this week in dance

SUNDAYS ON BROADWAY

Yvonne Rainer’s CARRIAGE DISCRETENESS kicks off marathon opening of Sundays on Broadway winter season

Who: Cathy Weis Projects
What: Rare screening of 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering, documenting collaboration between experimental artists and Bell Labs in 1966 at the 69th Regiment Armory
Where: WeisAcres, 537 Broadway between Prince & Spring Sts., buzzer #3
When: Sunday, January 25, free, 2:00 (all future events at 8:00)
Why: The 2014 winter season of Sundays on Broadway begins on January 25 with a ten-hour marathon of 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering, consisting of films by David Tudor, John Cage, Deborah Hay, Övynid Fahlström, Robert Rauschenberg, Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, Robert Whitman, Alex Hay, and Lucinda Childs; the salon-style series continues Sunday nights at 8:00 through March 29 with live performances, readings, film screenings, discussions, and more, including a selection of Trisha Brown’s early works on February 1 with Wendy Perron, a screening of Léonide Massine’s Choreartium on February 8 with Tatiana Massine Weinbaum, and a reading of Fortunato Depero’s unpublished Dramma plastico futurista by puppeteer Dan Hurlin on February 15 (advance reservations are required for the immersive installations taking place the last four Sundays in March with Jon Kinzel, Jennifer Miller, Vicky Shick, and others)

MISS HILL: MAKING DANCE MATTER

Engaging documentary pays tribute to the life and legacy of Martha Hill, seen here dancing at Bennington in 1938 (photo by Thomas Bouchard)

MISS HILL: MAKING DANCE MATTER (Greg Vander Veer, 2014)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St.
Opens Friday, January 23
212-255-2243
www.quadcinema.com
www.misshillfilm.com

Greg Vander Veer’s Miss Hill: Making Dance Matter is a charming celebration of a woman who had a tremendous impact on the development of modern dance but is still little known outside her tight-knit circle. Born in 1900 in a small town in Bible Belt Ohio, Martha Hill danced with Martha Graham before concentrating on teaching the art form, which as a child she was told was sinful, at Bennington and NYU. But she created her legacy as the first director of dance at Juilliard, where she taught from 1951 to 1985, balancing instruction in both modern dance and classical ballet. Vander Veer (Keep Dancing) and coordinating producer Vernon Scott, who graduated from Juilliard in 1985 and is currently president of the board of directors of the Martha Hill Dance Fund, combine wonderful archival footage of Hill as both a dancer and a teacher, along with old clips of many of her students, including Pina Bausch, Lar Lubovitch, Bessie Schönberg, Hanya Holm, José Limón, and Doris Humphrey, as well as fellow teacher Antony Tudor; there are also new interviews with Paul Taylor, Martha Clarke, Francis Patrelle, Robert Battle, Ohad Naharin, Dennis Nahat, H. T. Chen, and others. “She’s created the dancers of the twenty-first century,” says former Boston Ballet artistic director Bruce Marks. One of the most fascinating parts of the eighty-minute documentary is Hill’s fight to preserve Juilliard’s dance program during the building of Lincoln Center, which pitted her against George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet, the New York City Ballet, and Lincoln Kirstein. Miss Hill displays its subject with clarity, smartly exploring her understanding that dance is more than just language and movement. “Modern dance is not a system, it is a point of view,” Hill explains. Meanwhile, Patrelle gets right to the heart of the matter: “She was dance. She defined it.” A lovely treat for dance fans, Miss Hill opens January 23, at the Quad, with Vander Veer and Scott participating in Q&As following the 7:00 shows Friday and Saturday and the 4:30 shows Saturday and Sunday.

JACK FERVER: NIGHT LIGHT BRIGHT LIGHT

AMERICAN REALNESS
Abrons Arts Center Playhouse
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
Sunday, January 18, $20, 7:00
212-598-0400
www.americanrealness.com
www.jackferver.org

In 1964, dancer, actor, and choreographer Fred Herko, a native New Yorker, took a bath at a friend’s house, then danced naked right out the window, committing suicide at the age of twenty-eight. A half century later, dancer, actor, and choreographer Jack Ferver, born in Wisconsin fifteen years after Herko’s death, uses Herko’s story to examine his own life, which includes battling depression and suicidal thoughts. The bare-bones show, which premiered this past week at the Abrons Arts Center Playhouse as part of the American Realness festival, begins with Ferver prancing around an empty stage while glancing at himself, and the audience, through an oval mirror in his hands, immediately announcing that while Night Light Bright Light might ostensibly be a tribute to Herko, it is very much about Ferver. In such previous works as Two Alike, Rumble Ghost, and All of a Sudden, Ferver has employed pop-culture references, awkward and inventive movement, experimental music, and public confession with a bold intimacy that makes his devoted audiences burst out in laughter as well as squirm uncomfortably in their seats — often at the same time — and that’s very much the case with this latest piece. Joined by friend and costume designer Reid Bartelme, who displays a fine balletic grace and wry sense of humor, Ferver apologizes for Night Light Bright Light being so spare while his previous piece, Chambre, which debuted at Bard in November, was so elegant and fancy; reenacts a memory from his childhood, force-feeding himself imaginary pudding; delves into the nature of therapy and rehab, wondering if they could have helped save Herko; channels Madonna and Blanche DuBois; talks about the surprise suicide of a young costar in a 1999 film; and playfully performs several pas de deux with Bartelme, featuring some very funny choreography. Ferver ends the nearly hour-long show with a video that gets to the heart of what his work is all about, combining extreme highs and devastating lows in riotous yet heartbreaking ways that will have some people in stitches, others praying that it ends quickly. Fortunately, there seems to be no end to Ferver’s unique brand of creativity.

