this week in dance

DUMBO ARTS FESTIVAL

“Codex Dynamic” is a highlight of the sixteenth annual DUMBO Arts Festival

Multiple venues in DUMBO
September 30, free
www.dumboartsfestival.com

The sixteenth annual DUMBO Arts Festival concludes on Sunday, with another diverse collection of live performances, multimedia exhibitions, interactive installations, and more, continuing into the night. Musicians such as the Well-Informed, Joseph Brent, the Soulfolk Experience, Church of Betty, and WYATT will perform in Brooklyn Bridge Park. The White Wave Dance Company will lead a grand finale at Fulton Ferry Landing. Iviva Olenick turns people’s tweets and Post-it confessions into embroidered musings. Martin Janicek will play his unique Metal Bow. Visitors can participate in Wildbytes’ “Superhero,” making it look like they can fly across buildings. Nathaniel Lieb’s “Tidal Voyage” floats on the East River. Shaun El C. Leonardo and Gabriele Tinti present The Way of the Cross, their book about boxer Arturo Gatti. Leo Kuelbs and John Esnor Parker have curated “Codex Dynamic,” mapped projections that will be beamed onto the Manhattan Bridge Anchorage and Archway. Will Scott will play the blues, while Howard Brofsky will host the jazz program Dr Bebop and Glocals. Jimmy O’Neal and Rebecca Parker will clog around the neighborhood in “Transporting Location.” Frank Viva will read from his children’s book A Trip to the Bottom of the World with Mouse. Entasis Dance will incorporate sculpture into performance. Amisha Gadani will make her way around the area in “Animal Inspired Defensive Dresses.” Josephine Decker will be at the forefront of a fish-headed “School Evacuation.” The Friendly Falcons will roam about with musical architectural interventions. A simple touch sets Michael Rosen and Eszter Osvald’s “Neurime” instrument into action. Alan Ruiz’s “Heist” uses a red laser and mirrors to alter perception. Stacy Scibelli’s “Sabotage I, II, & III” invites people to wear tickle machines. And that is only some of what is going on at such locations as Brooklyn Bridge Park, Empire Stores, the powerHouse Arena, 111 Front St., Tobacco Warehouse, East River Cove, 81 Washington St., and galleries along Jay, York, and Adams Sts.

JASON AKIRA SOMMA: PHOSPHENE VARIATIONS

“Phosphene Variations” performance series will bring together live dancers and performance artists with their holographic versions

Location One
26 Greene St. between Grand & Canal Sts.
Exhibition runs Tuesday – Saturday through October 3, free; weekly Wednesday or Thursday performances, $10
212-334-3347
www.location1.org

Premiered as an experimental work-in-progress in December 2010 at the Watermill Center and later presented at the National Theatre of Paris, Brooklyn-based Virginia native Jason Akira Somma’s “Phosphene Variations” is now on view at Location One in SoHo through November 17. [Ed. note: Due to technical difficulties, the exhibition was forced to close on October 3.] The interactive exhibition features free-floating holograms of such dancers and performance artists as Robert Wilson, Laurie Anderson, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Carmen DeLavallade, Bill Shannon, Frances Wessells, Jirí Kylián, and Joan Jonas, who seemingly react when “touched.” In addition, there will be weekly live performances ($10, 7:00) Wednesdays in September and October and Thursdays in November in which several of Somma’s subjects will be on hand to improvise live with their holographic image, with real-time video feedback provided by Somma and live music by electro-acoustic cellist Christopher Lancaster. Curated by dance artist Luke Miller, the schedule includes Flexors on September 26, Miss Dirty Martini, Julie Atlas Muz, and Monstah Black on October 10, Brian Brooks on October 17, Jeanine Durning and Manelich Minniefee on October 24, and Susan Marshall & Company, Bill Shannon, and Vanessa Walters on November 8, concluding on November 15 with Phosphene Redux, a closing party highlighted by the return of various of the artists who previously performed. [Ed. note: The October 10 performance will be the last one, with the others canceled as a result of the unfortunate shutdown of the exhibition.]

