this week in dance

GOTHAM DANCE FESTIVAL: ABRAHAM, DRISCOLL, DOLBASHIAN

Gregory Dolbashian’s DASH Ensemble will present LIKE THE EAGLE at Summer Sampler Matinee at the Joyce

The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
June 4-5, $10-$39, 2:00
Festival runs through June 12
212-691-9740
www.joyce.org

The Gotham Dance Festival continues at the Joyce this weekend with two matinee performances featuring a trio of exciting young choreographers. Brooklyn-based dancer and choreographer Kyle Abraham, who has danced with David Dorfman, Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane, and the Kevin Wynn Collection, among others, will lead his hip-hop-influenced Abraham.In.Motion company in the new work The Quiet Dance. Also based in Brooklyn, the hugely talented Faye Driscoll, who has staged such unique and fascinating productions as 837 Venice Blvd. and There is so much mad in me and was included in the New Museum’s “Younger Than Jesus” exhibit of emerging talent under the age of thirty-three, will present not…not, part I, which looks at beauty, power, and desire, with her Faye Driscoll Dance Group. New York City native Gregory Dolbashian, who debuted at the tender age of eight with the Glimmerglass Opera, was the resident choreographer for the Chicago Ballet and CorbinDances before forming the DASH Ensemble, which will perform Like the Eagle. Next week’s Summer Sampler Matinee will feature works by Julian Barnett, Ashleigh Leite, and Sydney Skybetter.

Update: The first of four Gotham Dance Festival Summer Sampler Matinees was an at times subdued but overall inspired affair, consisting of three short works that all included extended moments of silence. Abraham.In.Motion’s The Quiet Dance was indeed quiet, starting off with Abraham dancing to no music, then joined by the quartet of Chalvar Monteiro, Elyse Morris, Rachelle Rafailedes, and Hsiao-Jou Tang, who remained relatively fixed in position on the left side of the stage as they danced in place to jazz legend Bill Evans’s gorgeous piano solo “Some Other Time.” For most of the piece, the performers do not make contact with one another until they break off into duets, having changed into dungarees and button-down shirts. Faye Driscoll takes a very different approach in not…not (part 1): If you pretend you are drowning / I will pretend I am saving you (a teaser of which can be seen above, from her March residency at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University), in which she, in a Moe-ish moptop, and Jesse Zaritt, in a Larry Fine-like curly fro, play a pair of rather not-very-good dancers performing a rather poorly choreographed work, making silly muscular gestures, unable to properly complete twists, stretches, and turns, displaying clearly overstated, ridiculously fake emotions, and acting out some extremely awkward and absurd sexual situations. Set to no music at all (although the Playbill credits Brandon Wolcott and Emil Abramyan, furthering the production’s purposeful ineptness by making mistakes in the printed program and, later, with the closing curtain), it’s a very funny work that concludes with Driscoll’s tour-de-force flurry through a seemingly endless bag of props. Driscoll and Zaritt were a tough act to follow, having laid the groundwork for an audience ready for further silly choreography that would make Leonard Pinth-Garnell proud, but Gregory Dolbashian’s DASH Ensemble quickly dashed those concerns, as Like the Eagle soared with a series of virtuosic moves by Antonio Brown, joined by Mor Gur-Arie, Alexandra Johnson, Rebecca Niziol, and Christopher Ralph. Transitioning from silent passages to quotes about inspiration from a WNYC RadioLab broadcast to music by Marsen Jules, Hauschka, Godspeed You Black Emperor, and Hoarse, Like the Eagle featured the most aggressive choreography of the afternoon. The well-curated three-piece program will be performed again on Sunday afternoon, offering another chance to see wonderful work by three extremely talented and inventive young choreographers.

HOWL! FESTIVAL 2011

This weekend’s Howl! Festival pays tribute to what would have been Allen Ginsberg’s eighty-fifth birthday

Tompkins Square Park
Ave. A to Ave. B between Seventh & Tenth Sts.
June 3-5, free
www.howlfestival.com