MLK DAY 2015

New York City celebration of MLK Day includes a screening of KING: A FILMED RECORD…MONTGOMERY TO MEMPHIS at Film Forum

Multiple venues
Monday, January 19
www.mlkday.gov

In 1983, the third Monday in January was officially recognized as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, honoring the birthday of the civil rights leader who was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968. Dr. King would have turned eighty-six this month, and you can celebrate his legacy on Monday by participating in a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service project or attending one of numerous special events taking place around the city. BAM’s twenty-ninth annual free Brooklyn Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. includes a keynote speech by Dr. Cornel West, live performances by Sandra St. Victor & Oya’s Daughter and the New York Fellowship Mass Choir, the theatrical presentation State of Emergence, the NYCHA Saratoga Village Community Center student exhibit “Picture the Dream,” and a screening of Ken Burns, Sara Burns, and David McMahon’s 2012 documentary The Central Park Five. The JCC in Manhattan will host an Engage MLK Day of Service in Brooklyn: Feeding Our Neighbors community initiative, a screening of Rachel Fisher and Rachel Pasternak’s 2014 documentary Joachim Prinz: I Shall Not Be Silent, and “Thank You, Dr. King,” in which Dance Theater of Harlem cofounder Arthur Mitchell shares his life story, joined by dancers Ashley Murphy and Da’Von Doane.

The Harlem Gospel Choir will play a special matinee at B.B. King’s on MLK Day

The Children’s Museum of Manhattan will teach kids about King’s legacy with the “Martin’s Mosaic” and Mugi Pottery workshops, the “Heroic Heroines: Coretta Scott King” book talk, and Movement & Circle Time participatory programs, while the Brooklyn Children’s Museum hosts the special hands-on crafts workshops “Let’s March!” and “Let’s Join Hands,” screenings of Rob Smiley and Vincenzo Trippetti’s 1999 animated film Our Friend, Martin, and a Cultural Connections performance by the Berean Community Drumline. The Museum at Eldridge Street will be hosting a free reading of Kobi Yamada and Mae Besom’s picture book What Do You Do with an Idea? along with a collage workshop. Also, Film Forum will show the 1970 three-hour epic documentary King: A Filmed Record . . . Montgomery to Memphis at 7:00, and the Harlem Gospel Choir will give a special MLK Day matinee at 12:30 at B.B. King’s in Times Square.

OTRO TEATRO: THE PLEASURE PROJECT

Luciana Achugar’s OTRO TEATRO moves indoors for AMERICAN REALNESS festival at Abrons Arts Center (photo by Alex Kangangi)

AMERICAN REALNESS
Abrons Arts Center Playhouse
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
Thursday, January 15, 6:30, and Saturday, January 17, 4:30, $20
212-598-0400
www.lachugar.org
www.americanrealness.com

There’s a lot of pleasure to be had in Otro Teatro: The Pleasure Project, the culmination of luciana achugar’s three-month exploration of public intervention, individual and collective ritualized movement, and the relationship between performer and spectator. As its title suggests, it is “other theater,” an unusual, experimental approach to dance and performance, part of the American Realness festival at Abrons Arts Center. But first things first: It’s best to know as little as possible about this eighty-minute evening-length work. If you like nontraditional, challenging, immersive dance theater, then just buy your tickets and go. They don’t even hand out the programs until you’re on your way out; instead, you’re given a small piece of paper with a quote about the body, including: “a body in pleasure with eyes that see without naming, they see without knowing….” But if you truly need to know more and don’t want to experience the numerous surprises that achugar (The Sublime Is Us, A Supernatural Return to Love) has in store for you — and there are surprises galore every step of the way in this unconventional, invigorating theatrical premiere — then read on.

Luciana Achugar explores the relatioship between performer and spectator, as well as the venue itself, in OTRO TEATRO: THE PLEASURE PROJECT (photo by Ian Douglas)

Luciana Achugar explores the relationship between performer and spectator, as well as the performance space itself, in OTRO TEATRO: THE PLEASURE PROJECT (photo by Ian Douglas)

