Posts Tagged ‘Kyle Abraham’

A Dance Labyrinth by Kyle Abraham

Sunday, November 11th, 2012

By Rachel Straus

The world premiere of Kyle Abraham’s Pavement, seen at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse on November 3, evokes a vision of urban youth careening through a dark world. Abraham begins Pavement by marking a spot with his downcast arm.  Then he lassoes his body, drawing a circle with his outstretched limbs. He moves loose, full force and in searching manner, as if looking for a clear compass. When a white dancer enters, he stops Abraham, lies him face down on the floor, and brings his hands to the base of his spine. Abraham’s arrest is done without emotion. This lack of drama makes the event feel doubly devastating.

Pavement’s racially provocative introduction occurs to the accompaniment of Fred McDowell’s rasp-voiced blues song “What’s the Matter Now.” Its lyrics suggest impending violence, but the brutality in Pavement never occurs on stage. It transpires through sound bites from John Singleton’s 1991 crime drama Boyz n the Hood in which young men lose their lives to gang violence.

The recent violence of Hurricane Sandy robbed Pavement of its intended set design. Yet the square stage’s red outline and the presence of a basketball hoop, whose backboard occasionally projected visions of a housing project, gave the 70-minute work a clear sense of place. Abraham’s casting—four black male dancers (Abraham included), two white male dancers, and one black female performer (the powerful mover Rena Butler)—augured a dance about race. Yet Pavement is far from being a modern-day West Side Story. A tale of black against white never comes to the fore. Like T.S. Eliot’s modernist poem The Wasteland, Abraham creates scenes that don’t necessarily fit together or have clear beginnings and endings. They are snippets of everyday life (Abraham asking for a dollar) and dream evocations, in which his remarkable dancers’ limbs weave in and out of each other to the accompaniment of a red strobe light.

Pavement’s stream of conscious structure is also created through a collage of 12 pieces of music. The recorded selections include a J.C. Bach and Mozart aria (performed by the French tenor Philippe Jaroussky), two ballads by Sam Cooke, and an excerpt from Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes (about homosexual oppression). Almost all of the musical selections, listed in the playbill by the composers’ names only, carry metaphorical weight. Unfortunately, it requires research to understand the connections Abraham is making between the music and his messages regarding the slipperiness of love, gender and race.

In the program notes, Abraham excerpts a quote from W.E.B Du Bois’ 1903 Souls of Black Folk. Du Bois developed the theory of a black person’s double consciousness. He called it the veil. When Abraham’s dancers do the high five, the gangsta walk, and behave too cool for school, they appear to be acting out today’s veil. When they launch into pure dancing sections, they move beyond coded acts of identity. They become unveiled.

Pavement ends with a pile up of bodies. The dancers, however, don’t look dead; they appear to be sleeping, lulled by the sound of Donny Hathaway singing “Some Day We’ll All Be Free.” Here again Abraham transforms a violent image into one that is doubled or fractured in meaning. This shirking of didacticism makes Pavement more porous than concrete. Here is a dance work that becomes a labyrinth, one that is as puzzling as it is fascinating.

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April Dance Happenings: New York City

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

By Rachel Straus

 March 29 – April 9

Eiko & Koma

The Japanese avant-garde artists, whose home has been the U.S. since 1976, present the New York premiere of Naked at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. They will be intermittently naked, but what will stand out are their glacially slow movement tableaus that change one’s perception of time. Come with your patience, but know that you don’t have to stay the whole evening. The duo is offering Naked as an art installation. Audience members can come and go.

April 2

Dance of the Enchantress

At the Peter Norton Symphony Space, the South Indian classical dancer Vijayalakshmi will present herself in the dance style Mohiniyattam, which translates as “the Dance of the Enchantress.” According to ancient Indian legend, Vishnu the Preserver transformed himself into Mohini, an enchantress, in order to protect the universe from evil. Femininity and grace pervade the codified movements that alternate between pure dance and story telling. Performing along side Vijayalakshmi will be Palakal Rajagopalan (vocal), Muralee Krishnan (veena – lute), Sreekumar Kadampatt (edakka – hourglass-shaped drum), and Jayan Das (maddalam and mrdangam – double-headed tuned drums).

