this week in dance

CEDAR LAKE 360º INSTALLATION

Cedar Lake summer intensive offers dance fans a unique, immersive experience

SUMMER INTENSIVE
Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet
547 West 26th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
July 24-26, $25, 7:30 & 9:00
212-244-0015
www.cedarlakedance.com
2011 360º slideshow

From July 24 to 26, Chelsea-based Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet will present its summer intensive, Cedar Lake 360°, in an immersive installation at their home on West 26th St. For the last three weeks, thirty-three advanced students have been training with interim artistic director Alexandra Damiani — former artistic director Benoit-Swan Pouffer left this past May to pursue other opportunities — and members of the talented company. They will team up Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for two performances a night, at 7:30 and 9:00, that will include excerpts from Andonis Foniadakis’s Horizons, which had its premiere at the Joyce two months ago, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s spectacular Orbo Novo, which we said back in October 2009 “is not just good — it’s mind-blowingly good.” Each show will also feature original choreography by Cedar Lake members Jason Kittelberger & Acacia Schachte, Jon Bond, Rachelle Scott, and Ebony Williams. The 2011 360° summer intensive was a fun, exciting event, as fifty student dancers and the Cedar Lake crew wove in and around the audience, which was encouraged to move through the space as the performers lined up on mats, leaped onto concrete blocks, and dangled from the ceiling. This year the dancers are organized into two groups, the red cast (Skylar Boykin, Emma Bradley, Tessa Crawford, Spencer Davis, Kellie Drobnick, Daphne Fernberger, Evan Fisk, Evan Flood, Allison Gee, Einar Nikkerud, Deidre Rogan, Whitney Schmanski, Katherine Sprudz, Kevin Tate, Jacob Thoman, and Lukasz Zieba) and the blue cast (Tara Bellardini, Patrick Coker, Shelby Colona, Claudia Germuga, Karly Gillespie, Madi Hicks, Nathaniel Hunt, Mason Manning, Michael Marquez, Jenna Mitchell, Courtney Spears, Stephanie Stricker, Michael Stromile, Stephanie Terasaki, Anthony Tiedeman, and Maggie Westerfield), mixing it up with company members. Tickets for each forty-five-minute show are $25, well worth such a unique experience.

ARTERIES OF A NATION

ARTERIES OF A NATION reinvestigates the America of 1863 in site-specific, interactive performance in Brooklyn Bridge Park

Brooklyn Bridge Park, Squibb Park & Pier 1
Sunday, July 23, free, 7:00
www.renegadepg.com

Brooklyn-based Renegade Performance Group looks back to a terrible time 150 years ago in their site-specific piece Arteries of a Nation. Using sound and movement, RPG artistic director and choreographer André M. Zachery, composer Vincent Burwell, and writer Brook Stephenson examine three events that took place in July 1863: the Battle of Gettysburg, the New York City Draft Riots, and the attack of the all-black 54th Massachusetts Voluntary Infantry Regiment on Fort Wagner. The immersive work will be performed July 21 at 7:30 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, traveling from Squibb Playground to Pier 1, exploring such concepts as race and equality, still so central, and controversial in light of the Trayvon Martin case and the recent fight over the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The interactive piece, which also features the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Youth Ensemble, takes on added significance by being held on the Brooklyn pier, which played a role in the draft riots and the Civil War.

4CHAMBERS: A SENSORIAL JOURNEY INTO THE HUMAN HEART

Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects explores the human heart in immersive, interactive work on Governors Island (photo by Julie Lemberger)

Governors Island, Officers House #15
Saturday, July 20, and Sunday, July 21, free with advance RSVP, 11:30 am, 1:00 pm. 2:30, 4:00, 5:30
www.govisland.com
www.jodyoberfelder.com

New York City-based choreographer and filmmaker Jody Oberfelder takes twelve lucky people on a fascinating trip in and around the human heart in her wonderful new multimedia, interactive work, 4Chambers. The immersive, site-specific piece takes place inside Officers’ House #15 on Governors Island, where six dancers (Michele Jongeneel, Mary Madsen, Zachary Denison, Jake Szczypek, Joey Kipp, and Mercedes Searer) lead a dozen people through a series of rooms (Film Chamber, Physical Chamber, Synapse Chamber, Pulsing Chamber), each one examining a different aspect of the body’s central organ. Using film, movement, sound, visual art, and touch, Oberfelder investigates the many functions of the heart, from its core responsibility as a blood-pumping muscle to its romantic relationship with love. The sixty-minute piece also gets educational in an “Artery of Knowledge” section where text and video offer further insight. The show is beautifully paced, echoing the work done by the heart itself, going from a restful period to one filled with frantic activity as the dancers run around, bounce off walls, and fall to the ground. Be warned: You will be touched by the performers, both literally and figuratively, particularly in a pas-de-deux in which you can become as involved as you are comfortable with being. It’s amazing to consider that the same dancers are doing this five times a day, but that also reveals the vast capabilities of the heart. Admission is free, but advance RSVP is required; 4Chambers continues this Saturday and Sunday at 11:30, 1:00, 2:30, 4:00, and 5:30. (While you’re on Governors Island, be sure to also check out the always fun Figment art project, LMCC’s Terrerform ONE: Governors Hook Urbaneering exhibit, the charming Fête Paradiso: A Festival of Vintage Carousels and Carnival Rides, the New-York Historical Society’s “WWII & NYC: Photography and Propaganda,” and other special art shows, family-friendly activities, and live performances, most of which are free.)

