this week in dance

HIROAKI UMEDA: “HAPTIC” AND “HOLISTIC STRATA”

Hiroaki Umeda will perform a pair of mind-blowing solo pieces March 7-9 at New York Live Arts

New York Live Arts, Bessie Schönberg Theater
219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
March 7-9, $20, 7:30
212-691-6500
www.newyorklivearts.org
www.hiroakiumeda.com

The last time Tokyo-based multimedia movement artist Hiroaki Umeda performed in New York, in May 2009 at Japan Society, we used such superlatives as “dazzling” and “eye-popping” in describing his solo pieces Adapting for Distortion and Accumulated Layout, concluding by calling him “a rising star in the global modern dance community. . . . making only his third appearance in the United States with this show at Japan Society; one can only hope there will be many more.” It’s nearly four years later, but Umeda is back in the city this week, performing Haptic and Holistic Strata March 7-9 at New York Live Arts. In the former, Umeda moves on a lighted rectangular floor with a rectangular backdrop that continually change color as he moves for extended periods of time in one place to electronic noise. In the latter, Umeda is enveloped by black-and-white projections as computerized sounds interact with his movement. As always, Umeda explores visual perception using cutting-edge technology in ways that can blow your mind. The March 7 show will be preceded by the Come Early Conversation “The Visual Atmosphere in Dance” with Hélène Lesterlin, while the March 8 performance will be followed by the Stay Late Discussion “The Process of Creating Haptic and Holistic Strata” with NYLA artistic director Carla Peterson.

STRIPPED/DRESSED: FAYE DRISCOLL

Faye Driscoll’s work-in-progress brings dancers — and audience — together in unique ways (photo by Julie Lemberger)

92nd St. Y, Buttenwieser Hall
395 Lexington Ave. at 92nd St.
Sunday, March 3, $24, 3:00
212-415-5500
www.92y.org
www.fayedriscoll.com

For her “Stripped/Dressed” presentation at the 92nd St. Y, New York-based choreographer Faye Driscoll changed the general format, with spectacular results. Part of the Harkness Dance Festival, “Stripped/Dressed” invites choreographers to first stage a piece without adornment — no costumes, props, etc. — then discuss the work and show it again, the second time with theatrical accoutrements. Driscoll, whose previous work includes You’re Me, There is so much mad in me, and 837 Venice Blvd, transformed the already intimate Buttenwieser Hall into a warm, friendly gathering, with two rows of seats surrounding all four sides of the center Marley floor. Driscoll first discussed the genesis of her untitled work-in-progress, which examines such themes as mirroring, group ritual, and the interdependence of audience and performer, being sure to walk around the space so she could get close to everyone. Then the five dancers (Giulia Carotenuto, Jeremy Pheiffer, Anna Marie Shogren, Brandon Washington, and Nikki Zialcita) — who had never before performed in public for Driscoll or with one another; they had been hired through auditions in December — began a thirty-five-minute excerpt, wearing regular clothes, with no music and the house lights on throughout, in which they virtually were always in contact with one another as foot touched foot, fingers stroked hair, hands brushed chest, lips kissed neck, elbow banged shoulder, and head popped through legs in a dazzling display of emotion and physicality. The dancers also interacted with the audience via direct eye contact, the exchange of random objects, and touch as well. It’s like the craziest game of Twister you’ve ever seen, except taken to much deeper, provocative, metaphysical levels while, as is Driscoll’s wont, changing many of the rules. The choreographer pointed out that since the work is still in its early phases, some movements are likely to be expanded for the final piece, while others will probably disappear, but audience members after the show could be heard saying that they hope she doesn’t change a thing. The third and final presentation of Driscoll’s unique “Stripped/Dressed” presentation takes place Sunday afternoon at 3:00; curated by Doug Varone, for whom Driscoll previously danced, the series continues March 8-10 with the Liz Gerring Dance Company’s she dreams in code, March 15-17 with Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, a Dance Company’s Gatekeepers, and March 22-24 with the Kate Weare Company’s Garden.