BEAT FESTIVAL

The crowd is part of the show in Noémie Lafrance’s CHOREOGRAPHY FOR AUDIENCES — TAKE ONE at the BEAT Festival

BROOKLYN EMERGING ARTISTS IN THEATER
Multiple venues in Brooklyn
September 12-23, $15-$35
www.beatbrooklyn.com

A celebration of community performance focusing on live music, dance, spoken word, and theater, the BEAT Festival gets under way September 12, kicking off twelve days of thirty-eight performances by thirteen acts in eight venues. Standing for Brooklyn Emerging Artists in Theater, BEAT will feature Lemon Andersen’s County of Kings, his one-man show about growing up in Brooklyn; American Opera Projects and Opera on Tap’s OPERAtion Brooklyn, featuring songs by One Ring Zero, Daniel Felsenfeld’s “A Genuine Willingness to Help (Book I),” and Sidney Marquez Boguiren and Daniel Neer’s “Stop and Frisk”; Kimberly Bartosik/daela’s You are my heart and glare, a trio of duets between dancers, designers, and vocalists; the Irondale Ensemble’s Color Between the Lines, which examines the Brooklyn abolitionist movement; Theatre Group Dzieci’s Fool’s Mass, Makbet, and Ragnarök; Noémie Lafrance’s Choreography for Audiences — Take One, in which audience members are active participants in the production; Marshall Davis Jr. & Friends, in an evening of tap; Ishmael “Ish” Islam’s BEAT Spoken Word, led by New York City’s nineteen-year-old poet laureate; a BEAT Sideshow hosted by Jessica Halem; Creative Outlet Dance Theatre’s Urban Roots and Courtney Giannone’s Protean Acts; Elevator Repair Service’s Shuffle, a mash-up of The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, and The Sound and the Fury held in the stacks of the Brooklyn Public Library; and Radha Blank’s HappyFlowerNail, a one-woman show that takes place in a Bed-Stuy Korean nail salon. In addition, Shaun Irons and Lauren Petty’s video installation “Atmospheres & Accidental Ghosts” will be shown September 20-22 in the lobby of the Brooklyn Public Library, in conjunction with Shuffle. Tickets range from $15 to $35, with many of the performances taking place at multiple venues over the course of the festival, including the Irondale Center, the Flatbush Reformed Church, the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, and the Waterfront Museum in addition to the Coney Island Sideshow theater and MetroTech Commons, which will host two free shows. The closing party will be held September 23 at El Puente Earth Spirit Garden with BombaYo.

BAM FISHER NEXT WAVE: ECLIPSE

Jonah Bokaer and Anthony McCall present the first production in new BAM black-box space (photo by Stephanie Berger)

BAM Fisher, Fishman Space
321 Ashland Pl.
Through Sunday, September 9, $20
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

BAM has inaugurated its new black-box theater, the 250-seat Fishman Space in the Fisher Building, with the illuminating Eclipse. Part of BAM’s thirtieth Next Wave Festival, the seventy-minute piece is a collaboration between thirty-year-old Ithaca-born choreographer and Chez Bushwick founder Jonah Bokaer and sixty-six-year-old “solid-light” British installation artist Anthony McCall, commissioned by BAM specifically for the Fishman. Performed by Tal Adler-Arieli, Sara Procopio, CC Chang, and Julie Seitel, with Bokaer soloing at the beginning and the end, Eclipse takes place on a soft, dark floor, with the audience sitting two or three rows deep on all four sides, in addition to balcony seats. (All seating is general admission for this show.) Thirty-six lightbulbs hang from the ceiling in diagonal rows and at different heights, going on and off at timed intervals as the dancers move under and around them to the whirr of an old-fashioned movie projector, courtesy of sound designer David Grubbs. Wearing socks, button-down white shirts, and either white or gray cuffed pants — as well as, at times, a vest that is part school crossing guard, part airport ramp agent — the four main dancers walk to the four corners of the stage, stand face-to-face with the audience, and meet at the center, where they perform slow duets and trios. Shadows cast by the lightbulbs and spotlights cast geometric patterns on the floor, particularly triangles at the corners and a square at the center, where much of the more intricate, sculptural choreography occurs. The overall effect is supposed to evoke a live, three-dimensional, four-sided cinematic experience, with close-ups and long shots all in deep focus, but some of those aspects seem to get lost, at least for those audience members seated downstairs. Perhaps the people sitting in the balcony get a better angle of the pathways and changing geography created by the bulbs, supervised by lighting designer Aaron Copp. Still, Eclipse shines a fascinating light on BAM’s new venue, which will feature more experimental productions, with all tickets $20. Also playing the Fishman this month are Nora Chipaumire’s Miriam, Derrick Adams’s The Channel, and Ian and Chad’s Next Wave of Song.