LUCIANA ACHUGAR: FEELING IS BELIEVING

River to River Festival / LMCC
Interactive walk begins at 100 Wall St.
July 9, 10, 11, free with advance reservation, 7:00
www.rivertorivernyc.com
www.lachugar.org

Brooklyn-based choreographer Luciana Achugar, a two-time Bessie Award winner whose work is familiar to New York audiences from performances at the Kitchen, Dance Theater Workshop, and Abrons Arts Center, among other venues, has developed a fascinating multisensory movement experience to share with a dozen participants on an indoor/outdoor journey through downtown New York’s Wall Street district. Using touch, sight, coordinated movement, voice prompts, and more, the Uruguayan-born Achugar (The Sublime Is Us, Puro Deseo) leads the group on an offbeat exploration of an area of the city that is usually ignored, hurried past, or even denigrated, in order to discover the delights of absolute absorption in a place, a moment, and our own internal and external being. Elastic City, which copresents these participatory walks with a group of artists in other locations as well, including Todd Shalom’s Host in Nakameguro, Nina Katchadourian and Andrew Zarou’s The Lesser-Known Sounds of Times Square, and Michelle Boulé and Niegel Smith’s Admission through the New Museum, promises to bring “each audience member closer to a more sensual, connected, magical, deeper-than-the-marrow-of-the-bone, vibrational body.” The unexpected vibrations between participants, outdoor diners, the summer heat, bicyclists, spouting fountains, and the occasional curious security guard are all part of the event to be savored. Feeling Is Believing, which continues July 9-11 at 7:00, is fully reserved at this point, but you should check the River to River website for instructions about first-come, first-served wait-list possibilities; as we can attest from the July 2 opening, it’s well worth it.

FIRST SATURDAY: REMIXING THE AMERICAN STORY

Valerie Hegarty, “Still Life with Peaches, Pear, Grapes and Crows”; “Still Life with Watermelon, Peaches and Crows”; and “Table Cloth with Fruit and Crows,” canvas, stretcher, paper, acrylic paint, foam, papier-mâché, wire, glue, gold foil, epoxy, fabric, thread, dimensions variable, in “Dining Room, Cane Acres Plantation, Summerville, South Carolina” (photo by Brooklyn Museum)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, July 6, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

For its free First Saturday program during the July 4 weekend, the Brooklyn Museum looks back at American history through dance, music, art, literature, and film. “Remixing the American Story” includes live performances by the Hungry March Band, Michael Hill’s Blues Mob, Frankie Rose, the Brown Bag All Stars, and the Redhawk Native American Arts Council, pop-up gallery talks, a dance workshop, a Forum Project discussion on current events, a poetry slam with the Nuyorican Poets Café, a photo booth, sketching of live models based on portraits in the “American Identities: A New Look” exhibition, and screenings of Michael and Timothy Rauch’s StoryCorps’ animated shorts, celebrating the tenth anniversary of the organization that is collecting an oral history of the country. In addition, artist Valerie Hegarty will give a talk about “Alternative Histories,” her fascinating interventions into three of the museum’s period rooms, which have been seemingly destroyed by a murder of crows. The galleries will remain open late so visitors can also check out “John Singer Sargent Watercolors,” “The Bruce High Quality Foundation: Ode to Joy,” “LaToya Ruby Frazier: A Haunted Capital,” “Käthe Kollwitz: Prints from the ‘War’ and ‘Death’ Portfolios,” “‘Workt by Hand’: Hidden Labor and Historical Quilts,” “Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui,” “Raw/Cooked: Caitlin Cherry,” and other exhibitions.

JODY OBERFELDER DANCE PROJECTS: 4CHAMBERS

4CHAMBERS
Governors Island, Officers House #15
Saturday & Sunday, July 6-21, free with advance RSVP, 11:30 am, 1:00 pm. 2:30, 4:00, 5:30
www.govisland.com
www.jodyoberfelder.com

