1984 CONTINUED
Loony Tombs and Merry Maladies
March 8
Robert Small, who danced with Murray Louis through most of the '70s and started his own company in 1978, has an amazingly deft and articulate body. Able to switch instantaneously from something dazzlingly fast and brittle to something slow and stretchy, Small has a breathtaking movement range, from thumping power to nearly ethereal delicacy. And he has great abdominals. In his new solo work, Anything with a Heartbeat, he wears gray pants and a sort of tattered grey jerkin that leaves his middle bare, so his belly's what you watch. His face, with blue cheek-and-eye make-up that creates a shiny mask, seems too programmed with forced expressions - a fierce, resentful stare, an awful grin, a feline snarl that pulls the lips flat against the teeth...
Anything with a Heartbeat (with an excellent grumbling, rhythmically banging and whistling score by Ron Anderson, and dramatic lighting by Dave Feldman), is a tremendously intense but strangely unmoving tour de force of impressive obstinacy and suffering. Small is like one of Beckett's grotesque survivors, but without humor and without the gift of being able to create a world of interest out of grain of dust. Instead, Small gives a lavish, rococo performance of spectacular physicality, infinite detail and finesse, and pungent emotion which almost never mesh right. Small's dancing contains terrible and passionate feeling which doesn't quite reach the audience. He shows you a million amazing and prehensile articulations maybe nobody else could do, runs a gauntlet of unseen enemies, whips himself into a frenzy.
But, underneath, it seems overly manipulated. Small's deliberate intentions keep showing. The emotion colors the movement; the movement illustrates the emotion. But they seem to come from different notions, and the impulses rarely coincide. That such an intense and ambitious marathon should fail to be persuasive is distressing and puzzling. There is an arbitrariness in the catalogue of movement and mimetic gesture Small regales us with. Maybe he just can't resist using his entire battery of technical skills. And the fact that many things happen so fast that you miss them if you blink doesn't make them any less arbitrary. There's an overload. The exaggeration, the sharpness of he gestures that would be dynamite in a short piece, works to undermine him in an hour-long effort. Every move, no matter how tiny, is so insistent, so outlined, so important, so surprising, that the whole can seem without direction. He starts out seated on the floor, hunched over, snoring. There's a heavy, rumbling vibration that accompanies him and increases until the whole trembling building seems to be snoring. He almost startles himself awake with his noises and heaving, and then you see him suddenly elfin, his arms delicate, his feet twitchy.
But things soon grow more violent - one flapping, darting hand gets stuck in his mouth; he bounces on his belly, then springs up like a shot shouting and yelping as the music trumpets. Springily dodging in reverse, he slaps himself silly, falls backward into a snoring, open-eyed shoulder stand. In a later section, with his vest off, down to a shabby, lilac-gray shirt and the same pants, he sits in a chair up against the side wall in a green overhead light, slowly, dumbly, passively, methodically banging his head against the wall. Suddenly, he stretches his arms out in a desperately hopeful reach. Soon after, back mid-stage, under stark light, he's trapped in a chair. It seems like his arms are knotted into it. Then he falls back, magically free of the chair, but he grabs it at the instant of separation, letting it float upward in his hands. Then he lowers it, smacks his head quietly against the seat, holds it close, and smiles hideously into a glaring spotlight.
Most of that's damn effective, but what's maddening is that Small does something straight and affecting, like banging his head on the wall, and then turns it into a dramatic cliche, with the reaching. The movement transition is perfectly executed; the feeling transition is perfectly clear. But the decision - not the momentary decision in performance, but the choreographic decision to do those things in sequence - seems faulty. If the first is truthful, the second, however unintentionally, is dishonest. And the beauty and intensity of the execution can't make it true. In a way, it makes the flaw worse. A scratch in a well-used tabletop is part of its character; on a gleaming, polished surface it's an offense.
