“Why?” This is the continuous thought running through my head while watching Ballet Preljocaj perform Angelin Preljocaj’s Empty Moves (parts I & II) at BAM.  The piece, choreographed to John Cage’s 1977 speech Empty Words, which was recorded in Milan before a vocal and rambunctious crowd, sets a standard for contemporary choreographers.  Like abstract artwork, the 63-minute piece of arbitrary movement and Cage’s syllabic, unrecognizable pronunciation of words presents an enigma for the audience to decode.

The costumes, reminiscent of a disco roller rink party, expose the dancers’ liquid lines and dynamic quality of movement.  However, I ask, “Why this choice of retro neon color shirts and shorts that would have been worn by Punky Brewster?”

The dancers effortlessly transfer from position to position, but reveal no emotion; their faces remain frozen.  At one moment, the two girls toboggan over a man towards the audience and smile.  Again, I ask, “Why?  Why is that the only moment of expression?”

Randomly, the two men repeatedly stand on their heads, the women push their elbows in the men’s eyes and mouths, and in one moment the couples reach into their partners mouths.  I wonder, “Why, what is Preljocaj’s intention?”

As I continue to watch Empty Moves, the answer to my question is that Preljocaj just feels like it, and, in the moment, the arbitrary step appears to be the perfect piece to fit the puzzle.  Half way through the piece a dancer leaves the stage to get a drink of water and brings the Poland Spring bottle to other dancers on stage.  At that moment, the dancers are thirsty and drinking water is a necessary part of the choreography.  Like the simple black dress hanging in the closest, sometimes the least complicated and least contrived things are the most beautiful.

For a dancer, the process of learning and performing a piece with such arbitration presents a huge challenge. As a dancer you rely on the music to rescue you from the “oh crap” moments that occur when the choreography slips away from the body; however, the four dancers Favrizio Clemente, Gaelle Chappaz, Julien Thibault, and Yurie Tsugawa, impress with their flawless performance.  They dance with a connective energy that mesmerizes the eyes for the entire 63 minutes. Even though subdued and unremarkable, the choreography perplexes the conception of entertainment and disproves the idea that the flashy choreography seen on So You Think You Can Dance is the future of performance art. 

In a poignant moment, the four dancers interlock themselves lying in a straight line across the stage.  Who knew that something as simple as this would be as impressive as the Texas Rangers beating the Yankees to play in the World Series?

Anglein Preljocaj and his company are the epitome of innovation and hopefully will inspire more artists to trust their instincts and escape conformity like Preljocaj has done in Empty Moves (parts I & II).

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Katherine Gibson
Performance:  Ballet Preljocaj
Venue:  BAM, Brooklyn, NY
Show Date:  Friday, October 29, 2010
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After a six year hiatus, Ralph Lemon and his dancers return to the stage Wednesday night in Brooklyn’s own BAM Harvey Theater.  The theater is packed and guests buzz words of praise about their expectations for this performance.  Some, knowing of Lemon’s longer shows, ask about length expectations as well.   As I sit, I too am worried of becoming restless, but the performance, although a bit long, is loaded with information and provocative images which inspire intellectual thoughts and dialogue about life and the hereafter.

The show begins with Lemon himself reading a memoir of his experiences during the creation of this project entitled “ How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere?”.

Mr. Lemon normally keeps his private life hidden but this time he openly talks about his artistic relationship with Walter Calter, a former sharecropper born in 1908 who he meets in the Mississippi Delta while researching his 2004 work.  He also talks about mourning the death of his companion dancer, Asako Takami.  Mr. Lemon sees “House” as a four part project (I.Sunshine Room, II. Wall/Hole., III.  No Room, IV.  Meditation) inspired by his experiences and by Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 science fiction film “Solaris,” with its underlying theme of death.  In the film clips, a psychologist ends up on a spaceship with his wife, who commits suicide.

During the film Mr. Lemon narrates as we also watch clips of Mr. Calter in a bunny suit in Mississippi encountering violence reminiscent of the racial tension of the 1960’s.  These images are also inspired by Hare and Rabbit tales published in The Gift by Lewis Hyde where Sakka, the ruler of the heaven of sensual pleasure tests the hare by disguising himself.  At the end of the film we see video clips of dancers onstage doing improv. The movements and music are inspired by the free spirit, drug, sex, and rock and roll days of the 70’s.  A particular clip of his earlier work shows a dancer continuing to dance on stage after being hosed down with water. This made a strong statement about the perseverance of African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement.

