this week in dance

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.

NEW YORK DANCE PARADE 2011

There will be a lot of boogalooing down Broadway on the way to Tompkins Square Park at the annual Dance Parade (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Parade: Broadway & 21st St. to Tompkins Square Park, 1:00
DanceFest: Tompkins Square Park, 3:00 – 7:00
Saturday, May 21, free
www.danceparade.org

It looks like it might actually be a beautiful day for the fifth annual Dance Parade, which gets under way this afternoon at 1:00 at Broadway and 21st St. More than 150 organizations performing approximately 75 different types of dance will shake and bake, move and groove toward Tompkins Square Park, led by Grand Marshals Charles L. Reinhart, Joseph Harrington, and Kat Wildish. The parade started as a response to New York’s antiquated Cabaret Law, which in 1926 held that dance was not a form of artistic expression and was not protected by the Second Amendment. The event’s mission is “to promote dance as an expressive and unifying art form by showcasing all forms of dance, educating the general public about the opportunities to experience dance, and celebrating diversity of dance in New York City.” Some nine thousand participants and sixty thousand viewers are expected this year, with such groups as Yosakoi Dance Project, MEC Imani Dance & Drum Ensemble, Kotchegna Dance Company, Olaya’s Woman’s Circle of Belly Dance, the New York Raqs Sharqi All Stars, NYC Bhangra, Mopsaicos del Peru, Carnaval de Tlaxcala Mexico, Mortal Beasts & Deities, Joffrey Ballet School, Dance New Amsterdam, NY Hustle Flash Mob, Mambo Bravo, Kansas City Marching Falcons Drillteam, Giant Dancing Divas, Electric Bubble Bus, and GrooveHoops. Be on the lookout for such international dance styles as African, Belly Dance, Polynesian, Tahitian, Korean, Drum and Dance Improv, Turkish, Bollywood, Nepal Sherpa, Bolivian Tinkus, Ecuadorian, Caporales, Flamenco, Bomba y Plena, Bulgarian, Shaman, Liturgical, Stilt Dance, Country and Western, Zydeco, Jazz, Ballet, Ballroom, Tango, Roller Disco, Salsa, Yoga Contortion, Jamaican Dancehall, Urban Fancy Trick, and many more. At 3:00, the free DanceFest begins in Tompkins Square Park, with live performances, workshops, demonstrations, information booths, special presentations, and other activities, followed by a ticketed Groove Area Circus Saturday after-party at Webster Hall.

TAKE DANCE: SALARYMAN

The world premiere of TAKE Dance’s SALARYMAN runs May 18-21 at Dance Theater Workshop

Dance Theater Workshop
219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
May 18–21, $25, 7:30
212-924-0077
www.dancetheaterworkshop.org
www.takedance.org

A Juilliard graduate who cut his teeth performing in the Paul Taylor Dance Company, Tokyo-born dancer-choreographer Takehiro Ueyama will lead his TAKE Dance troupe in its seventh New York City season this week, presenting the world premiere of Salaryman, its first full evening-length production. Born and raised in Tokyo, artistic director Ueyama is familiar with the plight of Japan’s salaried businessmen who toil through a repetitive daily cycle that rarely changes; in fact, he researched the work by interviewing many Japanese executives. The piece is choreographed for eleven dancers (Kristen Arnold, Jill Echo, John Eirich, Kile Hotchkiss, Gina Ianni, Clinton Edward Martin, Nana Tsuda Misko, Lynda Senisi, Kei Tsuruharatani, Marie Zvosec, and Ueyama), with film projections by Yuko Takebe, set design by Yukinobu Okazaki, costumes by Taylor Forrest, lighting by Jason Jeunnette, and music by Laurie Anderson, Joy Askew, Aun, Eve Beglarian, Michael Gordon, Boban Markovic! Orkestar, RC Succession, and violinist Ana Milosavljevic, who will play live. “My initial intention for Salaryman was to showcase Japan’s business landscape,” Ueyama explained in a statement. “Now, as the Japanese struggle to survive one of history’s largest catastrophes, I recognize that their innate loyalty and stringent norms are indicative of not just the corporate culture but of the Japanese community as a whole and will ultimately help the country thrive once again.”