this week in dance

BAM NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL: HAGOROMO

Wendy Whelan and Jock Soto are back together again at BAM in HAGOROMO (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St.
November 3-8, $52-$110
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

It’s a thrill seeing former New York City Ballet legends Wendy Whelan and Jock Soto perform together for the first time in a decade in Hagoromo; if only it were in a more thrilling production. Conceived and directed by David Michalek, Whelan’s husband, Hagoromo (“The Feathered Robe”) is an adaptation of a traditional Noh drama about an elegant celestial garment that drifts from the heavens to earth, where it is found by a fisherman (Soto). The angel (Whelan) whom it belongs to descends to reclaim the magical robe, but the fisherman demands an angelic dance in return. Sara Brown’s set is a large room with a pale wood floor and walls on two sides at the back and the right; the performers enter and exit from the left. At the front of the stage is an apron of black, suggesting a dark reflecting pool. At the back, a window opens up to reveal a circle of celestial light, while the beautiful silk robe sits regally on a frame at center stage. Above the wall are twenty members of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, forming an angelic choir; contralto Katalin Károlyi, who sings the role of the angel, and tenor Peter Tantsits, who sings the fisherman; and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), featuring company artistic director Claire Chase on flute, Rebekah Heller on bassoon, Jennifer K. Curtis on violin, Daniel Lippel on guitar, and Ross Karre on percussion and dulcimer, all conducted by Nicholas DeMaison.

Wendy Whelan stars as an angel trying to reclaim her magical feathered robe at BAM (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

The first part of the ninety-minute show, which takes place in the Palace of the Moon, is lovely, as Whelan, wearing an ashen black-and-white outfit in which her limbs seem to be disappearing (the costumes, which become more colorful, are by Dries Van Noten), makes inventive use of the title robe as she dances at first by herself, then joined by two life-size puppet versions of herself, designed by Chris M. Green and operated by puppeteers dressed in black. It’s utterly breathtaking when the angel and her two masked doppelgangers join at the front of the stage and look down at their reflections. Another segment with animals playing with the robe provides comic relief, but once the magical garment flutters down to earth, Nathan Davis’s chamber music and Brendan Pelsue’s libretto turn far too New Age-y, lacking the ethereal beauty of the first half while also feeling much more like a moralistic tale for children. Károlyi’s singing remains impressive, but Tantsits has trouble connecting with the audience. But that doesn’t stop Whelan and Soto from soldiering on, leading to a series of pas de deux that makes it all worthwhile.

CHANG(E)

Soomi Kim and Suzi Takahashi’s CHANG(E) examines the performance artist and political activist Kathy Change’s bizarre end

HERE
145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St.
November 4-22, $18
212-647-0202
here.org

Korean-born, New York-based movement artist Soomi Kim and director Suzi Takahashi complete their trilogy of multidisciplinary works about underrecognized Asian American figures with Chang(e), running November 4-22 at HERE, where it was previously part of the CultureMart festival. Dictee: bells fall a peal to sky explored the stories of such women as Joan of Arc and Yu Guan Soon, while Lee/gendary deconstructed martial arts icon Bruce Lee. In Chang(e), which was developed through the HERE Artist Residency Program, Kim and Takahashi examine what led Ohio-born performance artist and activist Kathleen Chang, also known as Kathy Change, to kill herself in a public act of self-immolation on the Penn campus in 1996. The multimedia docudrama, which combines dance, text, video, and live music, is performed by Kim, Ben Skalski, Kiyoko Kashiwagi, David Perez-Ribada, Criena House, Adriana Spencer, and Zeke Stewart, with music by Adam Rogers, set design by Bryce Cutler, video by Kevan Loney, lighting by Lucrecia Briceno, costumes by Machine Dazzle, and choreography by Alexandra Belle. To prepare for the HERE shows, Kim and Loney went to Philadelphia to visit some of the places where Kathy Change lived and performed and shoot video for the project. In putting the work together, Kim and Takahashi explain, “We discovered that Kathy was a passionate, marginalized woman, battling her own cultural and psychological demons, who aspired to save the world through political transformation. After two years of struggling to reconstruct these stories and fragments into a play, we realized that we were no closer to learning any absolute truths about Kathy. Instead, our show marks the canvas with a few brushstrokes to allow just enough form to emerge so the audience may fill in the details of Kathy’s life with their imaginations. By showing fragments, impressions, and fictions in response to her legacy, we seek to uncover a universal meaning to her life that is inspired by Kathy, but not the truth of her.” (You can find out more about Kathy’s life and legacy here.)