Six dancers come out and the familiar movements seen on screen are repeated live. There is a moving moment where the stage is bare except for the sound of a dancer sobbing off stage.  Though strong, this is a bit disturbing and some people feel it is too much to endure and leave, but the majority who stay experience a performance that completely takes us inside the mind and heart of Ralph Lemon.  I commend the dancers for their tirelessness and amazing commitment to movement that is very physical requiring them to spin, fall, and run for a long span of time nonstop!

At the closing of the final section, Lemon returns to the stage in the bunny suit amongst a screen of animals that appear one by one.  This moment symbolizes the place we have in this world, the relationship we have with all of mankind, and our search to understand the unknown.

This project is a work-in-progress and will continue with part IV Meditation, an installation on view at the The Kitchen this month.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Carmen Carriker
Performance:  Ralph Lemon, "How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere?"
Venue:  BAM Harvey Theater, Brooklyn, New York
Show Date:  October 13, 2010
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It begins on trodden ground.  People (including non-dancers) enter the stage, walk around, and pose in a pedestrian fashion.  Text overlays the action with clips like “he led a somewhat uneventful life” and he would sometimes attend the theater.  This un-engaging text is repeated in different ways throughout the opening.  Wally Cardona enters and performs a lovely solo. But the message is heavy-handed; we get it, he is everyone and anyone. Throughout the piece the theme is treated in ways that falls on a spectrum from uninteresting to magically brilliant. While the opening lacked artistic pizzazz, it is executed in a genuine and wholehearted manner.  (Another example of Cardona’s confluence of text is his website: http://www.wcvismorphing.org). 

Everyone leaves the stage, the WC4+ core company takes over, and a highlight of the evening begins. This beautiful and quirky duet is performed by Kana Kimura and Joanna Kotze to music sung by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.  It is simultaneously riveting, luscious, and cold; a subtle and complex choreographic gem.  This is refreshing, like going for a swim at Coney Island in the fall.

Really Real continues in an AB pattern: dance to live choral music then dance to radio hit song (such as “Ring of Fire”).  A male trio is nicely executed but doesn’t come together choreographically.  Then
young people come on stage and interact (à la the opening section) with the core company.  I feel a moment of dread as the chorus makes their way onstage, but am happy to find my concern misplaced!  Everyone (but the core company) stands clad in black, facing upstage, and another highlight of the evening ensues as Kana Kimura and Stuart Singer engage in a violent duet.  In a deliciously dangerous and captivating way, they partner and dash across the stage while not
hitting any of those standing.

Wally Cardona’s piece, Really Real, has many elements: some work, some don’t.  But it’s satisfying to wait for those moments of choreographic ingenuity that inevitably evolve with Cardona’s work.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Leah Sands
Performance:  Really Real
Choreographer(s):  Wally Cardona / WC4+
Venue: BAM Harvey Theater
Date:  November 20, 2009
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Cirkus Cirkör captures the heart of New Yorkers in its new production of “Inside Out.”  Visiting their website (http://www.cirkor.se) prior to the show, I knew I was in for a treat, seeing a beating heart on my MacBook.

Directed by Tilde Björfors, who also founded Cirkus Cirkör in 1995, “Inside Out” the production is like an artistic autopsy of the circus, beginning with the circus show.  Coming into the theater, performers are already onstage milling about, making preparations for the performance, though this is part of the performance.  The lead clown welcomes the audience members personally, then pulls one onstage to help power the stage lights by pedaling a stationary bike. 

The performance begins rather light-heartedly, the entertainers downplaying their talents. They join in silly back-up dancing as each one performs their specialty trick.  Then the scene flips so the audience is now viewing the performers’ backsides as they perform their bows.  Suddenly we are drawn into the blood of circus life, celebrating and drinking, practice and play.  The characters are real people, just like we are as audience members.  The circus tricks become more impressive and beautifully elaborate on the story of personal struggle and growth.  The lead clown, often used in modern circus productions to shed light on social issues, addresses the audience with the big life and death questions.  Are you living fully, or is it possible that you are no longer living although your heart still beats?

