Donna Uchizono will present two works during NYLA festival celebrating Oliver Sacks (photo by Mia}
LIVE IDEAS: THE WORLDS OF OLIVER SACKS — RE: AWAKENINGS (DANCE)
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th St.
Thursday, April 18, 8:00, and Saturday, April 20, 4:00, $40
Festival runs April 17-21
212-691-6500
www.newyorklivearts.org
www.ladonnadance.org
In the preface to the 1990 edition of his bestseller Awakenings, Dr. Oliver Sacks wrote, “It is now 21 years since my patients’ awakenings, and 17 years since this book was first published; yet, it seems to me, the subject is inexhaustible — medically, humanly, theoretically, dramatically. It is this which demands new additions and editions, and which keeps the subject for me — and, I trust, my readers — evergreen and alive.” In celebration of Sacks’s upcoming eightieth birthday (on July 9) and the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of Awakenings, New York Live Arts is hosting its first Live Ideas festival, “The Worlds of Oliver Sacks,” five days of special programs that medically, humanly, theoretically, and dramatically examine and explore the good doctor’s inexhaustible contributions to the field of science and the arts. The festival includes the world premiere of Bill Morrison’s short film Re: Awakenings; a series of talks delving into Sacks’s work with people who have Tourette’s, Parkinson’s, and hearing loss; an evening of music and dance with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, choreographer Aletta Collins, dancer Daniel Hay-Gordon, and conductor Tobias Picker; back-to-back presentations of Harold Pinter’s A Kind of Alaska, the first with spoken words, the second in American Sign Language; and such panel discussions as “Disembodiedness: Body Image & Proprioception,” “Musicophilia & Music Therapy,” “Neurologists & Philosophers Consider Sacks at 80,” and “Minding the Dancing Body,” the latter bringing together NYLA executive artistic director Bill T. Jones, Miguel Gutierrez, Colin McGinn, Alva Noë, and Gwen Welliver.
Sacks himself will participate in an Opening Keynote Conversation with Jones and will introduce a screening of the 1974 British television documentary Awakenings, followed by a Q&A. “Live Ideas” also features a pair of works by New York-based choreographer Donna Uchizono, performed by Levi Gonzalez, Hristoula Harakas, and Rebecca Serrell Cyr: a “Sacksian version” of Uchizono’s 1999 State of Heads and the newly commissioned Out of Frame. Earlier this week Uchizono discussed her involvement in this inaugural festival while preparing for the April 18 and 20 shows.
twi-ny: How did you get involved in “Live Ideas: The Worlds of Oliver Sacks” in the first place, and how familiar were you with his work prior to becoming part of the festival?
Donna Uchizono: I received a phone call from [NYLA artistic director] Carla Peterson asking me if I would be interested in creating a work about Awakenings based on Oliver Sacks’s work. I was, of course, completely honored and intrigued while simultaneously humbled by the offer. My father had his PhD in psychology and was interested in the workings of the brain. My father had a great love for books and had a huge library. Oliver Sacks’s books were among the many books my father owned. He gave me a copy of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat to read quite a long time ago. I had also seen the film Awakenings so was somewhat familiar with the horrible loneliness and “silent scream” of sleeping sickness. Heartbreaking. It’s quite a different challenge being commissioned to create a work about a specific topic other than a concept that is driven by oneself. The new work is turning out to be much more representational than work that I normally create, which I think is quite natural given the subject and the context in which it will be performed.
twi-ny: You’ll be presenting State of Heads, which premiered at Dance Theater Workshop in 1999. Why did you choose this to be part of your Sacks presentation?
Donna Uchizono: Coming out of a much larger discussion, the reasons for State of Heads being in the program are many and beyond the scope of this writing. But when the suggestion to move away from a program that included a play, music, and dance on one evening, to that of separate evenings of dance, music, and theater, State of Heads was discussed as a piece that may be included in the evening of dance because of its movement vocabulary. As I wrote in the choreographer’s notes, State of Heads explores the feeling of waiting and the passage of time in the state of hiatus where familiar time and scale are pushed. Using the separation of the head from the body as a point of departure, in an exploration of disjointedness and the sense of a will apart from the mind driving the movement, surprisingly created a world of endearingly odd characters. State of Heads reveals endearment in the awkward where the ordinary become extraordinary. The accounts of the patients that Oliver Sacks writes about in his book Awakenings are remarkable, where most definitely the ordinary become extraordinary and where profound “humanness” is found in the most unlikely places and time.
Live Ideas festival runs April 17-21 at New York Live Arts
twi-ny: You’re also debuting Out of Frame, incorporating text from Dr. Sacks’s work. What was it like transforming his scientific studies into dance?
Donna Uchizono: I rarely use text in my work, but Oliver Sacks is not only a neurologist of note, he is also a well-known writer, thus it seemed natural to use his words. It was Oliver Sacks’s words that conjured up the images and movement for Out of Frame. I made a conscious decision not to view Bill Morrison’s film that incorporates actual archival footage or revisit the film Awakenings while creating the new work. I did not want to imitate but rather to create the movement vocabulary and images from Sacks’s writings. I was deeply moved by Dr. Sacks’s humane understanding of the plight of his patients. It was the idea of compassion and the need for tenderness towards the individuals that drives the work, rather than his scientific studies. The short solo seems to float between three states — the physical torque of the disease, the human beneath the dress, and the dreamlike temporary state of L-DOPA.
twi-ny: This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of your choreographic debut. What are some of the key differences in being a New York City dancer-choreographer in 1988 as opposed to today?
