this week in dance

FIRST SATURDAYS: BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Become a Brooklyn Museum 1stfan for $20 and receive a free limited-edition print of Valerie Hegarty’s “First Harvest in the Wilderness with Pileated Woodpecker,” inspired by Asher Durand

Brooklyn Museum of Art
200 Eastern Parkway
Saturday, February 6, free after 5:00 (some events require advance free tickets available an hour or two before showtime)
718-638-5000
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum’s monthly First Saturdays program celebrates Black History Month with another evening of free activities, featuring live performances by the Igmar Thomas Group, Impact Repertory Theatre, and Dja-rara, screenings of Jeremy Robins and Magali Damas’s 2008 Haitian documentary THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WATER and Mel Stuart’s 1973 classic WATTSTAX, a Hands-On wearable art workshop, gallery tours, a book club meeting discussing THE BLACK BODY, and a Mardi Gras dance party hosted by DJ Ian Friday. Also, 1stfans will receive a free print by Valerie Hegarty. In addition, all of the exhibitions will be open, including “Healing the Wounds of War: The Brooklyn Sanitary Fair of 1864,” “Body Parts: Ancient Egyptian Fragments and Amulets,” and “From the Village to Vogue: The Modernist Jewelry of Art Smith.”

MEDEA AND ITS DOUBLE

Medea is split in two in South Korean reinterpretation (photo by Zita Bradley)

La MaMa First Floor Theatre
74A East Fourth St. between Second Ave. & Bowery
Thursday – Sunday through January 24
Tickets: $18
212-475-7710
www.lamama.org
www.seoulfactory.co.kr

Seoul Factory for the Performing Arts, under artistic director and founder Limb Hyoung-taek, has brought its own unique twist to Euripides’ classic Greek tragedy of a woman scorned in MEDEA AND ITS DOUBLE, playing Thursdays through Sundays through January 24 at La MaMa. Mixing in Shakespearean bravura, contemporary dance, and even some emotive Korean soap opera, Limb divides Medea into two characters: mother (Koo See-yeon) and lover (Lee Kyoung). The work begins with a way-too-long textual introduction projected onto a bloodred scrim, summarizing the tale of Medea, the heartbreaking story of the tragic marriage between Medea and Jason, of Argonauts and Golden Fleece fame. After learning of her husband’s betrayal with a wealthy princess, Medea takes out her vengeance on her two children and Jason, leaving behind a bloody mess. The introduction does set up the drama, which is performed in Korean without subtitles, but it also tries to prime the audience as to how they should react to what they’re about to see.

Medea the mother comforts Medea the lover as bloody conclusion looms (photo by Zita Bradley)

The two Medeas first appear as children, playing with Jason (Lee Do-yup) and other friends; marriage and children ensue, beautifully communicated in evocative dance. Rectangular pools with floating candles flank the stage, offering beauty and life, but once Jason returns from his dalliance, Medea divides: The lover, wearing a devilish red coat, tries to suppress Medea the mother, robed in pure flowing white, and exact her brutal revenge. Limb’s inventive production includes singers and musicians behind the scrim, adding a foreboding mood to the proceedings even though, once again, everything is in Korean. And just wait till you see how he handles the two babies. The lead actors are all excellent, particularly Koo as Medea the lover, who evolves from sexy to dangerous to psychotic while moving skillfully around the stage, incorporating Asian martial arts and Beijing Opera elements into her portrayal. This strong, emotional production deserves a bigger venue, where it can really show off its bold and inventive attributes.

CULTUREMART ’10

Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya will reprise FLOATING POINT WAVES as part of CultureMart at HERE Arts

HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Ave.
January 11-31, $15
212-647-0202
www.here.org

The tenth annual CultureMart festival takes place at HERE Arts January 11-31, featuring twelve workshop productions and a postshow discussion series making up three weeks of experimental opera and dance, avant-garde theater and puppetry. Michael Bodel reimagines Bellini’s LA SONNAMBULA, Toni Dove examines virtual multiple personality in LUCID POSSESSION, Yoav Gal goes multimedia to retell the story of Moses in MOSHEH, and Erin Orr and Rima Fand follow DON CRISTOBAL, BILLY-CLUB MAN onstage and off with hand, large, and shadow puppets, inspired by Federico Garcia Lorca. Laura Peterson’s WOODEN takes place in a naturalistic environment of sculpted trees and metal, while Johari Mayfield’s THE VENUS RIFF looks at science and religion in regard to the stereotyping of women over the last few hundred years. We’re particularly looking forward to FLOATING POINT WAVES by dancer/choreographer Ximena Garnica and video artist Shige Moriya, who collaborated on FURNACE at last month’s Cave Butoh Festival. Tickets for all events are $15 and go fast.