April 4

Merce Cunningham

On a monthly basis, the the Baryshnikov Arts Center has been showing Charles Atlas’ films of Merce Cunningham’s dances. Seeing Cunningham’s out-of-repertory works on a big screen is a boon to dance lovers. The next BAC flicks is eyeSpace (2006), which features music by David Behrman, costumes and sets by Daniel Arsham, and performances by the Cunningham dancers. The event begins with the webcast series called Mondays with Merce, which gives viewers deeper insight into Cunningham’s choreographic process. Valda Setterfield, a Cunningham performer from 1964-1974, will narrate and comment.

April 5-10

Stephen Petronio Dance Company

At the Joyce Theater, Stephen Petronio Company will present the New York premiere of Underland (2003). The work premiered with the Sydney Dance Company. It’s set to 14 songs by Australian rocker Nick Cave. It features multi-media projections by Mike Daly, another Down Under artist. Petronio’s evening-length work, now set on his 11 company members, is thick with movement and hipness.

April 8

“Ballet with a Modern Sensibility”

The 92nd St. Y’s “Fridays at Noon” free performance series continues with “Ballet with a Modern Sensibility.” Three choreographers—Christopher Caines, Brian Carey Chung, and Helen Heineman—will present excerpts of their new works, set to Italian Baroque music, and composers Meredith Monk, Arnold Schoenberg, Frédéric Mompou, Debussy, Beethoven, and Lou Harrison.

April 6-17

Ailey II

At The Ailey Citigroup Theater (the black box in the dance organization’s west 55 St. home), the second company will hold a two-week season. Six works and two programs will be danced by the 14-member Ailey II troupe, which travels the world almost as much as the parent company. The premieres include The Corner, a full ensemble work by Kyle Abraham—known for his fusion of popping, locking and post-modern dance—Doscongio by Robert Moses, set to two movements of Chopin’s Sonata for cello and piano (op. 65), and Shards by Donald Byrd, with music by Mio Morales.

April 14 – 16

Paradigm

At St. Mark’s Church, the pick-up troupe—comprised of dancers whose stage careers span several decades—will present two world premieres by its founding members, Carmen de Lavallade and Gus Solomons, Jr. The opening night performance will be followed by a celebration of Paradigm’s 15th anniversary and Carmen de Lavallade’s 80th birthday at Lautrec Bistro. You can join them, for a price, or just go to the show, which features a cast of eight veteran dancers, and a solo performance by Kyle Abraham, Solomon’s former student.

April 11

Dance Theatre of Harlem

At City Center Studio 5, Dance Theatre of Harlem’s artistic director Virginia Johnson and former New York City Ballet principal dancer Damian Woetzel will host an informal evening, focusing on the history of the first American black ballet company, founded at the height of the Civil Rights movement by Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook. The pared-down company of dancers will perform excerpts from the repertoire.

April 12-24

DanceBrazil

DanceBrazil returns to The Joyce Theater with A Jornada (The Path), the high-octane 2001 work by artistic director Jelon Vieira. The evening-length piece is said the chart the path of Africans to Brazil. The Afro-Brazilian martial arts form Capoeira is used to express the emergence of Afro-Brazilian culture.

April 13-16

Juliette Mapp

At Dance Theater Workshop, Juliette Mapp will present her newest work, The Making of the Americans. Based on Gertrude Stein’s namesake novel about being from two worlds, Mapp’s evening-length, multi-media piece will investigate her mother’s family who emigrated from Albania to Gary, Indiana. The most famous citizen of Gary was Michael Jackson. He too will be part of Mapp’s dance theater work performed by eight dancers.

April 13

Ron Brown, Sean Curran, and Nelida Tirado

At the Museum of Art & Design’s black box subterranean theater, Ron Brown, Sean Curran, and Nelida Tirado will present works of whose content remains unknown. Fear not. Brown choreographs delightful concoctions drawn from West African and modern dance. Sean Curran does the same with Irish step dancing and contemporary concert dance movement. Tirado approaches the Flamenco tradition through her wide-ranging, eclectic performing experience.

April 15

Weidman, Maslow, Dudley, and Yuriko

At the 92nd St. Y, the free “Fridays at Noon” performance series continues with “Legacy Performance: Weidman, Maslow, Dudley, Yuriko.” Performed by students and professionals, the event will offer four works by three choreographers, who represented American modern dance’s second generation, interested in political activism. Weidman’s masterwork Lynchtown (1936) remains a powerful, seminal dance work.