Philosophical questions are left unanswered, the audience left to sort them out as the performance escalates with circus and theatrical elements.

The clown, Angela Wand, plays a funambulist (tight-rope walker) whose soulfull performance is both silly and endearing. Embodying the washed-up circus artist, she bourres about the stage in her ragged fairy costume as if she is the greatest thing to grace a stage.

Anna Lagerkvist does a fierce Chinese pole act.  The agility with which she climbs the pole makes me wonder who could ever doubt that we are evolved from monkeys, it is so natural-looking. Perching herself high at the top, wrapping her body round the pole in all sorts of ways, she then is suddenly freefalling down the pole to catch herself right before she hits the floor.  Each time the audiences sends up a unanimous gasp, then clapping and cheering.

Jay Gilligan presents an incredible juggling act, in which the drummer Erik Nilsson accompanies with quirky vocalizations and percussion.  This segment is definitely a highlight of the show, eliciting laughter and cheers from the crowd as Erik Nilsson plays off Jay Gilligan, teasing him for any slight fumble.  Jay Gilligan is a delight to watch as he moves with such exaggerated clumsiness that only a supremely coordinated individual can accomplish.  The handstand equilibrist, Jens Engman, impressively holds a one-arm handstand throughout some of Jay Gilligan’s long juggling sequences, vying for the audience’s attention.  Jens Engman has a boyish charm that adds to his appeal with his supremely erect handstands.

Mirja Tuulikki Jauhiainen and Sanna Kopra perform a breath-taking aerial trapeze act.  The duo are incredibly in-synch with each other, having worked together for over a decade. This act is amazing because of the potential danger and required skill, but even more beautiful because of the eloquent artistic expression of the aerialists.  André Farstand and Fredrik Deijfen are talented acrobats that join in with other cast members to do some incredible aerial propulsions on the Teeterboard. 

Cirkus Cirkör features live music provided by Irya’s Playground who have recently debuted album by the same name.  Irya Gmeyner is the lead singer who also helped found Cirkus Cirkör.  Elegantly dressed with a large plume feather headdress, her lovely sounds blend beautifully into the actions of the performers.

The stage design is fantastic, with beautiful backdrops that looked like they are hand painted.  Images are projected over parts of the set and performers, adding to the magic and illusion.  These fantastic light projections propel the themes of science and art and the idea that they are two sides of the same coin.

In “Inside Out” Cirkus Cirkör finds its way into the hearts of its audience members.  I am particularly impressed with the program notes, that read as personal stories of how each performer was drawn into the circus life, instead of the conventional listing of credits that can be boring and tedious to read.  Cirkus Cirkör has taken on a difficult task of performing formidable circus tricks within a theatrical framework, seeking to reach deeper meanings of life and death.  This is a wonderful and inspiring show appropriate for audiences of all ages and backgrounds.  Cirkus Cirkör breaks past boundaries of the fourth wall and the limited showiness of traditional circus to share a greater message with the world.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Lea McGowan
Performance:  Cirkus Cirkör: Inside Out
Choreography:  Dag Andersson / Circus choreography: Christian “Vippen” Vilppola
Venue:  BAM The Gillman Opera House, Brooklyn, New York
Performance Date:  November 12, 2009
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When people of Irish decent get angry over the use of the ‘mythical’ leprechaun by the Boston Celtics and Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish, do people of African decent have the right to get angry over the use of Africa’s cultural music, spiritual symbols, costume and a very few steps in an African ballet choreographed by a white American woman from Kansas? ¨ Maybe.

Now, I am as "harmony in the rainbow" as they come…"blue-eyed soul" as they go…having green eyes myself (and a good portion of Scotch-Irish boiling blood mixed with renegade Cherokee and runaway slaves).  Excited, I arrive at BAM for Karole Armitage’s African Ballet Itutu’s premier knowing little of her four-year-old company.  Her style is the culmination of a 30-year international dancing career that spans "punk" ballet and Cunningham with a good amount of Post-modernist experimentation thrown in along the way.

The evening-length work of five parts is described as “the combination of sacred and secular images, diverse rhythms, and the use of multiple languages.”  In addition, “Armitage’s classical abstractions and traditional African dance translate the polyrhythmic music into a poly-visual form” [BAM news release]… OK.