TICKET ALERT: FALL FOR DANCE FESTIVAL 2012

Shen Wei Dance Arts will perform RITE OF SPRING at Fall for Dance Festival at City Center (photo by Stephanie Berger)

City Center
131 West 55th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tickets go on sale September 9 at 11:00 am
Festival runs September 27 – October 13, $15
212-581-1212
www.nycitycenter.org

On your mark, get set . . . Tickets for the ninth annual Fall for Dance Festival at City Center, which runs September 27 through October 13, go on sale September 9 at 11:00 am, but you better not delay if you want to go, because this hotly anticipated event sells out quickly. All seats are only fifteen dollars, with each program featuring multiple works in various disciplines from established and up-and-coming international companies. For example, the first two nights bring together Jared Grimes’s Dancing the Tap (choreographed by Grimes), Fang-Yi Sheu & Artists’ Five Movements, Three Repeats (Christopher Wheeldon), Nederlands Dans Theater’s Shutters Shut (Sol León and Paul Lightfoot), and BalletBoyz’ Void (Jack Cemerek), while September 29-30 consists of Juilliard Dance’s Fortune (Pam Tanowitz), American Ballet Theatre’s Sinatra Suite (Twyla Tharp), the Hong Kong Ballet’s Luminous (Peter Quanz), and Martha Graham Dance Company’s Chronicle (Graham). Among the other groups participating in the festival are the Moiseyev Dance Company, Shantala Shivalingappa, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Jodi Melnick, Shen Wei Dance Arts (Rite of Spring, which they performed last fall at the Park Avenue Armory), and Ballet West. Before and after each show, audience members can relax in Lounge FFD, where they can grab a drink and meet some of the dancers and choreographers. And there will be three special free DanceTalk panel discussions at the City Center Studios during the festival: “Dance and Live Music: How Do Choreographers Work with Composers?” on September 30 at 5:30 with Jodi Melnick, Steven Reker, Pam Tanowitz, and Charles Wuorinen, moderated by Maura Keefe; “For Public Consumption: Shaping Social and Cultural Dance for the Stage” on October 3 at 6:30 with Kumu Kaleo, Eri Mefri, Carlota Santana, and Elena Shcherbakova, moderated by Wendy Perron; and a lecture/demonstration on October 5 with Ka Leo O Laka I Ka Hikina O Ka La.

AMERICAN DANCE GUILD: ANNUAL PERFORMANCE FESTIVAL 2012

John Pennington will perform Harald Kreuzberg’s Dances Before God at ADG Performance Festival (photo by Tammy Abbott)

The Ailey Citigroup Theater
The Joan Weill Center for Dance
405 West 55th St. at Ninth Ave.
September 6-9, $22 (festival pass $50)
www.americandanceguild.org