April 15-30

John Kelly

At P.S. 122, performance and visual artist John Kelly will present The Escape Artist (2010), which “traces the story of a man who has a trapeze accident while rehearsing a theatre piece based on the life of Italian Baroque painter, Caravaggio. Stranded on a gurney with a broken neck in the hospital emergency room, he finds refuge in the images that flood his mind—the sinners and saints, prostitutes and gods that populate Caravaggio’s paintings. The Escape Artist contains seven original songs by John Kelly & Carol Lipnik, as well as covers of songs by Claudio Monteverdi and John Barry.” (from P.S. 122 website)

April 17

Swan Lake

At the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts, the Russian National Ballet Theatre will present their version of Swan Lake. The company was founded in Moscow in the 1980s, when many artists from Soviet Union’s ballet institutions were forming new companies. Former Bolshoi Ballet principal dancer Elena Radchenko helms the company, known for performing works from the full-length, late 19th-century ballet repertoire.

April 25

Dance Against Cancer

At Manhattan Movement & Arts Center, the benefit performance “Dance Against Cancer” will offer performances by New York City Ballet dancers Daniel Ulbricht, Robert Fairchild, Amar Ramasar, Tyler Angle, Craig Hall, Wendy Whelan, Maria Kowroski, and Sterling Hyltin, as well as appearances by other well-known New York-based dancers. There will be three world premieres, created by fledgling ballet choreographers, and six short dance works created by George Balanchine, Christopher Wheeldon, Benjamin Millepied, Larry Keigwin, Lar Lubovitch, and Earl Mosley.

April 26-May 8

Armitage Gone! Dance

At The Joyce Theater, the company called Armitage Gone! Dance is back with a world premiere called GAGA-Gaku. It inspired by Cambodian Court dance and includes performances by Dance Theater of Harlem dancers. The two-week season features two programs, the second of which is a full-evening length dance based on Einstein’s theories of relativity and matter.

April 28–29

Valley of the Dolls

At Joe’s Pub, Nicole Wolcott and Vanessa Walters present their new cabaret piece, Alley of the Dolls (This is not a sequel). Inspired by the characters from Valley of the Dolls and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, the dance ladies and their cohorts will likely spoof the B movies’ clichés about femininity with their popular brand of athleticism and tongue-and-cheek vulgarity.

April 29

World Dance Day

April 29 is World Dance Day, according to the International Dance Council CID, UNESCO.

April 29

Pearl Primus

At the 92nd St. Y, the free “Fridays at Noon” series continues with “Legacy Performance: Celebrating Pearl Primus.” One of the most important black American modern dance choreographers, Primus made three groundbreaking solos The Negro Speaks of Rivers, Strange Fruit, and Hard Time Blues. Students will perform the dances. A new book, The Dance Claimed Me (Yale University Press), will be on sale. The authors will read passages from their biography.

 

 

 

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Valentine Dances

Monday, February 14th, 2011

By Rachel Straus

When the pressure is on to be romantic, delivering the goods is a challenge. The week before Valentine’s Day, four dance events intentionally (and unintentionally) dabbled in matters of the heart.  Merce Cunningham’s 1998 Pond Way—as filmed by Charles Atlas—was surprisingly the most romantic. (It was screened at the Baryshnikov Arts Center on February 7 as part of “BAC Flicks: Mondays with Merce.”)

Dressed in Scheherazade-meets-minimalist costumes (by Suzanne Gallo), the dancers circumnavigated each other with the aplomb and gentleness of amphibious courtiers. Roy Lichtenstein’s pointillist Landscape with a Boat served as the backdrop and Brian Eno’s New Ikebukkuro (For 3 CD Players) proved subtle and serene. As Banu Ogan traversed the length of the downstage space, a male dancer gently stopped her. Cunningham’s reference to The Rose Adagio in Sleeping Beauty is unmistakable. But instead of being given a flower and striking a virtuoso balance on pointe (as is the case in Beauty), Ogan was neither held nor presented. One by one, a male dancer appeared, placed his palm on a different part of her body, and then evaporated into the wings. Each touch was delicate, almost unobtrusive, like a soft breeze that comes out of nowhere and gives one pause.