RIOULT

Great masses will flock to RIOULT’s season at the Joyce (photo by Nina Alovert)

Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
January 19-24, $10-$49
212-242-0800
www.joyce.org
www.rioult.org

New York-based choreographer and former French track-and-field star Pascal Rioult, who was a principal dancer with Martha Graham and formed his own company, RIOULT, in 1994, has an exciting season planned for the Joyce, two programs that include world premieres and a return to his beginnings. Program A, “Folk, Ravel, and Bach,” begins with Rioult’s very first piece, 1992’s HARVEST, which was inspired by the look and feel of Millet’s paintings of peasant life, with music by Scottish singer-songwriter Dougie MacLean and Irish traditional group Altan, followed by 2005’s BOLERO. The program concludes with two new dances set to a pair of Bach piano solos (completing the trilogy that Rioult began with VIEWS OF THE FLEETING WORLD) and featuring video animation by Brian Beasley. Program B consists of the evening-length work THE GREAT MASS (2008), danced to Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier.” The January 21 performance of Program A will be followed by a discussion with Rioult, who gives back to his adopted city through numerous arts-in-education initiatives.

COIL

Performance Space 122
150 First Ave. at Ninth St.
January 6-17, $20 per performance, $55 passport for any five shows
www.ps122.org

The COIL festival is back at P.S. 122, featuring fourteen companies performing over twelve days, some in conjunction with the Under the Radar festival running concurrently at the Public Theater. Among this year’s presentations are Richard Maxwell’s ADS, which looks at the theater itself; Gisèle Vienne’s hard-hitting JERK, based on text by Dennis Cooper; Morgan Thorson’s HEAVEN, with live music by LOW; and the return of Temporary Distortion’s AMERICANA KAMIKAZE, which ran at P.S. 122 last fall. We can’t recommend Megan V. Sprenger / mvworks’ “…within us.” highly enough; when we caught the show last May at P.S. 122, we called it “a brilliant evening-length piece of confrontational dance theater that gets right in the audience’s face — literally. . . . a thoroughly involving hour that leaves the talented dancers and the brave audience feeling energized and alive.” Several off-site COIL productions include LeeSaar the Company’s PRIMA at the JCC, WaxFactory’s BLIND.NESS at the Abrons Arts Center, and Maria Hassabi’s SoloShow at a private studio in Chelsea; when we saw SoloShow at P.S. 122 in November, we referred to is as “a highlight of the Performa 09 biennial,” a beautifully constructed piece that displays Hassabi’s awe-inspiring athleticism and strong body.

UNDER THE RADAR

Stephen Earnhart’s adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE should be one of the highlights of the Under the Radar festival

The Public Theater (and other venues)
425 Lafayette St. between East Fourth St. & Astor Pl.
January 6-17, $15-$30
212-967-7555
www.publictheater.org

Held in conjunction with the APAP Conference, the sixth annual Under the Radar festival comprises twenty theatrical productions from seven countries, with well-known companies as well as lesser-known entities bringing their work to the Public Theater and other venues. SITI Company’s Anne Bogart and Charles L. Mee Jr. have teamed up with the Martha Graham Company for AMERICAN DOCUMENT, which will be shown as a work-in-progress. Andrew Dawson gets up close and personal with the moon in SPACE PANORAMA. Sekou and Steve Connell examine morality in THE WORD BEGINS. Doris Mirescu and Dangerous Ground Productions turn John Cassavetes’s HUSBANDS into a three-hour presentation, while the Ohio Theatre transforms Haruki Murakami’s dense THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE into a 105-minute multimedia drama at their space on Wooster St. Pig Iron Theatre Company reprises its Obie-winning CHEKHOV LIZARDBRAIN at the CSV Cultural Center, while Phil Soltanoff and David Barlow go crazy in LA PARTY at HERE Arts Center. During the festival, the LuEsther Lounge at the Public Theater will be hosting live music and dance performances for free (January 7-17, 9:00 pm – 1:00 am), including Reggie Watts and DJ Reborn on January 7, ELEW on January 9, Rachelle Garniez on January 10, and the Middle Church Jerriese Johnson Gospel Choir on January 17.

APAP AT DTW

Pam Tanowitz’s BE IN THE GRAY WITH ME returns to DTW for APAP (photo by Yi-Chun Wu)

Dance Theater Workshop
219 West 19th St.
January 7-11
212-691-6500
www.dancetheaterworkshop.org
www.apapconference.org

The Association of Performing Arts Presenters is in town for its annual conference (January 8-12), and although many of its programs, lectures, seminars, workshops, etc., are open to members and registrants only, there are numerous events that are available to the public. Dance Theater Workshop is hosting three APAP-affiliated programs, looking both ahead and back. If you missed Tere O’Connor Dance’s WROUGHT IRON FOG this past November, you can catch it again January 7-8 (6:00, $15). Faye Driscoll will offer a preview of THERE IS SO MUCH MAD IN ME (January 8, free, 3:00, reservations strongly suggested); we caught a sneak peek at one scene last month and it was pure exhilaration. And on January 10-11 ($15), Pam Tanowitz will be bringing back her highly praised BE IN THE GRAY WITH ME, which originally ran at DTW last June.