Approaching the end, faces from Old Master paintings (and sculpture) loom in dark projections (by Tom Caravaglia). Their expressions seem to change as the familiar faces (from Velasquez, Van Eyck, etc.) emerge into focus from a dark blur. Small enters, stooped under a thick, netted fabric. There are roses hidden underneath. He plunges his face into them when he flattens this curious bedroll on the floor. He stands the roses up (they've got suction cups on the bottom) in an L around the cloth, preparing his own funeral. He lies down like a corpse, raises his arms and folds them back down on his chest. Something deeply felt and deeply meant is coming through strongly in this morbid funeral setup with its ominous gallery of morose and riveting faces fading in and out. But Small doesn't know when enough's enough. He's got roses that light up. Got to use them. It's a pity.
At Dance Theater Workshop (Tuesdays from January 31 to February 21).
Robert Small, who danced with Murray Louis through most of the '70s and started his own company in 1978, has an amazingly deft and articulate body. Able to switch instantaneously from something dazzlingly fast and brittle to something slow and stretchy, Small has a breathtaking movement range, from thumping power to nearly ethereal delicacy. And he has great abdominals. In his new solo work, Anything with a Heartbeat, he wears gray pants and a sort of tattered grey jerkin that leaves his middle bare, so his belly's what you watch. His face, with blue cheek-and-eye make-up that creates a shiny mask, seems too programmed with forced expressions - a fierce, resentful stare, an awful grin, a feline snarl that pulls the lips flat against the teeth...
Anything with a Heartbeat (with an excellent grumbling, rhythmically banging and whistling score by Ron Anderson, and dramatic lighting by Dave Feldman), is a tremendously intense but strangely unmoving tour de force of impressive obstinacy and suffering. Small is like one of Beckett's grotesque survivors, but without humor and without the gift of being able to create a world of interest out of grain of dust. Instead, Small gives a lavish, rococo performance of spectacular physicality, infinite detail and finesse, and pungent emotion which almost never mesh right. Small's dancing contains terrible and passionate feeling which doesn't quite reach the audience. He shows you a million amazing and prehensile articulations maybe nobody else could do, runs a gauntlet of unseen enemies, whips himself into a frenzy.
But, underneath, it seems overly manipulated. Small's deliberate intentions keep showing. The emotion colors the movement; the movement illustrates the emotion. But they seem to come from different notions, and the impulses rarely coincide. That such an intense and ambitious marathon should fail to be persuasive is distressing and puzzling. There is an arbitrariness in the catalogue of movement and mimetic gesture Small regales us with. Maybe he just can't resist using his entire battery of technical skills. And the fact that many things happen so fast that you miss them if you blink doesn't make them any less arbitrary. There's an overload. The exaggeration, the sharpness of he gestures that would be dynamite in a short piece, works to undermine him in an hour-long effort. Every move, no matter how tiny, is so insistent, so outlined, so important, so surprising, that the whole can seem without direction. He starts out seated on the floor, hunched over, snoring. There's a heavy, rumbling vibration that accompanies him and increases until the whole trembling building seems to be snoring. He almost startles himself awake with his noises and heaving, and then you see him suddenly elfin, his arms delicate, his feet twitchy.
But things soon grow more violent - one flapping, darting hand gets stuck in his mouth; he bounces on his belly, then springs up like a shot shouting and yelping as the music trumpets. Springily dodging in reverse, he slaps himself silly, falls backward into a snoring, open-eyed shoulder stand. In a later section, with his vest off, down to a shabby, lilac-gray shirt and the same pants, he sits in a chair up against the side wall in a green overhead light, slowly, dumbly, passively, methodically banging his head against the wall. Suddenly, he stretches his arms out in a desperately hopeful reach. Soon after, back mid-stage, under stark light, he's trapped in a chair. It seems like his arms are knotted into it. Then he falls back, magically free of the chair, but he grabs it at the instant of separation, letting it float upward in his hands. Then he lowers it, smacks his head quietly against the seat, holds it close, and smiles hideously into a glaring spotlight.
Most of that's damn effective, but what's maddening is that Small does something straight and affecting, like banging his head on the wall, and then turns it into a dramatic cliche, with the reaching. The movement transition is perfectly executed; the feeling transition is perfectly clear. But the decision - not the momentary decision in performance, but the choreographic decision to do those things in sequence - seems faulty. If the first is truthful, the second, however unintentionally, is dishonest. And the beauty and intensity of the execution can't make it true. In a way, it makes the flaw worse. A scratch in a well-used tabletop is part of its character; on a gleaming, polished surface it's an offense.