The somewhat annual Howl! Festival has moved from the end of the summer to the beginning of the season, kicking off June 3 with the group reading of Allen Ginsberg’s epic 1955 poem “Howl,” with its unforgettable opening: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness. . . .” Getting under way at 5:00 in Tompkins Square Park, the free gathering, which also will be celebrating what would have been Ginsberg’s eighty-fifth birthday, will include such local literary luminaries as Darian Dauchan, Nicole Wallace, Curtis Jensen, Fay Chiang, Eliot Katz, Bob Rosenthal, John Giorno, Hettie Jones, and others, led by Bob Holman. The party continues on Saturday with the Great Howl! Out Loud Carnival for children (12 noon – 7:00 pm, Sunday also), with arts & crafts, games, miniature golf, face painting, balloon art, and more; the Hot Howl! Disco (1:00 to 4:00), with DJ Johnny Dynell; and live performances (2:00 to 7:00) by International Street Cannibals, Ekayani and the Tom Glide Space, Timbila, Emily XYZ, the Living Theater, LJ Murphy, John S. Hall & Musicians, Church of Betty, Bina Shariff, Vangeline Theater, Ed Sanders & Steven Taylor, Tyler Burba, and Arthur’s Landing, in addition to yoga classes, chanting monks, painting and sculpture, poetry circles, and other activities. On Sunday, Hip Hop Howl! (2:00 – 2:30) will feature a live mixtape showcase, House of Howl! (3:00 – 5:00) will consist of live music and dance under the theme “The High Life,” and Low Life 5: Flaming Queens (5:00 – 7:00) will conclude things with the much-loved two-hour production that this year pays tribute to the East Village’s LGBT artistic community and history, with such performers as Sade Pendavis, Vangeline Theater, the Pixie Harlots, Rachel Klein Theater, Go-Go Harder, and many more, dressed in elaborate costumes.

DTW OFF-SITE — YANIRA CASTRO | A CANARY TORSI: PARADIS

Yanira Castro’s PARADIS is first site-specific dance project to be held at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (photo by Kevin Kwan)

Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Desert House in the Steinhardt Conservatory and the Cherry Esplanade
1000 Washington Ave.
June 2-4, $20, 8:00/8:30
www.dancetheaterworkshop.org
www.acanarytorsi.org

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is already one of New York City’s paradises, but on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, choreographer Yanira Castro will make it even more so. The Puerto Rican-born, Brooklyn-based Castro, who specializes in site-adaptable dance installations, is bringing her a canary torsi “organism” to the Desert House in the Steinhardt Conservatory and then on to the Cherry Esplanade for Paradis, the first site-specific dance project held at the century-old botanic garden. Inspired by the last part of Jean-Luc Godard’s 2004 film Notre Musique, the piece incorporates audience movement into the choreography, performed by nine dancers (Peggy Cheng, Simon Courchel, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, Luke Miller, Peter Schmitz, Stuart Singer, Darrin Wright, Pamela Vail, and Kimberly Young), with live piano accompaniment by Michael Dauphinais and sound design by Stephan Moore. Presented by Dance Theater Workshop, Paradis is the follow-up to last fall’s Wilderness, a performance and audio installation that took place at the Invisible Dog Art Center in Brooklyn. Paradis is scheduled for June 2 at 8:00, June 3 at 8:30, and June 4 at 8:00, and tickets are only $20, which is pretty cheap for your own piece of paradise.

Yanira Castro | a canary torsi celebrate the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in PARADIS (photo by Yi-Chun Wu)

Update: Yanira Castro’s Paradis does indeed turn out to be a piece of paradise. The audience of approximately sixty people first meets in the visitor center (be sure to go to the 1000 Washington St. entrance), then is led to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Steinhardt Conservatory, where they surround the outside of the Desert House. Inside, Peter Schmitz, dressed all in white with white face paint, stands still before slowly making his way around the cactus plants and trees, using herky-jerky motion, then moving faster, stopping to mime eating an apple, then erupting in off-key song, dancing and singing to tinny, lo-fi, scratchy piano music that pipes out of security guards’ walkie-talkies. Expanding his work with Castro on Wilderness, Schmitz evokes Adam in the Garden of Eden as well as Frankenstein’s monster and the Supreme Being as he learns to walk, talk, and eat. At the end of the solo, the audience is led in the dark to the wide expanse of the resplendently green Cherry Esplanade, where they come upon Michael Dauphinais playing the piano (sounding much better in person than over the walkie-talkies), playing an evolving score that is impacted by the presence of the crowd. Four huge spotlights illuminate the lawn as Peggy Cheng, Simon Courchel, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, Luke Miller, Stuart Singer, Darrin Wright, Pamela Vail, and Kimberly Young emerge in the distance, frolicking across the grass and eventually weaving through the crowd, who can sit or stand wherever they want. After being selected to follow a particular dancer, the audience segments into groups that end up watching a deeply intimate, thrillingly erotic duet. Inspired very directly by the “Paradis” section of Jean-Luc Godard’s Notre Musique, Castro’s Paradis feels like it grew organically out of the ground (or descended from the heavens), like the lovely trees and flowers that cover the garden’s fifty-two lush acres. No mere spectacle, the piece invites the viewer to become part of a magical experience, a fitting tribute to the beauty of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the endless imagination of Castro and her company.