FIRST SATURDAY — CONNECTING CULTURES: A WORLD IN BROOKLYN

Details of four works in the “Connecting Cultures” installation, from top: “Girl in a Japanese Costume,” circa 1890, William Merritt Chase; “Seated Shakyamuni Buddha,” late 19th–early 20th century; “Warrior Figure,” Huastec, 13th or 14th century; “Mask (Ges),” 19th century

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, November 7, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum is making its long-term installation, “Connecting Cultures: A World in Brooklyn,” the focus of its November free First Saturday program. There will be live performances by Ilusha Tsinadze, Lafawndah, and OSHUN, an artist talk and performance by calligraphy master Wang Dongling, a calligraphy workshop with Society of Scribes, a movement workshop with Afro Flow Yoga, a music workshop with Afrika Meets India, a book club discussion with Patricia Park about her novel Re Jane, Belladonna* poetry readings by R. Erica Doyle, Kyoo Lee, and Nathanaël Stephens, a curator talk with Kevin Stayton, an interactive reading by Selina Alko of B Is for Brooklyn for kids, pop-up gallery talks, an art workshop inspired by Syrian mosaics, and Brooklyn Film Festival screenings of Girls Gone J-1 (Mikhail Shraga & Alina Smirnova, 2014), Green Card (Pilar Rico & David Whitmer, 2014), and Born into This (Lea Scruggs & Sean Ryon, 2014). In addition, the galleries are open late so you can check out such other exhibitions as “Impressionism and the Caribbean: Francisco Oller and His Transatlantic World,” “Kara Walker: ‘African Boy Attendant Curio (Bananas),’” “KAWS: ALONG THE WAY,” “Ai Weiwei: LEGO Collection Point,” and “Zanele Muholi: Isibonelo/Evidence.”

SANKAI JUKU: UMUSUNA

Sankai Juku returns to BAM with UMUSUNA: MEMORIES BEFORE HISTORY (photo by Jack Vartoogian)

UMUSUNA: MEMORIES BEFORE HISTORY
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
October 28-31, $25-$75, 7:30
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.sankaijuku.com

Japanese Butoh troupe Sankai Juku has returned to BAM for the first time since 2006 with another meditative work of breathtaking beauty, Umusuna: Memories Before History. As the audience enters, sand is slowly spilling out of a pair of glass cones onto scales hanging at the rear corners of the stage, immediately evoking the passage of time, of life and death, concepts that are central in the oeuvre of company director, choreographer, designer, and performer Ushio Amagatsu, who founded the group forty years ago. As the eighty-minute piece, which is divided into seven sections, opens, Amagatsu, wearing the traditional Sankai Juku costume of a white sheet folded over the lower half of his body, his bald head, arms, and bare chest covered in white powder, makes his way down a narrow path between two long, rectangular, sand-covered mats, toward a waterfall-like stream of sand at the back, beginning his journey of birth. In another vignette, the path turns blue and the background green, as four dancers reach out to the would-be river, as if lost in the wonder of human creation. And in a third section, Sho Takeuchi, Ichiro Hasegawa, Akihito Ichihara, and Semimaru wear corsets, red skirts, and dangling earrings, the path now red and running up the back wall, portraying the female spirit. Over the course of the show, the dancers, which also include Dai Matsuoka, Norihito Ishii, and Shunsuke Momoki, emerge from fetal positions, cry silently up at the sky, crawl across the sand, and swirl in circles as they experience the elements of fire, water, air, and earth. The seven parts of the work have such poetic titles as “All that is born,” “Memories from water,” “In winds blown to the far distance,” and “Mirror of forests” and are set to unfortunately trite New Age-style music by Takashi Kako, Yas-Kaz, and Yoichiro Yoshikawa. There is faster movement and more color than in such previous Sankai Juku pieces as Hibiki (Resonance from Far Away) and Kagemi: Beyond the Metaphors of Mirrors, which provide pleasant breaks from the troupe’s usual agonizingly slow choreography and black, gray, and white hues. Even their bows, during several curtain calls, were performed with gorgeous skill and grace, and even a few hints of smiles.

