Dance Review: Crotch & Bodies, Keith Hennessy and Melanie Maar at DTW

“Milk chocolate? Dark Chocolate? The milk chocolate is my favorite. I just have the dark to keep other people happy,” Keith Hennessy says to the audience crammed at intermission into the lobby of Dance Theater Workshop on April 4, 2009.  “Hey you over there, I see you want some. Come closer.” Keith reads in a halting voice from a paper he has scribbled on, “I can’t relax. here and everywhere. I am anxious. and unsure.” He then invites us to return to the stage.

Two pieces at Dance Theater Workshop on April 4, 2009 push the boundaries between dance and other performance genres.

In the first, Melanie Marr presents Phenomenal Bodies, a beautiful quartet with three dancers and a musician that explores the relationship between dance and music. The most striking part begins with Melanie Marr’s solo. She starts by singing. Then she manipulates the microphone — when it is in-line with the speaker, it gives a feedback noise — so that as she moves she creates music. She then puts down the microphone (too soon!) and begins an incredible duet with guitarist Kenta Nagai. The breathtaking duet flows like a conversation directly from their bodies; with extraordinary finesse, they bend, weave, and relate in the intertwining of movement and music.

In other solos and sections the movement vocabulary is slightly more predictable. The transitions are often interesting: in one, the women take off their wigs, and in another, they simply set up the stage. If she had been able to craft the entire work to the level of her own solo and duet, it would be outstanding.

In Crotch (all the Joseph Beuys references in the world…), Keith Hennessy taps into basic human fears and desires.  He sings, “I wanna be a huge star.  Who hangs out in restaurant bars.  I want to shine so bright it hurts.”  He reads, “Some prefer, coffee to start, the day.  I prefer, sex.  My husband, left me.”  The audience is invited into this performance world by his homosexual, frank, and endearing persona.

So who is this Joseph Beuys, in the title of Keith’s piece?  Back at home, I did a bit of research. He was a central figure in post-war German performance art, a man who believed in the transformable power of art and the potential of every person to make an artistic contribution. Beuys traced the birth of his life as an artist to being rescued, when his plane crashed in Crimea during the war, by Tartar tribesmen who wrapped his injured body in animal fat.  Like Beuys, Keith Hennessy uses multiple media and combines ritualistic, everyday, and enigmatic gestures to create an art about human actions.

In one section he does a parody of modern dance while wearing the Scream mask.  In another he does a satirical ten minute lecture on the history of world, starting with “chaos” and ending with “solo performance art,” taking us through Hegel, play, and Martha Graham on the way.  He sometimes points out the absurdity of his performance (for example, in this lecture saying, “You do realize I’m obviously ignoring a lot”).  Telling the audience he knows he’s being ridiculous, instead of letting us make our own judgment, stifles some of the power and edginess of his act.

Near the beginning he sings a heartbreakingly beautiful song.  At the end, he sits naked on a chair and puts vegetable fat over his private parts. Then he sews a needle and thread through his skin to the clothes of audience members sitting near him. He pours glitter on himself, looks at us, and walks off. He is a master of creating images, of exposing himself and bringing the audience in.  As I left the theater, I pass an empty chocolate tray and see that we have consumed his show like we did the chocolates.

Photography by Ilya Noye (Keith Hennessy)
Photography by Ian Douglas (Melanie Maar and Kenta Nagai) 

iDANZ Critix Corner 
Official Dance Review by Leah Schrager
Performance: Crotch (all the Joseph Beuys references in the world…) & Phenomenal Bodies
Choreographer(s):  Keith Hennessy, Melanie Maar
Venue:  Dance Theater Workshop, New York City
Date:  April 4, 2009
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