GOTHAM DANCE FESTIVAL: BRIAN BROOKS MOVING COMPANY

The Brian Brooks Moving Company will present MOTOR and two other pieces in their Joyce debut this week (photo by Christopher Duggan)

The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
June 1, 3, 5, $10-$39
Festival runs June 1-12
212-691-9740
www.joyce.org
www.brianbrooksmovingcompany.com

The New York City-based Brian Brooks Moving Company will make its Joyce debut this week, kicking off the Gotham Dance Festival on June 1. Founded in 1997 by artistic director and choreographer Brian Brooks, who also teaches at Dance New Amsterdam, BBMC will present 2007’s solo I’m Going to Explode, 2010’s cable-laden MOTOR, which deals with perpetual motion and features a score by Jonathan Pratt, and the world premiere of Descent, set to music by Adam Crystal. The company consists of Brooks, Hollis Bartlett, Meghan Frederick, Jeff Kent Jacobs, Jo-anne Lee, Danielle McIntosh, and Aaron Walter, with lighting by Philip Trevino and costumes by Liz Prince. BBMC will also be part of the DRA Fire Island Dance Festival on July 16-17. The Gotham Dance Festival continues through June 12 at the Joyce with performances by Monica Bill Barnes & Company; Abraham, Driscoll, Dolbashian; Kate Weare Company; CorbinDances; and Barnett, Leite, Skybetter.

DESCENT concludes Brian Brooks Moving Company show at the Joyce in uplifting fashion (photo by Christopher Duggan)

Update: The Brian Brooks Moving Company made its Joyce debut Tuesday night with a little bit of the old and a little bit of the new as part of the Gotham Dance Festival. After intermission, Brooks performed his thrilling solo I’m Going to Explode, which is set to LCD Soundsystem’s first single, “Losing My Edge.” Dressed as a commuter and sitting in a chair to the side of the stage, Brooks took off his shoes and suit jacket, then began moving to the funky techno beat, often keeping his arms fully extended, concentrating primarily on his upper body, head, and shoulders as James Murphy sang about his favorite bands and clubs. The evening concluded with the world premiere of the beautiful Descent, which started off with one male dancer carrying another over the side of his body across a stage glowing in smoky horizontal beams of light, then going back again, soon joined by other same-sex pairs doing the same thing. Next, the dancers used small boards to keep colorful sheets of fabric floating through the air, creating lovely patterns that they wouldn’t let reach the floor. The third section involved the dancers jumping at one another, being caught in an upside-down use of the arms. Set to an electronic music score composed by Adam Crystal, Descent is an enticing work that actually focuses more on ascending than descending, preventing people and objects from touching the ground. MOTOR, which premiered at the 2010 Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival, was performed first, an erratic, occasionally chaotic, at times awe-inspiring work set on a stage from which dozens of cables shoot out over the audience, making it feel like everyone is inside a futuristic time capsule. The piece began with unusual movement among two groups of three men and three women, then featured Jo-anne Lee repeatedly walking over a standing male dancer, up the front of his body, over his head, and down his back. As the dancers shed much, but not all, of their clothing, it became rather repetitive, going on too long, but setting things up for a much more satisfying second act.

DANCEAFRICA2011 — EXPRESSIONS AND ENCOUNTERS: AFRICAN, CUBAN, AND AMERICAN RHYTHMS

Cuba’s Ballet Folklórico Cutumba are part of the annual Memorial Day weekend DanceAfrica celebration at BAM

Brooklyn Academy of Music
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Through May 30, free – $50 (dance $20-$50, films $12, music and street fair free)
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Held in conjunction with the ¡Sí Cuba! Festival, BAM’s thirty-fourth annual celebration of African dance continues through Memorial Day with a bevy of great events centered around performances by Cuba’s Ballet Folklórico Cutumba, the Brooklyn-based BAM/Restoration DanceAfrica Ensemble, the Bronx’s Bambara Drum and Dance Ensemble, and Philadelphia’s Kùlú Mèlé African Dance & Drum Ensemble in the Howard Gilman Opera House and led by the ever-welcome presence of Baba Chuck Davis; the Sunday show will be followed by an Artist Talk with Davis, Idalberto Banderas, and Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, moderated by Fernando Sáez (after which dancers will take to the streets in impromptu performances). BAMcinématek’s “FilmAfrica” series will screen such works as Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s Cannes Grand Jury Prize winner A Screaming Man (Un homme qui crie) (2010), Souleymane Cissé’s Yeelen (Brightness) (1987), and Andrew Dosunmu’s 2011 New York-set Restless City (followed by a Q&A with the director). BAMcafé Live will host a free show by Miami’s the Nag Champayons on Saturday at 9:00, followed by a DanceAfrica Late-Night Dance Party with DJ Cato. And on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, beginning at noon each day, one of the best street fairs of the year will be held on Ashland Pl., the DanceAfrica Bazaar, featuring great food and drink, booths selling statues, clothing, shea butter, arts & crafts, and other cool goods, live music, and much more.

