing, a Shape Flow movement condenses (often backwards) towards the center. The two parents above are both Hollowing in their torsos; their chests seem to almost cave in. In the mother, this movement quality makes me feel a despair and a kind of quiet. In the father, the Hollowing makes me feel passive weight and that he's trying to come closer to his child's height. Hollowing is also used functionally. It is the exhale to better access deep stomach muscles in a sit up. And it is a Graham contraction.

Try it: How do you respond to the parents above? When do you Hollow? Is it common for you or rare? What could Hollowing look like in a teenager, a doctor, kindergarten teacher, a lover, a ballet dancer? Exhale, feel your belly come in towards your center. Cave in your chest. How do you feel? Note the next time you see a performer Hollow.

International Exposure for AVMG

(A little self-promotion)
My dance company, Aynsley Vandenbroucke Movement Group, just finalized plans to perform in Brazil this April. And my husband, Mathew Pokoik's , photographs of the company are currently featured in the Chinese fashion magazine Vision. Here are scans from the 6 page spread (you can click on the images to make them bigger):

The Republic of Jerome Bel

Jerome Bel is a man after my own heart. He is a truly thinking dance-maker. And Pichet Klunchun and Myself (see my review) is a delicious opportunity to hear what Bel thinks. The evening plays out like a Socratic dialogue between Bel and his performance partner, traditional Thai Kohn dancer, Pichet Klunchun:

Bel: “One day I quit dance because there was no more meaning. Instead of taking class, I read books. Two years and all the reading brought me to was standing still. I read La Societe de Spectacle. Today we are surrounded by representation so we see, but don’t live our lives. Standing still is a critique of La Societe de Spectacle because the audience is expecting dance. When I stand, I listen to the sounds- I’m not in the spectacle but in life. We are in the present time. A movie has been done before. Theater happens in the same space and same time. It’s more life than the movie. With this scene (standing still) I was reaching the essence of the theater- pretentious but I was trying to show what’s specific about theater. Time and space shared with audience. They watch me and I watch them instead of pretending I’m in the 15th Century...”

Klunchun: “Do they understand?”

Bel: “Yeah. Some of them…. The audience wants big emotions. I’m looking for something else. For example you have the leg there (points high above his head,) the audience admires the performer. I don’t want to have this relation with the audience. I try to create something equal between stage and audience. I don’t want the audience to feel dominated by the performer.”

Klunchun: “You mean it’s equal?”

Bel: “Yeah. We dance like the audience can dance.”

Klunchun: “If they can do it, why do they pay?”

Bel: “Sometimes they ask for their money back.”

Klunchun: “ You give it?”

Bel: “No. I belong to a very small community, the Contemporary Arts. In this community, there are three groups: # 1, The Artists. The artists need to create new forms and have time for research. It’s more difficult to do than to do things you already know. #2, The Government and Producers. (Bel is clearly not speaking about the US government.) They give money without knowing about what we will do. Even the artist doesn’t know what he will do, otherwise he’s not a contemporary artist. #3, The Audience of Contemporary Art. When they buy a ticket, they don’t know what they’re going to see. It’s a bet. If you want to pay to see what you want, go to Swan Lake. You’ll get swans and you’ll get lakes.”

Klunchun: “You don’t promise?”

Bel: “This community is interested in something they don’t know.”

(Bel and Klunchun move into a discussion about dying onstage. Bel shows a scene from one of his pieces. In this scene he lip-syncs to “Killing Me Softly With His Song, “ lies down, and stops lip-syncing while the song finishes. Klunchun has a tender, strong reaction; it reminds him of his paralyzed mother’s death.)

Bel: “ The song is 4 minutes 47 seconds, but I die early on. This is my strategy, to leave a lot of space for the audience. I don’t know anything more about death than the audience but I know about theater. My strategy is to give the audience space and time to go to their own ideas.”

Not only does Jerome Bel think and question, he also expects his audience to. This is not TV. This is not dictatorial school, government, or performance. This is people exploring what it means to be alive. This is theater, and life, that goes against many current trends. Can we get off of the couch long enough to rise to his challenge?

Link to New York Times article on Bel from 2005

Jerome Bel/ Pichet Klunchun and Myself

Photo by R.B.

A slight man from Thailand, dressed in all black, and a slightly balding man from France, dressed in pants and a hot pink button down shirt, sit a good distance apart in chairs facing one another on DTW's stage. A conversation ensues.