TWI-NY TALK: ANI TAJ NIEMANN

Ani Taj Niemann balances multiple roles for the Dance Cartel (photo by Stephen Elledge)

ONTHEFLOOR WITH THE DANCE CARTEL
Liberty Hall at the ACE Hotel
20 West 29th St. at Broadway
Saturday, March 2, April 6, May 4, June 1, $15-$20, 8:00
www.anitajniemann.com
www.thedancecartel.com

Last fall we raved about the energetic and exhilarating OntheFloor, a wild and crazy participatory performance by the Dance Cartel held in Liberty Hall downstairs at the Ace Hotel. For ninety minutes, a talented group of dancers moved and grooved through the dark space as the audience followed them around. Conceived and choreographed by Dance Cartel founder Ani Taj Niemann and codirected by Sam Pinkleton (Witness Relocation), OntheFloor returns to Liberty Hall on March 2, beginning a four-month residency that continues April 6, May 4, and June 1. You never know quite what’s going to happen or who’s going to show up at the fast-paced evening. Native New Yorker Taj recently gave twi-ny the lowdown as she prepared for the new set of performances.

twi-ny: What was the genesis of OntheFloor?

Ani Taj: The seed for OntheFloor was a short performance the Dance Cartel did at an art party called BjorkBall at Kent285 in Williamsburg, where we decided to move the crowd around us as we danced to create a shifting performance space. That idea was born largely out of my excitement about recent months I’d spent in Bahia, Brazil, where dance and music saturate everyday experience. In Bahia you get a lot of percussion in the streets, crowds dancing, spontaneous unison choreography in parades and concerts — people are constantly participating in rhythm and movement whether they like it or not. So when we got the offer to create an evening-length work based on the way we did BjorkBall, I thought I’d like to create an environment where people would have that same kind of permission to dance and participate, whether they’re dance savvy or not. Over time we’ve made a home for ourselves and our audiences at the Ace, but we keep it fresh with new material and guest artists for new collaborations.

twi-ny: How did you come upon the Ace?

Ani Taj: We really embrace the idea of making dance happen in unexpected places so that people outside of the usual dance crowd can have access to it. Ken Friedman (of the Spotted Pig and the Breslin restaurants) had the vision to bring us into Liberty Hall after seeing us at Kent285. There are challenges since the space is not intentionally outfitted for performance, but that’s part of the thrill of moving into new territory.

twi-ny: What do you tell dance fans who might be thinking twice about going to a show in a dark basement where they’ll have to move around for ninety minutes, being careful not to accidentally bump into the performers?

Ani Taj: Our MC offers a few simple guidelines at the top of the show, but mostly it’s common sense: if you see a body flying toward you, move; if you like the beat, groove. Part of the fun is that you’re being asked to be aware of your own body in space — as you would at a crowded concert or club.

The Dance Cartel returns to the Ace Hotel with the wild and crazy ONTHEFLOOR (photo by Sasha Arutyunova)

twi-ny: The show begins with a series of short acts from various genres, from comedy and video to participatory performance art. How are the acts chosen?

Ani Taj: Actually the evening you saw was unusual — that night there was a partnership with a publication that created that whole preshow. Usually we start off with just the Cartel, and sometimes there is a guest performer (usually musical) midway through the show. We are lining up our guests for the spring now — we’ll keep you posted. 😉

twi-ny: OntheFloor is the type of show where anything can happen. What’s the craziest thing you’ve experienced while performing the show?

Ani Taj: I’m happy to say there have been no major train wrecks, only happy convergences between unexpected groups of people. There was a great night where a dozen businessmen accidentally rolled in toward the end of our show, loved the feel, and they just cut loose and stayed dancing with us and our Brazilian drummers for a couple of hours. Our collaboration with Team Hotwheelz was also an incredibly gratifying, out-there experience; we cocreated a dance with two pioneer performers who happen to be in wheelchairs, Ali Stroker and Chelsie Hill, and then for that show we suddenly had multiple audience members in wheelchairs doing the Dougie with us.

twi-ny: You and Sam also teach the Dance Dancing Dance Company Class. Is that a class for anyone? What is the focus?

Ani Taj: The Dance Dancing Dance Company Company Class (DDDCCC) is very much a class for anyone — we’ve had everyone from trained dancers to sound designers to philosophy students, and the class is crafted to be both challenging and fun (yes, fun; dancing can be fun!) for people with disparate backgrounds. I think for both Sam and me, a sense of humor and an accelerated heart rate are important parts of the dance we want to see more of in the world. Students can expect to get low and sweaty and have a stupid good time but also to be challenged to capture the dynamics and rhythmic details of real dance sequences in the choreography portion of the class.