Itutu opens with Burkina Electric softer Afro-pop sounds center stage against Philip Taaffe backdrops of abstraction of West African symbols of wisdom and spirituality. These many backdrops are backlit and front lit with vibrant colors and flown in and out creating a multi-dimentional environment behind the dance.  Armitage establishes a mood as the classically trained dancers move in and around the band members who also sing, dance and act in a more traditionally African style throughout.  The opening of the ballet is a very sexy concept with great execution.  I am mildly optimistic about this collaboration.

Maï Lingani (vocals/dancer) is the linchpin of most of the work as she can create moods with voice, body and emotion.  She is aided by her talented counterparts from Burkina Electric with Wende K. Blass (bass guitar) and Vicky and Zoko Zoko (vocals/dancers). The score by Lukas Ligeti (son of György Ligeti) is nuanced with an understanding and appreciation for African rhythm and harmony.  Although he doesn’t appear onstage in the work, his introduces various African instruments for Bukinababé rhythms with an Afro-pop sound.

In the five scenes, Amitage vacillates between creating a mood and executing a movement idea.  Mostly, the sections begin abruptly with little transition or over arching structure to the work.  Scene after scene play with some variation, but without enough development to keep it interesting.  Dragging frequently after the opening scene, I find myself focusing on the great performances like a beautifully executed pas de deux between Megumi Eda and Zoko Zoko.  There, initial meeting brings Eda’s head into Zoko Zoko’s hand.  Her eyes open and a power struggle ensues. The concept of seeing the male African form on the female Asian form is nothing new. The duet is more subtle than suggestive.  In their variation of this duet, Zoko finds himself compelled by Eda’s subtlety, only to repeat the phrase and place his head on her hand.

The work continues scene after scene with little connectivity or real movement invention with the exception of a few beautifully executed duets with somewhat dated partnering and no real fusion between the African and the ballet.  Then there were the pseudo vogue, ballet jazz walk scenes across the floor?  What the*#&$*!   In another random moment, Zoko Zoko appears upstage suspended in a box high above them all and behind the backdrop for a visually stunning dead end.  Enough said.

Fortunately for the audience, all of the dancers have beautiful lines and a strong sense of contemporary ballet and throw themselves into the repetitive and rudimentary African steps.  The company, as a whole, performs sharply and with enthusiasm. Armitage creates strong male roles for Leonides D. Arpon and Luke Manley.  However, I feel that Marlon Taylor-Wiles is underused in this fusion work where he could have clearly done more as a bridge between the two styles.

As a moving dreamscape, the work is visually stunning like a psychedelic trip through AfroBallet-Pop Dancelandia.  But, if you are sober, as I am, it is very very slow for African or ballet dance, self indulgent in structure and propped up as a work by the collaborators around Armitage.  What I yearn for with every sinew in my multi-ethnic soul is to see stronger choreography from any ethnicity.  If you can take it and make it better, as the Japanese dance crews did for group precision and ingenuity in Hip Hop, then more power to you.  If not, leave it alone.

The collaborative elements in the production are of value for the multi-ethnic cast who have the opportunity to present their artistry.  Itutu showcases one the most talented and beautifully diverse collections of classically trained dancers on BAM’s stage in 2009 (Brava Armitage!), gorgeous iridescent images of Phillip Taaffe as a chimerical backdrop inspired by adinkra symbols of Ghana (Brava Armitage!), culturally appropriate costumes of Peter Speliopoulos for African dance and classical lines, and the energetic/eclectic/electric pop sounds and dancing of Lukas Ligeti’s score with a live song/dance blended performance of Burkina Electric (Brava Armitage!).  If Karole Armitage were a dance impresario like Diaghilev, “Brava!” is all I could say.

Yet, as a female choreographer she needs more personal risk and less borrowed mood.  It is not that every work has to have some explosive and "ejaculatory climax" of a classic/patriarchal structure (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, dénouement).  Female choreographers often subvert this structure in favor of our own series of increasing peaks of excitement throughout.  Yet, when Armitage advertises an "African Ballet," I am expecting something exciting to happen before the curtain falls.