It is a performance of a conversation between two men and two cultures, a live documentary on forms of dance and dance making. The men, and the performance itself, ask questions about the nature of performance and the role of art in 2007. In a time of lighting-speed global travel and media overwhelm, what does live dance performance offer?

Jerome Bel and Pichet Klunchun gently share words and movements. There is a stilted quality to their discussion, a slight awkwardness while they communicate things very close to their hearts. There is an innocence that comes from not knowing where to begin. Some of their assumptions are so fundamental it takes them a while to reach understanding, if they do at all.

Bel, the man from France, exists in the pulsing center of an exploration about what contemporary dance is. He speaks clearly and poignantly about his favorite movement, standing still, and about his reasons for not wanting to do fancy jumps and turns, for not wanting the audience to feel “dominated by the performer.” While he has trained and performed in classical Western dance forms, his work moves far away from them.

Klunchun, the man from Thailand, is, on the other hand, steeped in the technique and performance of a centuries-old traditional Thai dance form, Kohn. He is in the process of reclaiming this dance, bringing it back to the theater, away from the restaurants and tourists who have subsumed it. He shares with Bel, and with us, the precise, exquisite movements of this dance.

While the men come from different aesthetics: West/East, Contemporary/Traditional, Pedestrian/Technical, they take up remarkably similar challenges. They both search for their own truths within dance, sometimes against considerable pressure to do something else. They both speak about failure. They both work against modern audiences’ needs for something to hold onto. Ironically, by working in extremes of very new and very old, they both test the stamina of their audience.

Klunchun talks about scores of tourists collecting pictures of Kohn dances instead of experiencing them; he’s working to bring focus back to the dance. He shares that a true Kohn dance could take one full week to be performed. Bel, influenced by French philosopher Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle, speaks about people living surrounded by representation so that they see, but don’t live their lives. He talks about not wanting to give them flashy dance moves precisely because that’s what they are expecting. (And people, including a well-known flashy dance choreographer, do leave the theater the night I’m there.)

About standing still, the scruffy and endearing Bel has much to say, “With this scene, I was reaching the essence of the theater- pretentious-but I was trying to show what’s specific about theater. Time and space shared with audience. They watch me and I watch them instead of pretending I’m in the 15th Century.”

Klunchun responds, “I know this from the Buddhists, ‘You must stay in the present. No future, no past.'" And then, “ Do you have something bigger than this to show me?”

I leave the theater wondering what could be bigger.

(And with much more to write about!) Link to my other writing related to this piece

Dancers Take Over Washington Square Park

Movement Choir (this section choreographed by Kristi Spessard)
Photo © Jeffrey Bary

Eight groups of dancers (almost 100 people) work in different parts of the park. They move around trees, run down walkways, spiral in and out of people walking their dogs. They come together around the central fountain. It's like a scene out of Hair. I see patterns of space and effort in the dancers but also in regular people walking through the park, sitting on benches.

This event, held on Thursday, November 8, was co-sponsored by The Laban/ Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies and The Center for Architecture/American Institute of Architects, NY Chapter. Based on the Movement Choirs (massive groups of people moving together in public spaces) of Rudolf Laban, it awakened in me an awareness of the patterns of movement that always exist in this park.

And what a delight to hear unsuspecting park-goers respond! Here are some of the words I overheard:

"I thought spontaneous dancing was just for musicals, but I guess not."

"Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"

"I've never seen that shit."

"Leave them alone, man.... Oh yeah, Alvin Ailey."

"Broadway stuff."

"They're doing exercise."

"There are like 50 of them!"

Make Art Not War: John Jasperse at BAM

John Jasperse Company in Misuse Liable to Prosecution
Press Photo, photographer unknown

John Jasperse inspires me to stay in dance. He continues to make work that is thoughtful, heartfelt, and fully physical. I saw his new piece, Misuse Liable to Prosecution, at BAM and felt like running down the aisle to hug him at the end.

The stage at the Harvey Theater is filled with a delicate mobile of suspended clear plastic hangers. With this incandescent web in the background, Jasperse comes downstage in funky found object clothes. He talks to us through a makeshift microphone made out of an orange street cone.