MYTH & TRANSFORMATION: PHAEDRA / THE SHOW (ACHILLES HEELS)

Athena (Blakely White-McGuire) and Achilles (Lloyd Mayor) in Richard Move’s THE SHOW (ACHILLES HEELS) (photo © Paula Court)

MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY
Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
Thursday, February 28, 8:00; Saturday, March 2, 2:00; Sunday, March 3, 7:30, $10-$59
212-645-2904
www.joyce.org
www.marthagraham.org

The Martha Graham Dance Company’s winter season at the Joyce, dubbed “Myth & Transformation,” kicked off on February 20 with a pair of productions that served as a microcosm for both the title of the season as well as for the two sides of the company itself. First up was Graham’s 1962 piece Phaedra, a tale of love, infidelity, and revenge featuring Blakely White-McGuire as Phaedra, Maurizio Nardi as Hippolytus, Tadej Brdnik as Theseus, and PeiJu Chien-Pott as Pasiphea, with Mariya Dashkina Maddux as Artemis and Xiaochuan Xie as Aphrodite, in a set composed of four structures designed by Japanese sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Graham’s Phaedra gained notoriety because two members of Congress denounced it as obscene when the work was on tour courtesy of State Department funds, but today it seems tame and rather plain. The trio of men show off their nearly impossible six-pack abs, Artemis shoots off unseen arrows, and Phaedra does curious things with a knife, but the piece feels old-fashioned and dry, as if it were dug up from a time capsule, and Robert Starer’s score sounds like it’s made up of leftovers from West Side Story. For those who think Graham’s work, which changed the face of modern dance for decades, is no longer as relevant as it once was, now cast into a category of legend and myth, Phaedra is a strong example.

Phaedra (Blakely White-McGuire) is manipulated by Aphrodite (Xiaochuan Xie) in Martha Graham Dance Company production of PHAEDRA (photo courtesy of Costas)

But The Show (Achilles Heels) is everything Phaedra is not, a tantalizing, dazzling piece that celebrates Graham’s continuing transformative influence on narrative and movement. Originally commissioned for the White Oak Dance Project in 2002, Richard Move’s unique take on the story of Helen of Troy (Katherine Crockett, in the role she created) and Achilles (Graham apprentice Lloyd Mayor, playing the part previously performed by Mikhail Baryshnikov at White Oak in 2002 and Rasta Thomas at the Kitchen in 2006) is filled with plenty of glitz and glamour as well as beautiful movement. The fanciful production features music by Arto Lindsay, new and old songs by Debbie Harry and Blondie, and a two-sided backdrop painted by artist Nicole Eisenman as well as piped-in dialogue that is mouthed by the lead actors from either previous incarnations of the show (which featured Misha as Achilles and Harry as Athena), or from old Hollywood sword and sandal epics. Move, who appeared as Graham in Martha@ . . . The 1963 Interview two years ago at DTW — and whose own grandmother was Miss Athens — turns the red-clad Athena (White-McGuire) into the host of a reality TV show in which the contestant Achilles answers Jeopardy!-like questions when not staring at himself in a mirror, playing with a mechanical dove, or being covered in glitter. As opposed to Phaedra, a relic from a bygone age, Move’s The Show (Achilles Heels) is a Greek tragedy for the twenty-first century, a tale of love and war told by a Graham devotee who has no boundaries. (Phaedra and The Show [Achilles Heels] will be presented at the Joyce on February 28 and March 2 and 3, with the roles of Phaedra, Hippolytus, and Theseus in the former played by Crockett, Lloyd Knight, and Ben Schultz, respectively, at some performances.)

