AMOC’s With Care comes to the 92nd St. Y this week (photo by Natalia Perez)
Who: Bobbi Jene Smith, Or Schraiber, Keir GoGwilt, Miranda Cuckson
What: New York City premiere of work by AMOC (American Modern Opera Company)
Where: Kaufmann Concert Hall, 92nd St. Y Harkness Dance Center, 1395 Lexington Ave. at Ninety-Second St., and online
When: In person Thursday, April 28, $30, 8:00; online April 29, noon, to May 1, midnight, $15
Why: In November 2018, married former Batsheva dancers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber debuted With Care at ODC Theater in San Francisco, a co-commission with AMOC (American Modern Opera Company). The piece, which explores caregiving, carelessness, and loss — as perceived prior to the pandemic, when those issues took center stage — was created by Smith in collaboration with violinist Keir GoGwilt; the latter performs with violinist Miranda Cuckson as current L.A. Dance Project artists-in-residence Smith and Schraiber, portraying a caregiver and a wounded spirit, move around them.
Directed by Smith and featuring music by AMOC cofounder Matthew Aucoin, the work includes chairs, small wooden slats, and sand with dance, music, and spoken word that should take on new meaning in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis. “The original impetus for With Care came out of the last section of my previous work with Keir, A Study on Effort,” Smith said in a statement. “This piece consists of seven efforts, the last of which is the effort of taking care. We thought to expand this study of emotional and physical labor into a theatrical context, investigating the dynamics of caregiving and taking between four characters. Adding Or and Miranda opened a world in which the dynamics of care spiral from empathy to apathy. The more our characters attempt to break free from this cycle, the more they become lost in the maze of their commitments to each other. Yet ultimately the only solace they find is in each other. Never stop caring.”
With Care will be performed live at the 92nd St. Y’s Kaufmann Concert Hall on April 28 at 8:00; a recording will be available online from April 29 at noon to May 1 at midnight. For more on Smith and Schraiber, check out Boaz Yakin’s 2019 film, Aviva, and Elvira Lind’s 2017 documentary, Bobbi Jene. The Harkness Main Stage Series continues in May with the Future Dance Festival and in June with Jonathan Fredrickson of Tanztheater Wuppertal.