He shares statistics about the money it takes to produce a performance, the money that dancers and choreographers make, or don’t, and the way that they use that money, or don’t. He shares the pitiful amount of money that this country sets aside for the National Endowment for the Arts each year. And he shares the larger amount of money that this country uses for war every day.

While I reel from these statistics, bizarre, beautiful dancers with dust mops strapped to their heads begin to float across the stage.

While addressing economic realities of the dance world by using only found, stolen or donated objects, Misuse poignantly looks at ecological and political realities too. The dancers create entire worlds out of found objects, make use of what already exists in abundance. They find ways to connect in the midst of chaos. They clean up after themselves.

These dancers (Michelle Boule, Levi Gonzalez, Eleanor Hullihan and Kayvon Pourazar, sometimes joined by Jasperse himself) are unparalleled. They inhabit their bodies with an honesty and beauty that perfectly serves the piece. They have the technique to do anything and yet are completely unhindered by the affected style that sometimes comes with technique.

In Misuse, they move in circles completely off-balance, they ram into an air mattress, they delicately fold material and then slash it around. They fully access their own sense of weight, of agency. They encourage me, likewise, to find my own weight, to find the things that I care about, the many ways that I want to move through this world.

Throughout the evening, John Jasperse plays the role of a tender clown. He comes back downstage towards the end of the night and shares with us ideas for the end of the piece. One of these is to line the theater with explosives. To go out with a bang. We are lucky that those of us sitting in Brooklyn that night do not live lives surrounded by explosives.

Jasperse also shares an idea, “What if the whole room just got bigger. Like the whole space breathed in and held it….”

I hold my breath and I know people around me do too. We are a collection of people, together in a theater, sharing time and space.

PORTRAIT OF A MODERN DANCE FAN: A Profile of Doug Post

Doug Post with his wife Anne

The gentle, white-haired man walks into my living room and immediately starts changing into a new t-shirt. He tells me he’s preparing for our interview. The t-shirt says, “Dance is not a matter of life or death. It’s much more important than that.”

Doug Post is not a dancer, choreographer, producer, curator, or critic. He is an audience member who attends five or six New York City modern dance performances a week. He volunteers, ushers, and finds member discounts, all so that he can see more. In a time of shrinking newspaper coverage and ever shrinking budgets, Doug Post is a human, loving champion of dance....
Read the rest of this profile on DTW's website

Ways of Seeing (Bulging)

When we name a movement, we can see it and experience it more clearly. This series will explore the many names that Laban Movement Analysis (See post on LMA) offers. While these often sound like regular English words, they sometimes have slightly different meanings when used in an LMA context.

Shape Flow refers to the subtle, personal movement that underlies all movement. Even in "stillness," we use Shape Flow. It is the breath. It is intimately connected with self. It is crying, laughing, sighing. It is the movement we do to make ourselves more comfortable: adjusting our sleeping position, twirling our hair, twiddling our fingers. In a skilled performer, Shape Flow supports personal, integrated, connected dancing. It is also easy to see Shape Flow in children.

One element of Shape Flow is Bulging. Photo of boy by Henri Cartier-Bresson

In Bulging, a Shape Flow movement expands either forward or backward. The two children above are both Bulging forward in their torsos. The boy is also Widening.

Try it: How do you respond to the children above? How do you feel around other people who are Bulging? What would that Bulging look like in a football player, a boss, someone who is indignant? Puff your chest out like you are proud. Breathe deeply letting your belly and your chest expand. How do you feel? Note the next time you see a performer Bulge.

Laban Movement Analysis

Laban Movement Analysis deeply influences the way I experience movement. I teach LMA at The Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies and I will be exploring it within this blog so here's a little introduction:

Rudolf Laban, photo from limsonline.org

LMA is a system for observing, describing, notating, and delving deeply into movement. It looks at movement through the primary lenses of Body, Effort, Shape, and Space.

First developed by Rudolf Laban in the early 1900s and best known for its notation system, LMA is continually expanded by the people who use it. These people include anthropologists, choreographers, yoga teachers, martial artists, actors, physical therapists, psychologists, dancers and political consultants. Choreographers Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss, Hanya Holm, Pina Bausch, and William Forsythe descend from Laban’s work.

A holistic system, LMA recognizes that the way we move both reflects and influences the way we live our lives. LMA strengthens and clarifies the work of professional movers and offers insight and movement choices to people in their daily lives.