STEPHEN PETRONIO: LUMINOUS MISCHIEF

Spoken-word performances will take place under Teresita Fernández’s “Fata Morgana” installation in Madison Square Park on September 17 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Stephen Petronio will be staging free-form, improvised, and participatory music and dance event under Teresita Fernández’s “Fata Morgana” installation in Madison Square Park on October 30 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Who: Stephen Petronio Company
What: “Luminous Mischief” under Teresita Fernández’s “Fata Morgana”
Where: Madison Square Park, 23rd to 26th Sts. between Madison & Fifth Aves.
When: Friday, October 30, free, 6:00
Why: “Let’s cause some mischief,” New York City–based dancer and choreographer Stephen Petronio declares about his one-time-only site-specific piece “Luminous Mischief,” taking place under Teresita Fernández’s “Fata Morgana” installation in Madison Square Park on October 30. The participatory dance and music event will feature nine members of Petronio’s company, along with a brass band led by clarinetist Mike McGinnis, who is inviting horn players to sign up in advance and join in the fun. The dancers and musicians will be interacting with the five-hundred-foot-long sculpture — a series of canopies of mirror-polished discs with small sections cut out of them resembling clouds or leaves — as well as passersby, so anything can happen, as this is a free-form, improvised party. Of course, that is always the case with Petronio, who staged his own New Orleans–style funeral at the Joyce in 2013 and walked down the old Whitney Museum building in homage to Trisha Brown in 2010.

UMUSUNA: MEMORIES BEFORE HISTORY

Sankai Juku returns to BAM for first time in nine years with UMUSUNA (photo courtesy of Sankai Juku)

NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
October 28-31, $25-$75, 7:30
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.sankaijuku.com

Feeling a bit overwhelmed these days? Can’t navigate through all the emails, crowded subway trains, streets jammed with tourists? Looking for something to calm you down, relax, give you a little time to stop and be here now? Japanese dance troupe Sankai Juku has just the right remedy. This week the Tokyo-based Butoh purveyors return to New York City for the first time in five years, since performing Tobari: As If in an Inexhaustible Flux at the Joyce in 2010. They are back at BAM for the first time in nine years, as director, choreographer, designer, and Sankai Juku founder Ushio Amagatsu brings Umusuna: Memories Before History to the Howard Gilman Opera House October 28-31, following such previous BAM performances as Hibiki (Resonance from Far Away) in 2002 and Kagemi: Beyond the Metaphors of Mirrors in 2006. The dancers, covered in white talcum powder, will move agonizingly slowly through sand as they contemplate the elements: fire, water, air, and earth. The meditative piece, part of BAM’s Next Wave Festival and the company’s fortieth anniversary, features music by Takashi Kako, Yas-Kaz, and Yoichiro Yoshikawa. Should you want to try this at home, Sankai Juku founding member and longtime dancer Semimaru will lead the Butoh class “Sankai Juku: What Makes a Body Move” on October 30 at 12 noon ($25, no experience necessary) at the Mark Morris Dance Center right across the street.

TRAVELOGUES: RUTH DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE

Lionel Popkin’s RUTH DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE makes its New York City premiere at Abrons Arts Center (photo by Cristal Jones)

Who: Lionel Popkin
What: Ruth Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, part of Travelogues series
Where: Abrons Arts Center, Henry Street Settlement, Experimental Theater, 466 Grand St. at Pitt St., 212-352-3101
When: October 29 – November 1, $20
Why: Bloomington-born, Santa Monica-based dancer, choreographer, and UCLA professor Lionel Popkin returns to New York City with his most recent evening-length piece, Ruth Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, inspired by legendary dancer and choreographer Ruth St. Denis’s fascination with “Oriental” culture, as exemplified by such works as Radha. “Was St. Denis’s Orientalism an act of cultural appropriation or a legitimate examination of sources of dance?” the half-Jewish, half-Indian Popkin asks. “Can a century of perspective help a contemporary choreographer reach his own point of equilibrium?” Danced by Popkin, Emily Beattie, and Carolyn Hall, Ruth Doesn’t Live Here Anymore features a score by composer Guy Klucevsek, performed live by avant-garde accordionist Klucevsek and violinist Mary Rowell, a bevy of fanciful costumes by set designer Marcus Kuiland-Nazario, lighting by Christopher Kuhl, and video design by Cari Ann Shim Sham, as well as the use of microphones, text-based projections, and a leaf blower. “Popkin’s talent lies in his ability to seamlessly blend his intellectual, personal, and kinetic approaches,” explains Travelogues series curator Laurie Uprichard. “He alternates between disarmingly informal narrator and highly structured creator of movement. The intermittent ‘pure dance’ sections are solidly constructed yet the audience is never at a loss for finding its place within the humorous texts.” Popkin’s previous works include There Is an Elephant in This Dance, Miniature Fantasies, and And Then We Eat, all at Danspace Project; he is currently in development with Inflatable Trio, which is set in an inflatable plastic living room.