this week in dance

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.

PERFORMA 15

(photo by Alan Prada / courtesy of LUomo Vogue)

Francesco Vezzoli and David Hallberg’s FORTUNA DESPERATA kicks off tenth anniversary of biannual Performa arts festival (photo by Alan Prada / courtesy of L’Uomo Vogue)

Multiple venues
November 1-22, free – $500
15.performa-arts.org

Performa is celebrating the tenth anniversary of its biennial with another diverse lineup of live, cutting-edge performances, taking place at venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The festivities begin November 1 with a special opening-night benefit gala presentation ($250-$500) of Francesco Vezzoli and David Hallberg’s Renaissance-inspired Performa commission, Fortuna Desperata, at St. Bart’s and conclude November 22 with a Grand Finale party ($45) at Hôtel Americano, with the awarding of the Malcolm McLaren prize, which has previously gone to Ragnar Kjartansson and Ryan McNamara. One of the key participants this year is dancer and choreographer Jérôme Bel, whose Ballet (New York) ($15-$25) will be at the Marian Goodman Gallery November 6-7, the Martha Graham Studio Theater November 14-15, and El Museo del Barrio November 19; Bel will also teach a free Artist Class on November 5 at the Performa Hub at 47 Walker St. and will sit down for the free conversation “Don’t Just Sit There; Talking About Dance” with Performa head RoseLee Goldberg and the great Yvonne Rainer at Albertine on November 8. Meanwhile, from November 1 to November 18, Ryan Gander’s Ernest Hawker will feature an actor portraying the British artist’s future self at various Performa events; he will also give a free Artist Talk at the Performa Hub on November 2 at 3:00 with curator Mark Beasley. Below are ten other highlights of this always fascinating festival.

Friday, November 6
and
Saturday, November 7
Volmir Cordeiro: Inês, Danspace Project, $15-$20, 9:00

Saturday, November 7
Simon Fujiwara and Christodoulos Panayiotou: Lafayette Anticipation Session, featuring welcome speeches, screening of Fujiwara’s New Pompidou followed by a discussion with Fujiwara and Stuart Comer, and Panayiotou’s lecture-performance Dying on Stage with Jean Capeille, Performa Hub, free, 3:00 – 7:00

Opening of My Silent One (In the Sweetness of Time), live exhibition environment by Doveman and Tom Kalin, Participant Inc., free, 6:00 pm – 12 midnight

Saturday, November 7
and
Sunday, November 8
Arnold Schönberg’s Erwartung — A Performance by Robin Rhode, Times Square between Forty-Second & Forty-Third Sts., free, 4:30

Thursday, November 12
and
Friday, November 13
Erika Vogt: Artist Theater Program, live exhibition with collaborators Math Bass, Shannon Ebner, and Adam Putnam, Roulette, $20-$25, 9:00

Claudia de Serpa Soares, Jim White, and Eve Sussman join together for MORE UP A TREE at BAM (photo by Eve Sussman)

Friday, November 13
through
Sunday, November 15
Jesper Just: Untitled multimedia performance installation in collaboration with FOS, venue and price to be announced, 5:30

Monday, November 16
through
Sunday, November 22
Oscar Murillo: Lucky dip, live work about production, protest, and displacement, Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, free, 12 noon – 5:00 pm

Thursday, November 19
“Unorthodox: On Art II,” with Austė, Brian Belott, Meriem Bennani, Brian DeGraw, Tommy Hartung, Nick Payne, Jeni Spota, Jamian Juliano Villani, and others, the Jewish Museum, free with pay-what-you-wish admission, 6:00

Thursday, November 19
through
Saturday, November 21
More up a Tree, by Claudia de Serpa Soares, Eve Sussman, and Jim White, BAM Next Wave Festival, BAM Fisher Fishman Space, $25, 7:30

Saturday, November 21
Ilija Šoškić: Maximum Energy — Minimum Time, re-creation of past works in commemoration of the suicide of Russian Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, WhiteBox, free, 6:00

TERESA DIEHL: BREATHING WATERS

Site-specific installation immerses visitors in a fantasy world of water (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

NO LONGER EMPTY
117 Beekman Pl.
Daily through October 25, free, 12 noon – 7:00 pm
Free performance October 25, 4:00 – 6:00
www.nolongerempty.org
breathing waters slideshow

Miami-based artist Teresa Diehl emphasizes humanity’s intrinsic relationship with water in her immersive installation “Breathing Waters.” Diehl, who was born in Lebanon and raised in Venezuela, incorporates sound and video into a mazelike path of walls and hanging screens made of monofilament onto which drops of resin have been added, resembling dripping water or even tears. Diehl quotes from “The Paradox of the Nature of Water” in the Tao Te Ching, evoking awe at the power of water: “Nothing is weaker than water / But when it attacks something hard / Or resistant, then nothing withstands it, / And nothing will alter its way.” As you wind through the room, motion sensors trigger sound effects that add to the playful magic and mystery of it all, and the site-specific work directly references the South Street Seaport area, where the Hudson and East Rivers come together. Diehl, whose “L-Aber-Into” was part of No Longer Empty’s “When You Cut into the Present the Future Leaks Out” group show at the Old Bronx Borough Courthouse this past spring, also references a quote from Ishmael in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick: “Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries — stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded forever.” Make sure that the door in the back is closed so you get the full meditative effect of “Breathing Waters,” which Diehl sees as a healing refuge, especially in the crowded, fast-paced Seaport District. On October 25 at 4:00, closing day, members of Areytos Performance Works will dance through the “Breathing Waters” labyrinth, inspired by Yemayá, the orisha of motherhood and the queen of the sea.