Donna Uchizono: I feel quite lucky to be part of a generation that started to show their work during the late 1980s and early ’90s. At that time it seemed as if anything was possible. We could design spaces, design programs, and find places to create. We were not yet aware of the looming financial shutdown that was about to happen. We looked around at other choreographers and there seemed to be a possible linear path moving from individual and emerging choreographer to having a small dance company. By the mid-’90s the financial wall had crumbled. I think it is much harder to make work now. Well, it is for me anyway. Young choreographers today seem to be much more aware that there is no obvious financial path. What remains the same is the need to make work.
twi-ny: You’ve had a long relationship with Dance Theater Workshop, which recently morphed into New York Live Arts. What do you think of the new venue?
Donna Uchizono: I have had a long relationship with with the wonderful and dedicated Carla Peterson, who continues to champion experimental artists. I am quite thrilled and honored to be in this Live Ideas festival, and the staff at NYLA have treated me with openness and generosity.
With King Richard the Lionheart (Ian Hunter) off fighting the Crusades, his scheming brother, Prince John (Claude Rains), has taken over England, planning to become king with the help of the conniving Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Basil Rathbone) and the cowardly Sheriff of Nottingham (Melville Cooper). But one brave man stands in his way, “an impudent, reckless rogue who goes around the shire stirring up the Saxons against authority,” according to the Bishop of the Black Canons (Montagu Love). “And he has the insolence to set himself up as a protector of the people.” Sir Robin of Locksley (Errol Flynn), better known as Robin Hood, is fiercely loyal to King Richard and will do anything to preserve the sanctity of the throne and fight for the rights of the common people as he occupies Sherwood Forest with his band of merry men in tights, including Will Scarlet (Patric Knowles), Little John (Alan Hale Sr.), Friar Tuck (Eugene Pallette), and Much (Herbert Mundin). He also falls for the lovely Maid Marian (Olivia de Havilland), King Richard’s ward whom John promises to Gisbourne. Directed with appropriate flair and fanfare by Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, Mildred Pierce) and William Keighley (Each Dawn I Die, The Man Who Came to Dinner) The Adventures of Robin Hood is a rollicking romp through the famous legend, complete with exciting fight scenes, lots of male camaraderie, and just the right touch of romance. Flynn and de Havilland, who ended up making eight films together, are magnetic as Robin Hood and Maid Marian, a classic love story mired in life-threatening danger. There have been numerous versions of Robin Hood, starring such actors as Douglas Fairbanks, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Patrick Bergin, Cary Elwes, and the voice of Brian Bedford, but there’s no Sir Robin quite like Flynn, who flits about with an endless supply of charm, humor, grace, and bravery. By the way, Marian’s horse, then known as Golden Cloud, was sold after the movie to Roy Rogers and was renamed Trigger, going on to have quite a career himself. Winner of Three Oscars (for art direction, editing, and original score — it lost Best Picture to Frank Capra’s You Can’t Take It with You) — The Adventures of Robin Hood is screening in a new Technicolor restoration on April 14 at 11:00 am as part of the Film Forum Jr. series for kids and families, which continues April 28 with the Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera and May 5 with Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid.
Polarizing auteur Terrence Malick follows up his Oscar-nominated, Palme d’Or-winning 
Marten Persiel’s award-winning This Ain’t California begins with a section entitled “The Legend,” slyly pointing out from the start that what we’re about to see is the stuff of myth, not necessarily the straightforward documentary many have taken it for. Using real archival footage, re-created scenes, animation, and contemporary Super-8 footage posing as archival, Persiel, cinematographer Felix Leiberg, and editor Maxine Gödecke tell the story of Denis “Panik” Paracek, a 1980s skateboarding legend who has just been killed in Afghanistan. His old friends reunite to pay tribute to him, sharing tales of his remarkable skill, his fearlessness, and his ability to attract the opposite sex. While doing so, they paint a fascinating picture of East and West Germany in a decade that ended with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. “For him, skating was a liberation,” one friend says, getting to the heart of the film, which is about freedom, both on an individual and global scale. Persiel also speaks with a former member of the secret service, who describes keeping a close eye on the underground skateboard culture and attempting to use the participants for propaganda during the Cold War. The film is intimate and playful, serious and involving, even if it’s all not necessarily true. This Ain’t California won the Dialogue en Perspective prize at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival, but the key word there is “perspective,” because as it turns out, the character of Panik is played by actor Kai Hillebrandt, and Panik might just be a complete fantasy created by Persiel. Most of the other characters are portrayed by actors as well. However, Persiel does an outstanding job re-creating the importance of the underground skater culture during a perilous time in East and West Germany, as a group of punks fought the power the only way they knew how. This Ain’t California is having its U.S. theatrical premiere at the Maysles Cinema April 12-18 at 7:30, with Persiel taking part in a Skype Q&A following a special Saturday afternoon 4:00 matinee.
Why does Steve Buscemi have to be Mr. Pink? Because Quentin Tarantino said so. Tarantino burst onto the indie film scene with the ultraviolent genre picture Reservoir Dogs, about a diamond heist gone horribly wrong. You know there’s a problem if Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) has to be called in to clean up the mess made by Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen), Mr. Blue (Eddie Bunker), Mr. Brown (Tarantino), Mr. Orange (Tim Roth), and, of course, Mr. Pink. The robbery was organized by Joe (Lawrence Tierney) and his son, Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn), who has issues of his own. Double crosses, Madonna discussions, and a torture scene set to the Stealers Wheel song “Stuck in the Middle with You” make things go from funny to frightening in hysterical blasts of bloody irony as tensions mount and the criminals debate whether they were set up. Reservoir Dogs served as quite a debut for writer-director Tarantino, instantly making him an indie-film hero and sending him on his way, to be followed by his great script for True Romance (1993) and his Palme d’Or winner Pulp Fiction (1994), pulling off quite a triple play in three awesome years.