LOWER EAST SIDE FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS 2011

Theater for the New City
155 First Ave. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
May 27-29, free
www.theaterforthenewcity.net

The sixteenth annual Lower East Side Festival of the Arts runs May 27-29, three days of experimental, cutting-edge, and campy performances based at the Theater for the New City. You can catch just about any kind of artistic discipline you want, from music, dance, and poetry to film, comedy, theater, and puppetry, and it’s all free. Held in TNC’s Cabaret Theater, Johnson Theater, Community Space Theater, and lobby as well as outside on East Tenth St., the festival includes Michael Patrick Flanagan Smith performing songs from his upcoming play Woody Guthrie Dreams, Tony-winning actress-singer Tammy Grimes, Maariana Bekerman Dance Company, Ben Harburg singing Songs of Social Comment by his grandfather Yip Harburg, spoken word by Jennifer Blowdryer, Unstuffy Divas Mary Riley and Jennifer Gelber, Reno, Barbara Kahn’s The Book of Merman, Kalpulli Atl-Tlachinolli re-creating an Aztec dance ritual, an excerpt from Jonathan Slaff’s The Adventures of Siggy and Carl about Freud and Jung, an Urban Aerial Fairytale by Suspended Cirque, an excerpt from Stephen Adly Gurgis’s The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Josh Fox’s documentary Gasland, Lei Zhou and Natalia Korablina in Alan Ball’s The M Word, Elijah Black’s Fresh Fruit Festival, Micha Lazare’s Lazer Lady and the Buddha Babies, Robert Adanto’s film Pearl on the Ocean Floor, and an unpublished one-act play by Lanford Wilson in addition to the New York School of Rock, JT Lotus Dance Company, Supercute, Yana Schnitzler’s Human Kinetics Movement Arts, the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir’s James Solomon Benn, John J. Zullo Dance, David Amram, the Constellation Moving Company, Roger Manning, Jessica Delfino, Penny Arcade, Taylor Mead, KT Sullivan, the one and only Joe Franklin, and dozens more.

LA MAMA MOVES! DANCE FESTIVAL

Jenny Rocha Dance will perform the multimedia MANDORLA as part of La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival

La MaMa
66 East Fourth St., 74 East Fourth St., 6 East First St.
Through June 21, $15-$20
212-475-7710
www.lamama.org

Taking place at the Ellen Stewart Theatre, the First Floor Theatre, the Club, and La Galleria, La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival features four weeks of presentations by more than four dozen emerging and established choreographers. Through May 28, the multimedia art exhibit “Mediated Motion” will include works by such artists as Beth Portnoy, Daniel Pinheiro, Jayoung Chung, Stephan Koplowitz, and Zena Bibler. On May 26-27, Jenny Rocha Dance will perform Mandorla, which examines the exploited artist through a number of disciplines. On May 27-28, Sarah A.O. Rosner/A.O. Movement Collective’s barrish looks at love and sexuality through the eyes of five women. On May 28-29, the “Dancing Divas” program includes Yvonne Rainer’s Three Satie Spoons, Peggy Choy’s Pow, Patricia Hoffbauer’s For This Reason I Am Naming This Dance, Risa Jaroslow’s Nine Squares (Private) (danced by David Botana and Leslie Satin), and excerpts from Mary Seidman and Dancers’ new The Messier Project. Other performances include Lance Gries’s Etudes for an Astronaut (June 3-4), Austin McCormick/Company XIV’s Dénouement (June 4-5), Solos, Duets, Trios and . . . Intricate Intimacies with Buster Grant/Opus Dance Theater, Leslie Guyton/Movement Workshop Group, Daniel Gwirtzman, Abdur-Rahim Jackson, Rebecca Warner, and others (June 9-19), Heidi Latsky’s The GIMP Project: IF (June 16-18), and Hula Moves on June 21 with Kumu Hula, Vicky Holt Takamine, Jeffrey Takamine, and Pua Ali’i ‘Ilima o Nuioka.