Choreographically for me, this work is one long, drawn-out tease.  This is not ballet class where the only time I feel like I am dancing is in the grande allegro.  If the biggest dynamic change in movement happens during the finalé (a coming together at the end of an African ballet) then what do you call the preceding 60 minutes of the ballet?  Warm up?  Across the floor?

This is 2009, if you want to appropriate the whole of African dance culture in a visually stunning way, you must at least make it authentically your own for your company or it becomes just another attempt to spice up blasé Western choreography with anything from African culture that is not nailed down.  I am really looking for Armitage to challenge the dancers to improvise if the music is not consistent and not just overlay it with slow ballet steps on faster African music.  In African dance/music, the music culturally dictates the length and time of the dance and some times the movement itself.

Where is the sense of the "Godhead" or the sacred as advertised?

Where is the fast paced petite allegro from ballet?  Could we have seen those amazing dancers beat their feet to that syncopated West African sound?  What would that have looked like?  

Armitage should have asked for choreographic dance collaboration and then credited her dancers.  I am sure that her talented group could have brought the dynamic cultural and physical change that was missing.

Why can’t more classical movement transfer to African trained dancer/musicians from ballet and vice versa?  Could better or even contemporary African dance steps challenge Armitage’s company, a company comprised with very diverse dancers?  If it is billed as "contemporary," I would hope to see boundaries pushed in both ballet and African dance and perhaps even a true melding of the two creating a new form, which has not existed before Itutu.  And, if it is classical, what exactly is the storyline?

To see something new and different in the arts creates a watershed moment that last a lifetime for the audience. To see the same cultural three-card monte game played at a higher level is merely an entertaining ruse. 

I always have one dream. I dream it every night.  It is combining the beautiful lines of the classically trained dancer with a form closer to my choreographic heart of contemporary African dance and the financial production capacity to do it right.   Beautifully financed and produced as Itutu is, when a choreographer steps into the territory of the "colonizer" in 2009, they’d better be pushing more than prettier baubles.

I waited a week to write this review hoping I would calm down, but the lukewarm attempt to combine the classical and the Afrocentric in choreography still boils this lass’s blood.  Appropriation….  

Yes.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Sasha Deveaux
Performance:  Armatige Gone! Dance, Itutu 
Choreographer: Karole Armitage
Music Collaboration:  Lukas Ligeti with Burkina Electric of Bikina Faso
Set: Phillip Taaffe
Costume: Peter Speliopoulos
Venue: BAM, Brooklyn, NY
Show Date:  November 4, 2009 @ 7:30pm
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I leave the theater in deep thought.  Decreation deconstructs a moment from that conversation with someone that decides the course of the future for that particular relationship.  It fragments the words exchanged, sheds a different light on those moments that often define what it is that makes up that relationship… Still following me??  Imagine it on stage with no one to explain it to you…. 

The sometimes abstract and sometimes literal and deliberate dramaturgy is written by Rebecca Groves.  She weaves these emotions of jealousy and rage and acceptance perfectly. There is no question that people will disappoint you, and mistakes can be forgiven but not forgotten.  The script and performance of it taps into that part of your brain that replays a conversation over and over again, until you have driven yourself crazy with what it even means to begin with.

I have to stop here and apologize for my cerebral review.  It is hard to review the physicalization of these ideas because I’m not sure what I saw.  It is completely different from anything else I have ever seen.  I don’t even know if I liked it or not.  It is riveting yet somewhat detached but still very emotional.  To get an idea as to what it looked like, strip away the image of technical dancing, no arabesques or pointed feet, and now take Bat Sheva, lock them in an asylum for a couple of years with no light, then suddenly flip the switch and throw them on stage and see what happens.  When I try to do what I remember them doing I feel like I’m covered in bed bugs and cobwebs…. ya now know what I’m talking about.  How do you describe 20 some odd dancers twitching on stage to no music and offensively loud screeching microphones?%$@*!

Having said all that, the piece is an interesting work:  it raises a lot of questions about how it is when you relive those intense relationship changing moments, it blurs the lines between dance and theater, and anything that is edgy and intelligent is not always easy to watch.  Forsythe will be at BAM Oct 7-10.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Dante Puleio
Performance:  Decreation
Choreographer:  William Forsythe
Venue: BAM, Brooklyn, NY
Show Date:  Wednesday, October 7, 2009
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