HARKNESS DANCE FESTIVAL: STRIPPED/DRESSED

Kate Weare will present GARDEN at 92nd St. Y “Stripped/Dressed” series (photo by Christopher Duggan)

92nd St. Y, Buttenwieser Hall
395 Lexington Ave. at 92nd St.
February 22 – March 24, $20-$24
212-415-5500
www.92y.org

The Harkness Dance Festival’s annual “Stripped/Dressed” series kicks off this weekend, bringing in innovative choreographers who first discuss their working process and show excerpts — “stripped,” with no lights or costumes — then perform the same thing “dressed,” this time with artistic adornments. Curated by Doug Varone, the season begins February 22-24 as his company, Doug Varone and Dancers, presents the world premiere set to Julia Wolfe’s “Cruel Sisters” as part of its twenty-fifth anniversary. Dazzlingly original choreographer Faye Driscoll, whose work is consistently witty and challenging, will debut a new piece March 1-3 that examines dance making, space, and performance as ritual, followed March 8-10 by the Liz Gerring Dance Company’s She Dreams in Code, which was performed in fall 2011 at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. On March 15-17, Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, a Dance Company, which just blew away audiences at the Joyce with Torch, moves into Buttenwieser Hall to perform Gatekeepers, a 1999 work, originally commissioned by Philadanco, that deals with wounded soldiers. The season concludes March 22-24 with the Kate Weare Company’s Garden, in which two men and two women traipse through a mysterious natural world.

KAREN HARVEY DANCES: WETLANDS

Center for Performance Research
361 Manhattan Ave.
February 22-23, $12-$15, 7:30
www.karenharveydances.org
www.cprnyc.org

New York-based Karen Harvey Dances is dedicated to creating organic performances that integrate community and environment, incorporating the natural world into multimedia dance-theater projects. On February 22-23, artistic director Karen Harvey will lead the company in the world premiere of its first evening-length work, Wetlands, at the Center for Performance Research in Brooklyn. Investigating global interconnectedness and environmental responsibility, Wetlands is directed and choreographed by Harvey, who performs in it along with dancers Jin Ju Song-Begin, Elisa Vazquez, Andrew Broaddus, Thea Little, and Rachel Watson, set to music by Benjamin Garner, Little, and Broaddus and with a cappella vocals by René Kladzyk. The piece also features videos by an international group of dance artists, including Vazquez, Song-Begin, Emily Athena Abrahams, Anna Asplind, Silvia Balvin, Miguel Angel Guzman, Carolina Tabares Mendoza, Lina Puodziukaite, and Harvey. Movement, sound, visuals, and humanity come together to celebrate personal freedom and biodiversity as the company examines interdependence in today’s ever-more-complex world.

DANCE UNDER THE INFLUENCE 2013

John Heginbotham (photo by Liza_Volll, courtesy Jacobs Pillow Dance)

Dance Heginbotham will perform this weekend as part of Dance Under the Influence series at the Museum of Arts & Design (photo by Liza Voll, courtesy Jacobs Pillow Dance)

MOLISSA FENLEY, JOHN HEGINBOTHAM, DORMESHIA SUMBRY-EDWARDS, AND ZACK WINOKUR
Museum of Arts & Design, the Theater at MAD
2 Columbus Circle at 58th St. & Broadway
Monthly weekends February 22-23 through May 18, $20, 7:30
800-838-3006
www.madmuseum.org

The third season of the Museum of Arts and Design “Dance Under the Influence” series begins this weekend, as a diverse mix of contemporary dancers and choreographers gather at the Columbus Circle institution to perform works and then discuss them with the audience, sharing their artistic processes. Guest-curated by journalist, teacher, and writer Valerie Gladstone, the programs starts February 22-23 with Molissa Fenley, who will premiere Horizon, inspired by her recent trip to Hawaii, with music by Pauline Oliveros; Dance Heginbotham, the new company founded in 2011 by Brooklyn-based John Heginbotham, a veteran of Susan Marshall & Company and the Mark Morris Dance Group; Michael Jackson choreographer and swing and tap-dancer Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, who is part of Divine Rhythm Productions; and Zack Winokur, codirector of the Troupe with Michelle Mola. Next month’s installment takes place March 22-23 with ABT Studio Company, Decadence Theatre, David Neumann, and Basil Twist, while Jared Angle, Pontus Lidberg, Susan Marshall & Company, and Sara du Jour will be at MAD April 26-27. The series concludes May 17-18 with Doug Elkins, Rashaun Mitchell, Ramya Ramnarayan, and Blakely White-McGuire.