Following a successful Kickstarter campaign, choreographer and filmmaker Jody Oberfelder (Throb, Re-Dress, Come Sit Stay) and her Dance Projects company are ready to present the opening of their latest piece, the site-specific 4Chambers. Six dancers will lead an audience of twelve through hallways, corridors, and four main rooms of Officers’ House #15 on Governors Island, equating the human heart with that of the structure, which boasts a historic past. Oberfelder has reimagined the ghostly quarters as the circulatory system, with the chambers representing the visual, the physical, the synaptic, and the pulsing. Meanwhile, the “artery of knowledge” features films and scientific displays about the heart. “We want the audience to feel their own hearts, to feel something inside, something you can’t see or touch,” Oberfelder says about the work, which she calls “a sensorial journey into the human heart.” The multimedia piece will be performed live by Michele Jongeneel, Mary Madsen, Zachary Denison, Jake Szczypek, Joey Kipp, and Mercedes Searer; appearing in the films are Edward Einhorn, Ishmael Houston Jones, Dr. Wendy Suzuki, Dr. Andre Fenton, Kathryn Merry, Sarah Parton, Lonnie Poupard, ChristinaNoel Reaves, and Jessica Weiss. Juergen Riehm designed the set, with music by Andy Akiho, Richard Einhorn, Matt McBane, and Jonathan Melville Pratt and videos by Jason Bahling and Jake Witlen. Admission is free, but advance RSVP is required; two more preview performances are scheduled for July 5 at 12 noon and 1:30, after which 4Chambers runs Saturdays and Sundays, July 6-21, at 11:30, 1:00, 2:30, 4:00, and 5:30.

TWI-NY TALK: STEPHEN PETRONIO

The Stephen Petronio Company will perform LIKE LAZARUS DID at St. Paul’s Chapel on June 29 (photo by David Rosenberg)

RIVER TO RIVER FESTIVAL: LIKE LAZARUS DID (LLD 6/29)
St. Paul’s Chapel
209 Broadway between Fulton & Vesey Sts.
Saturday, June 29, free, 7:30
www.rivertorivernyc.com
www.stephenpetronio.com

On April 30, Newark-born choreographer Stephen Petronio threw a New Orleans-style funeral procession at the Joyce Theater, holding the proscenium premiere of his latest evening-length piece, Like Lazarus Did (LLD 4/30). The site-specific work began with live music outside led by composer Son Lux and the Young People’s Chorus of New York City; when the audience arrived inside, they found Petronio lying on his back onstage, as if dead — but he is soon resurrected in what we called “sixty minutes of bold and beautiful movement” that delves into “birth, death, and rebirth and heaven and hell.” Petronio will be presenting another edition of LLD (6/29) on June 29 at St. Paul’s Chapel as part of the free River to River Festival. As he prepared for the one-time-only site-specific event, Petronio answered some questions about LLD and his long, distinguished career.

twi-ny: In October 2010, you performed “Man Walking Down the Side of a Building” as part of a Whitney tribute to Trisha Brown, who recently announced her retirement from creating new pieces. You were the first male member of her company. What is your favorite memory from those years?

Stephen Petronio: Opening night at BAM performing Set and Reset. The excitement in the theater was palpable and I was to have my first solo in TB’s work towards the end of this work. The moment arrived and I could see the top of Laurie Anderson’s spiky hair in the orchestra pit. She lifted the bow of her violin, and when she brought it across the strings she sent me out into a wildly adrenalized state that became a defining moment in my dancing career.

twi-ny: Last June, the company performed a one-night-only edition of LLD at the Ukrainian National Home in the East Village, and then you presented an extended run at the Joyce. How has it evolved since that initial performance?

Stephen Petronio: That edition was focused on the relationship between the men in the company as my dancers and me as their director. Who is breathing life into who? Since that rendition was intimate, with the audience on all sides, the dancing was more like a series of actions to be caught by the viewer as it passed by them. On the Joyce’s proscenium it’s more likely that action transposes into image, so what ended up on that stage was considered with a “long view” in mind. They are uniquely different experiences.

Stephen Petronio walks down the outside of the Whitney as part of Trisha Brown retrospective (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

twi-ny: Each edition of LLD will have site-specific elements. What adaptations are being made for the June 29 River to River show at St. Paul’s Chapel?

Stephen Petronio: Well, St. Paul’s is a multisided venue, like the ballroom of the first edition, but it has a marble aisle down the center of the dancing arena, so I’m considering “fractured compositions” as opposed to the frontal perspective of the Joyce, whole elements broken down and set into the space with shifting orientation.

twi-ny: The show begins with you lying as if dead on the stage, then rising up. Might that be a stranger experience in a church?

Stephen Petronio: Yes, the chapel aspect is large. Last night I dreamed that after a performance in the chapel an archbishop figure took me into the sacristy to discuss my motivations!

twi-ny: Wow. You often use eclectic music in your work; for example, in Underland, you used the songs of Nick Cave, and other collaborators have included Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, the British punk band Wire, and art rockers Fischerspooner. For LLD, you’re back with Son Lux [Ryan Lott], who you previously worked with on Tragic Love and Singing Light. What is it about Ryan and his music that merges so well with your choreographic language?

Stephen Petronio: Ryan and I have some weird connection. We understand each other quickly on some elemental level. I am drawn to him because I like what he does that’s not dance oriented. I always want him to write music that he would write for his own purposes and not some idea of a “dance score.” At the same time he is moved by dance — he is married to a dancer-choreographer [Jennifer McQuiston Lott], so he gets the whole picture of how dance and music can join forces.

twi-ny: Next year will mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Stephen Petronio Company. How would you characterize the first three decades, and what can we expect in the next three?

Stephen Petronio: I am blown away that it’s been thirty years. I’m very proud of the body of work and amazing artists that have marked my life over these years.