Miriam Gittens, Doug Letheren, and Alexander Bozinoff form a trio as Mikael Darmanie plays the piano and Danni Lee Parpan watches in Seven Scenes at Little Island (photo by Matthew Placek)
SEVEN SCENES
The Amph at Little Island
Pier 55, Hudson River Park at West Thirteenth St.
August 22-28, $10 standing room, $25 seats, 8:30
littleisland.org
A pair of real-life and professional partners bring an infectious passion to Seven Scenes, a lovely hourlong work continuing at the simultaneously spacious yet cozy outdoor Amph at Little Island through August 28.
The dance theater piece was conceived, choreographed, and directed by the Iowa-born Bobbi Jene Smith and Jerusalem native Or Schraiber, who met while dancing for Ohad Naharin’s Batsheva Dance Company, became founding members of the American Modern Opera Company in 2017, got married in 2018, and have a child together. The score, ranging from classical to country, is performed live by the electro-pop duo Ringdown, consisting of real-life couple Caroline Shaw and Danni Lee Parpan on vocals, keys, and synths, accompanied by Mikael Darmanie on keyboards and electronics, Keir GoGwilt on violin, and Coleman Itzkoff on cello. Smith and Schraiber are joined by dancers Alexander Bozinoff, Jonathan Frederickson, Payton Johnson, Doug Letheren, and Ophelia Young.
Seven Scenes comprises a series of interconnected vignettes about love, jealousy, and sexual exploration. Victoria Bek’s costumes feature the men in black or gray dress pants, black or white shirts, and shiny black shoes while the women, each with long hair, wear dark, low-cut outfits. The instruments are at the Hudson River end of the bare wood stage, which remains otherwise empty save for a few moments when the cast brings out a table and chairs. Shaw, Parpan, GoGwilt, and Itzkoff occasionally wander around the dancers, singing and playing their instruments before taking seats in the first row in between audience members. Whenever someone is not performing, they are closely watching what is going on, as if they are voyeurs waiting for their moment to participate.
Payton Johnson, Miriam Gittens, and Bobbi Jean Smith line up in Seven Scenes at Little Island (photo by Matthew Placek)
The evening is highlighted by solos, pas de deux, and trios in which the performers enact primarily romantic scenarios to a score that begins with Jean-Louis Duport’s Étude No.7 and then ranges from Brahms’s Piano Trio No. 2 in C major, op.87: andante con moto, Bach’s Violin Sonata in E minor P. 85: I. Allegro, Schubert’s Piano Trio No. 2 in E-Flat Major, D. 929: II. Andante con moto, and Handel’s Keyboard Suite No. 1 (Set II) in B-Flat Major HWV 434 IV. Minuet to Willie Nelson’s “Crazy” and Ringdown’s “Hocket,” “Fantasia,” and “Thirst,” highlighted by guttural sounds.
Smith and Schraiber’s movement language is inspired by Naharin’s Gaga, focusing on the full body, from fingers to toes, interspersed with just a few runs, jumps, and throws; dancers often remain in place as they interact with one another, but the relationships are always powerfully dynamic. (You can find out more about Smith and Schraiber in the films Bobbi Jene and Aviva.) A man and a woman converge, then are interrupted by a second man, the first man interested in both of them. The three women form a line, moving in unison before breaking free.
Classical ballet and ballroom meld with contemporary dance as the men sit around a table, put on and take off jackets, and one of the men stretches across the table. The men later form a row before sitting in chairs, evoking Naharin’s Minus 16 and Jerome Robbins’s bottle dance from Fiddler on the Roof. Individuals fall to the floor and remain there, as if having been rejected, or exhausted by the chase. Johnson excels in a solo to “Thirst” as Ringdown sings, “Clenched jaw and furrowed brow / If you are the rain, then I am the ground / Don’t know what to do with this thirst for a time and place where I found you first / Where I found you first.”
The men shake hands with audience members. Near the end, Fredrickson thrills with a yearning solo to Darmanie’s gorgeous piano.
There’s a beautiful intimacy to Seven Scenes and how it tells its stories, weaving in sound and motion, dancers and musicians, both physically and emotionally, as bodies come together and are ripped apart, all under a glowing night sky.
Following select performances, the audience is invited to the nearby Glade for a free concert at 10:00, with GoGwilt and pianist Conor Hanick on August 27 and pianist Jeremy Denk on August 28.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]