Donna Uchizono’s latest goes on the road in the city (photo by Melinda MX Lee)
Baryshnikov Arts Center, 450 West 37th St., 7:00
The Kitchen, 512 West 19th St., 8:15
Tuesday, June 1, through Saturday, June 5 (June 3 performance reviewed below)
Tickets: $20
212-868-4444
www.donnauchizono.org
www.thekitchen.org
www.bacnyc.org
New York City-based dancer/choreographer Donna Uchizono is trying something rather different for her newest evening-length work: The first half will be staged at the Baryshnikov Arts Center on West 37th St., with the second half being held at the Kitchen in Chelsea. Examining “proximity, perception, destination, and arrival,” the two-part piece will feature Uchizono, Hristoula Harakas, Anna Carapetyan, and Savina Theodorou, with original music by James Lo, costumes by Wendy Winters, lighting by Joe Levasseur, and set design by Ronnie Gensler and Orlando Soria. It’s been nearly three years since Uchizono, who is currently celebrating the twentieth anniversary of her company, has presented a new piece in New York, the world premiere of THIN AIR at Dance Theater Workshop in October 2007, so we’re extremely excited about longing two. Oh, and don’t worry about getting from one place to another; a bus will take all ticket holders from BAC to the Kitchen.
Donna Uchizono and Hristoula Harakas move to the Kitchen for second part of unique evening-length piece
Update: The show begins at BAC, where the audience is seated in two rows of folding chairs on either side of a fashion-runway-like setup bordered by two three-foot-high horizontal paper sheets. The two younger dancers, Anna Carapetyan and Savina Theodorou, wearing tight-fitting white costumes, move quickly up and down the runway, stopping to make eye contact with audience members, whispering lines from Neil Young’s “When You Dance,” and making swimlike movements to sounds of waves crashing on the shore. Meanwhile, Donna Uchizono and longtime collaborator Hristoula Harakas, standing side by side but facing opposite directions in looser, move flowing outfits, creep forward, almost imperceptibly slowly, down the middle of the runway. Only the top parts of the dancers are visible, the lower halves cut off by the paper border. Following a beautiful short section in which Carapetyan and Theodorou navigate the runway on their hands, only their legs showing, the audience is taken on a bus – with a little bonus to heighten their thirst – to the Kitchen, where everything is more wide open, a paper sheet strewn across the back and sides of the stage, enveloping the dancers along with the crowd. While Uchizono moves on the floor, using her feet and toes like hands and fingers, Harakas does mind-boggling leg lifts, turns, and twists while standing on the other leg. Like the first part at BAC, the pairs only come together near the end, needing one another to go on. Uchizono’s longing two is a fascinating work, incorporating Butoh-like precision, experimental noise, bright fluorescent white lights, and even a little synchronized swimming to examine relationships and distance, both human and environmental. And it is a thrill to see Uchizono onstage again, convinced by Harakas to perform for the first time in ten years to help celebrate the company’s twentieth anniversary.