Spoilers Galore: Otro Teatro takes place in the Abrons Arts Center Playhouse, but instead of sitting in the cushiony red seats in the audience, you’re led through a hallway onto the stage itself, where you can sit or stand anywhere on the four sides of what has now become a small black box space. The lights are on and the curtain is closed as several bottles of Old Taylor are passed around, with everyone invited to take repeated swigs of the “Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey of Topmost Class.” Slowly, a few people break away from the mingling and start moving determinedly. One pounds her feet on the floor. Another kicks an aluminum gate. A third slithers like a snake. A fourth bangs against a post. At times it evokes a group of zombies waking up, getting their brain-hungry day started. As the performers, one of whom might be right next to you, continue to reveal themselves, it becomes confusing; someone stretching might just be someone stretching and not part of the show. Then again, you start wondering if anyone can participate, as it appears to be so random, and the performers come in all different shapes and sizes. Eventually, the lights go out, and in the darkness the sound and movement continue until the curtains are being pushed back and forth, opening up onto a whole new world. A few of the performers squiggle toward the rim of the stage and tumble over, reversing the usual stage-star dynamic as the audience, onstage, watches a handful of dancers making their way over chairs and up and down the aisles, pounding doors and creeping through the rows. The crowd follows the dancers toward the front of the stage, a few audience members even walking down the steps and finding a seat as action keeps going on all around them. Soon clothes start coming off as well. It’s part zombie apocalypse (evoking Bruce High Quality Foundation’s short film Isle of the Dead, about zombies heading toward a theater on Governors Island), part 1960s happening, with Old Taylor still making the rounds. The show never really ends; it just peters out, as ushers start asking the audience to grab their things and head for the exits, even as naked dancers are not quite done yet, scratching the walls and hiding beneath some seats. So, what was it all about? You won’t find the answer in the program, which is three pages of bios of the cast and crew and acknowledgments; they even left the fourth page blank, leaving it up to you to figure out what you’ve just experienced. Which, of course, is always the way it should be.

AMERICAN REALNESS — JACK FERVER: NIGHT LIGHT BRIGHT LIGHT

Jack Ferver explores the similarities between the late Fred Herko and himself in NIGHT LIGHT BRIGHT LIGHT

Who: Jack Ferver
What: Night Light Bright Light, part of American Realness performance festival, which continues through January 23
Where: Abrons Arts Center Playhouse, 466 Grand St. at Pitt St., 212-598-0400
When: Wednesday, January 14, 6:30, Friday, January 16, 10:00, and Sunday, January 18, 7:00, $20
Why: Multidisciplinary performance artist Jack Ferver pays tribute to late dancer, actor, and choreographer Fred Herko, a kindred spirit who, at the age of twenty-eight in 1964, took a bath and danced naked to Mozart music right out a window; Ferver, who has performed such previous deeply personal works as Two Alike, Rumble Ghost, All of a Sudden, and Mon, Ma, Mes, notes on his website that like Herko, “I am a dancer, an actor, a choreographer, and I love taking baths and I have danced naked though have yet to jeté out a window. I have often talked about suicide with my childhood friend Reid Bartelme. Reid will join me in the work. Reid is a beautiful dancer. Reid will make sure I don’t jump.”

THE MARIINSKY AT BAM

Jerome Robbins’s IN THE NIGHT is part of Chopin evening presented by the Mariinsky Ballet at BAM (photo by N. Razina)

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Peter Jay Sharp Building
230 Lafayette Ave.
January 14-25, $30-$185
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.mariinsky.ru/en

Now in its 232nd season, the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg has been home to Balanchine and Baryshnikov, Nijinsky and Nureyev. This month the Mariinsky Opera, Ballet, Orchestra, and Chorus will settle in for an exciting residency at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with four presentations January 14-25 that speak to its past, present, and future. On January 14, artistic director Valery Gergiev will conduct Rodion Shchedrin’s The Enchanted Wanderer, based on tale by Nikolai Leskov. The production is directed by Alexei Stepanyuk, with sets by Alexander Orlov, costumes by Irina Cherednikova, and choreography by Dmitry Korneyev. The Enchanted Wanderer is followed January 15-23 by Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, a longtime staple that was originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov in 1895 and then revised in 1950 by Konstantin Sergeyev. Gergiev and Gavriel Heine conduct; the libretto is by Vladimir Begichev and Vasily Geltzer, with sets by Igor Ivanov and costumes by Galina Solovyova. Among the performers are Mariinsky principal dancers Viktoria Tereshkina, Ulyana Lopatkina, Yevgeny Ivanchenko, Yekaterina Kondaurova, and Vladimir Shklyarov, depending on which night you go. The Mariinsky’s 2002 production of Sergei Prokofiev’s Cinderella glides into BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House January 17-20, choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky and conducted by Gergiev; the libretto is by Nikolai Volkov inspired by Charles Perrault’s fairy tale, with sets by Ilya Utkin and Yevgeny Monakhov and costumes by Elena Markovskaya. Principal dancers include Kondaurova, Shklyarov, and Diana Vishneva. The Russian invasion concludes January 24-25 with Chopin: Dances for Piano, comprising Michel Fokine’s 1908 Chopiniana, Jerome Robbins’s 1970 In the Night, and Benjamin Millepied’s 2011 Without, all set to the music of Frédéric Chopin, with Gergiev serving as musical director and Alexandra Zhilina, Liudmila Sveshnikova, and Philipp Kopachevsky taking turns at the piano. Principal dancers include Shklyarov, Kondaurova, Ivanchenko, and Lopatkina.