**

Mark Morris is not known for his high-flown treatment of heterosexual love. His 2007 Romeo and Juliet (to Prokofiev’s original score with a happy ending) lacked romantic fire. In his choreography for John Adams’ Nixon in China (1987), which is making its Metropolitan Opera House debut (and which I saw on February 12), Morris reinterpreted the propagandist Chinese ballet The Red Detachment of Women (1964). Under Peter Sellers’ direction, Morris choreographed a ballet within a ballet in which President Nixon (James Maddalena) and Mrs. Nixon (Janis Kelly) leave their opera house seats and become involved in the ballet’s action: A peasant girl (Haruno Yamazaki) is whipped to a pulp, then given the Little Red Book. She becomes a rifle-wielding revolutionary comrade. In Act III, she dances with a soldier (Kanji Segawa), once a “decadent” in a European white suit.

Their final pas de deux occurs behind the Nixons (Pat and Richard) and the Tse-Tungs (Mr. and Mrs. Mao), as performed by Robert Brubaker and Kathleen Kim. The singers describe their early years in which sex and love played a greater part in their lives. The fact that Peter Sellers obstructs Morris’ choreography—placing the formidable dancers behind six beds and five singers—says a lot about Sellers’ opinion of Morris’s duet, which does little to support the lyrics about love and loss.

**

Martha Graham wasn’t exactly a romantic, but she sure knew how to choreograph sex. In preparation for the Martha Graham Dance Company’s 85th season at New York’s Rose Theater (March 15-20), the troupe presented their second informal showing on February 9 at DANY Studios. Graham dancers excel in staring each other down with an intensity of gaze only a bull could countenance. When Tadej Brdnik and Xiaochuan Xie locked eyes during an excerpt from Robert Wilson’s Snow on the Mesa (1995), it became clear that their relationship was not the PG variety. That said neither Mesa nor these dancers’ interpretations were overwrought. Brdnik and Xie’s physical beauty and technical command will make this Wilson ballet worth seeing. The other excerpts presented included Graham’s Appalachian Spring (1944), Cave of the Heart (1947), and Deaths and Entrances (1943)—as well as Bulareyang Pagarlava’s work in progress, based on Deaths. It is neither sexy nor romantic. It seems to poke fun at Graham’s seriousness.

**

Seriousness and silliness shared equal billing at Joe’s Pub on February 11, with the kickoff of Dancemopolitan’s 2011 season. Called  “Kyle Abraham and Friends: Heartbreaks and Homies,” the cabaret-style event  (produced by DanceNOW [NYC]) featured seven works by Kyle Abraham and one by three guest choreographers: David Dorfman, Faye Driscoll, and Alex Escalante. On the Pub’s kitchen-size stage, the costuming placed the dances squarely in the retro past. Hot pants prevailed. Afros and beards were in the house. However, when Abraham began short-circuiting his body to the music of Love Me by Sam Cooke—a pioneer of soul music who was shot dead at the height of his career—the evening lost its playful tone.

Like an electric switch, Abraham altered his mood. This fast-firing, dancer-actor expressed heartbreak, rage, innocence, bawdiness in moment-to-moment slices of bodily action. Abraham also shape shifted into a lover because “Heartbreak and Homies” was made with Valentine’s Day in mind. Abraham intermittently mingled among the audience (and in his last solo he curled up in some of their laps). Upon returning to the stage, Abraham flicked his emotional switch down to a dark place: He silently wailed. His body sputtered. It was shocking, its pathos mesmerizing.

Less shocking but equal absorbing was Alex Escalante’s solo about getting dumped via cell phone. As the dancer repeatedly mouthed his disappointment into a microphone, his words looped back into the sound system. An echo chamber of voices chaotically intermingled, in which  Escalante’s laments, his conversation with his lover, and the crooning lyrics of Kiss and Say Goodbye by the Manhattans developed a three-way conversation. At the work’s beginning, Escalante asked the audience: Have you ever been in a relationship that had a total communication breakdown?

Broken down by too many voices, Escalante eventually staggered away from the microphone. His gait resembled a boozer’s drawl. He never fell down. Any amateur who loosened their limbs like Escalante’s would be on the floor, nursing his knees, crying for help.

 

 

 

 

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