this week in dance

DANCE UNDER THE INFLUENCE: JACOB SLOMINSKI

Jacob Slominski will conclude Dance under the Influence season at MAD, curated by Jack Ferver (photo courtesy of the artist)

Who: Jacob Slominski
What: Dance under the Influence
Where: Museum of Arts & Design, seventh floor, 2 Columbus Circle at 58th St. & Broadway, 800-838-3006
When: Friday, November 13, and Saturday, November 14, $17, 7:30
Why: The Museum of Arts & Design’s annual Dance under the Influence series, curated this year by Jack Ferver, concludes with California-born, New York City-based dancer and choreographer Jacob Slominski on November 13 & 14. Slominski has performed with such choreographers as Faye Driscoll, Ishmael Houston-Jones, and Ferver, most recently in Chambre at the New Museum. In his piece for MAD, Slominski, whose own work has been seen at such venues as Chez Bushwick and Gibney Dance, will investigate the relationship between audience and performer, particularly questioning whether the comfort level for audiences has evolved so much that the show itself is even necessary anymore. The November 13 performance will be followed by a discussion with Slominski, hosted by Ferver.

RONALD K. BROWN / EVIDENCE, A DANCE COMPANY AT BRIC

Ronald K. Brown / Evidence, A Dance Company will be performing a pair of programs in November at BRIC (photo © Ayodele Casel)

BRIC Arts | Media House
647 Fulton St.
November 12-22, $16-$27
718-683-5600
bricartsmedia.org
www.evidencedance.com

In an interview ten years ago, Ronald K. Brown told me, “I want everyone to dance.” A decade later, the Brooklyn native is still fulfilling that desire as he comes to the end of a three-year residency at BRIC with his immensely talented troupe, Evidence, A Dance Company. As part of the residency, which included free community dance classes, as well as the thirtieth anniversary of the company, Evidence will be performing two programs this month at BRIC in downtown Brooklyn, right next to BAM’s Harvey Theater. The first program, being held November 12-14, consists of Two-Year Old Gentlemen, with live music by Mamadouba Mohamed Camara; the “Clear as Tear Water” solo from Truth Don Die; the “March” duet from Lessons; and Water, featuring text written and performed by Cheryl Boyce Taylor. Brown and Taylor will join in a post-show discussion with moderator Eva Yaa Asantewaa following the November 13 performance. The second program, November 19-22, includes Walking Out the Dark, with music by Philip Hamilton, and Why You Follow/Por Que Sigues, a work originally commissioned for Cuba’s Malpaso Dance Company. It is always a treat to see Brown and his infectious smile, whether performing, talking about his work, his travels, and his community, or teaching classes; he has a genuine love of life and dance, and that shows through in his dazzling choreography.

MARINELLA SENATORE AND NÁSTIO MOSQUITO: VISIBLE ON THE HIGH LINE

Nástio Mosquito will perform “S.E.F.A. Se Eu Fosse Angolano (If I Were Angolan)” to help kick off Creative Time Summit

The High Line
Gansevoort St. entrance to Chelsea Market Passage
Friday, November 13, free, 6:00
thehighline.org
creativetime.org

The Creative Time Summit, a two-day series of workshops, roundtables, and open discussions exploring the intersection of art and social justice, takes place November 14-15 at the Boys and Girls High School campus on Fulton St. in Brooklyn, featuring such participants as keynote speakers Nikole Hannah-Jones and Boots Riley along with Bill Ayers, Hans Haacke, Leonard Lopate, Luis Camnitzer, Hope Ginsburg, Tahir Hemphill, Chloë Bass, Tania Bruguera, and many others. But the summit, “The Curriculum NYC,” kicks off Friday night with the special event “Visible on the High Line,” an evening of site-specific participatory performances focusing on collaboration and social interaction, curated by Matteo Lucchetti and Judith Wielander of the Visible Project, “a research project in contemporary art devoted to art work in the social sphere, that aims to produce and sustain socially engaged artistic practices in a global context.” Italian visual artist Marinella Senatore will present the latest iteration of her “School of Narrative Dance” project, beginning at the Gansevoort St. entrance to the High Line and continuing on to the Chelsea Market Passage above Sixteenth St., where Angolan artist and musician Nástio Mosquito will perform “S.E.F.A. Se Eu Fosse Angolano (If I Were Angolan),” a look at media and identity, with visuals by Vic Pereiro. Admission to the High Line performance is free; tickets to the Creative Time Summit run from $25 to $350, depending on what you can afford.

SPECTATOR

Company Derashinera stages North American premiere of multimedia SPECTATOR at Japan Society on Friday and Saturday

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, November 13, and Saturday, November 14, $30, 7:30
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Spectators can check out the North American premiere of Shuji Onodera’s Spectator at Japan Society on November 13 & 14. The multimedia dance-theater work was developed out of Tokyo workshops with deaf students, two of whom (Maki Yamada and Mai Nagumo) are part of the cast, along with Naoya Oda from Butoh company Dairakudakan. Spectator, choreographed by Company Derashinera director Onodera, consists of lighthearted vignettes that include a woman manipulating tiny chairs that are echoed by performers in regular-size chairs, Japanese text projected in word bubbles on a screen, and a man and a woman playing with a small ball. The November 13 performance will be followed by a reception with the artists.

WUNDERBAUM: LOOKING FOR PAUL

Wunderbaum makes its New York debut with work examining controversial public art project by Paul McCarthy (photo by Steven A. Gunther)

New York Live Arts
Bessie Schönberg Theater
219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
November 11-14, $15-$35, 7:30
212-691-6500
www.newyorklivearts.org
thenewforest.nl

In 2001, controversial Utah-born, California-based artist Paul McCarthy was commissioned by Rotterdam to make a public sculpture for Shouwburgplein, or Theater Square. However, the city ultimately rejected McCarthy’s work, a giant Santa Claus holding a rather phallic pine tree that soon became known as “Kabouter Buttplug,” or “Buttplug Gnome.” The sculpture was moved several times before finally parading into its new home in the Eendrachtsplein. The eco-conscious Dutch-Flemish collective Wunderbaum examines the controversy, and public art in general, in the multimedia Looking for Paul, which is having its New York premiere November 11-14 at New York Live Arts. In the piece, bookstore owner Inez van Dam has no appreciation for “Kabouter Buttplug,” so she decides to do something about it, going out to Los Angeles to confront McCarthy, who is rather familiar with confrontation. Looking for Paul features actors and creators Walter Bart, Inez van Dam, Matijs Jansen, Maartje Remmers, Marleen Scholten, and guest Daniel Frankl, with design by Maarten van Otterdijk.

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.)