The annual American Dance Guild Performance Festival returns to the Ailey Citigroup Theater this week with four nights of dance featuring thirty-three international artists. This year’s honorees are award-winning dancers, teachers, and choreographers Dianne McIntyre and Elaine Summers, who will be presenting works of their own at the festival. Thursday night’s gala features pieces by Kyla Barkin, Rebecca Netl-Fiol, John Pennington (reimaging Harald Kreutzberg’s “Dances Before God”), Shani Collins-Achille (“Swing Us Sky Rain[bow]”), and Hee Ra Yoo in addition to McIntyre’s “Life’s Force,” celebrating the fortieth anniversary of Sounds in Motion, with trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah, McIntyre, and a cast of twenty people who have performed with McIntyre during her career (Saturday also), and Summers’s 1976 “Windows in the Kitchen,” a multimedia work with Douglas Dunn, Jon Gibson, and Matt Turney (Friday also). Friday’s lineup includes Dawn Robinson, Sue Bernhard, Sarah Stackhouse, Joe Cele, Maxine Steinman, Tina Croll, Jenny Showalter, Sarah Mettin, and Laurie Taylor, while Saturday features Rebecca McArthur, Peggy Choy, Allison Jones, Claudia Gitelmann, Mary Seidman, Kaoru Ikeda, Sasha Spielvogel, and Andrew Janetti. The festival concludes Sunday with Marta Renzi, Betsy Fisher (taking on “Angst” from Dore Hoyer’s “Affectos Humanos”), Erin La Sala, Joan Gavaler, Kathy Wildberger, Gloria McLean (the Will Barnet tribute “Dancing Without Illusion”), Nancy Zendora, Joseph Mills (the solo “Circlewalker”), and Molissa Fenley (the new duet “100 Vessels”). Be sure to get there early to check out videos of works by McIntyre and Summers that span their long, influential careers.

DANCENOW JOE’S PUB FESTIVAL

Irish dancer and choreographer Luke Murphy is among the forty participants in this year’s DanceNow festival at Joe’s Pub (photo by John Altdorfer)

Joe’s Pub
425 Lafayette St. by Astor Pl.
September 5-8, $15-$20, 7:00
212-539-8778
www.joespub.com

The tenth annual DanceNOW presentation at Joe’s Pub will take place at the tiny, intimate downtown theater September 5-8, with all tickets a mere $15 in advance and $20 at the door. One of the primary elements that makes this series different from other fall dance festivals is that this event is competitive; each night, a weeklong residency on a Pennsylvania farm will be awarded by the audience to one of the companies, and one company from the entire run will win a $1,000 creative development stipend, a weeklong residency, and a twenty-hour space grant at the Gibney Dance Center, selected by festival producers and advisers. Following the festival’s “less is more” credo, each performance is limited to no more than five minutes in which to make an artistic statement. The lineup is wide-ranging, offering dance fans a little bit of everything every night. Wednesday’s rosters features Adam Barruch Dance, binbinFactory/satoshi haga & rie fukuzawa, Maura Nguyen Donohue/inmixed company, Marjani Forté, Shannon Hummel/Cora Dance, Donnell Oakley, Rainwater Dances/Nellie Rainwater, Erika Randall, and RG Dance Projects – Rubén Graciani, while Thursday consists of alex|xan: the Median Movement, the Anata Project/Claudia Anata Hubiak, Janis Brenner & Dancers, Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, Luke Murphy, Portables/Claire Porter, Molly Shanahan, Bryan Strimpel, Makiko Tamura/Small Apple co., and Simone Sobers Dance. Friday night brings together Jane Comfort & Company, the DASH/Gregory Dolbashian, SARA du jour, Erica Essner Performance Co-Op, the Good to Go Girls, Jamal Jackson Dance Company, Sara Joel, Kawamura the 3rd, Amy Larimer, LOVE|FORTÉ A COLLECTIVE, and Amber Sloan, with Saturday night anchored by the Bang Group, Christal Brown/INSPIRIT, Loni Landan, Deborah Lohse, Khaleah Londons/LAYERS, MADboots dance co., Christopher K. Morgan & Artists, TAKE Dance, and Megan Williams. An encore performance on September 15 will feature the audience’s top ten favorites from all four programs.