Approaching the end, faces from Old Master paintings (and sculpture) loom in dark projections (by Tom Caravaglia). Their expressions seem to change as the familiar faces (from Velasquez, Van Eyck, etc.) emerge into focus from a dark blur. Small enters, stooped under a thick, netted fabric. There are roses hidden underneath. He plunges his face into them when he flattens this curious bedroll on the floor. He stands the roses up (they've got suction cups on the bottom) in an L around the cloth, preparing his own funeral. He lies down like a corpse, raises his arms and folds them back down on his chest. Something deeply felt and deeply meant is coming through strongly in this morbid funeral setup with its ominous gallery of morose and riveting faces fading in and out. But Small doesn't know when enough's enough. He's got roses that light up. Got to use them. It's a pity.
At Dance Theater Workshop (Tuesdays from January 31 to February 21).
Wham, Bam, Thank You Ma'am
February 28
Nina Martin starts bang on time, spinning out solo, as bold and frank as a veritable American amazon. If her body's skewed, she still balances securely. She moves her arms in big, plain gestural statements with beautiful assurance. Skids to the floor, spins on her back till she slows. Then she's all agog with jerking jumps, stiff-armed, stiff-legged walks, slides and somersaults back. The damn buzzer's ringing. Somebody relentless is outside. Martin gives instructions to the stage manager (?) cum bouncer, walks back to the dressing room. A close up film of Frances Becker's face in a momentary snooze quick cuts from one shot to another: now the eyes are open, now closed. Transitions are chopped out. The mouth smiles, pouts, screws tight; the nose flares, pinches.
Meantime, a horde of latecomers, a couple of dozen it seems, blunder in, including a fraudulent bag lady who takes her time wandering in front of the screen which I can hardly see anyway because a pillar in front of my nose blots out the middle of it. Lights up. Two people, bandaged in white, remove a false pillar, designed to look, with its fussy capital, like the real support beams. Then Martin repeats her solo and, in the middle, some guy - claims he's not a bum but he was outside P.S. 122 cadging spare change before the concert - is here importuning the audience while Martin dances. She gets pissed, asks him to leave, and he ungraciously goes but comes right back He follows behind her reflecting her movements, then joins her with crude vigor, grabs her and swings her over his back "You're nuts! Let me down!" "What’s the mater? I'm not good enough for you?" I do like the roughhouse, and Martin gives as good as she gets. Who else is there? There's the bandaged couple; they hang on to each other, jiggle and twist, huddle in a corner, carry each other clumsily. There's the bag lady changing her location every once in a while, getting in people's way. There's a trio of women in black leotards and tights, the most traditionally dancy group. Once, when they do a fast, blind shuffle backwards, the middle one crashes into the bag lady's cart and heaves over backwards, stuck in it. Martin returns with a partner, both wearing fisherman's waders, doing neat gestural sequences - smacking, twisting, exhorting...
More audience members dribble in. With the black leotard trio in the space between them, the yellows tamp and shift from foot to foot, gradually approach and meet, then push and pull against each other and fall down. Two of the black leotards are dancing together when some guy sneaks in the door, holds a gun on one of them. The other runs to the dressing room for cash, and the robber skips out. On the Other Hand seems a pretty apt title for such a jam-packed piece so full of distractions There's lots of interference, lots of rude interruptions, lots of people whamming into each other. Martin's little color-coded groups aren't hostile to or ignorant of each other, but they don't inhabit the same space quite independently or peaceable tither. There's a jagged formality to their ins and outs, like a bureau drawer that sticks and must be jerked and coaxed and rumbled just so. The interrupting and the full body whacking together doesn't happen pell-mell, but it loses some savor when the surprise peters out. In the beginning, what might be real interruptions mix happily with clearly planned internal disturbances and disruptive gags, and with a clean, blunt performing style. Martin is convincingly outraged when she's upstaged by that panhandler, and it unbalances you in an exciting way. Able as she appears, maybe she needs help getting rid of the guy. But, for example, you know that the bag lady is a fake, so that's not interesting. And when too many events begin to come off as little set pieces to garner laughs, a sense of strain and clutter intrudes. When two women in yellow waders do an exclamatory gestural routine while, on tape, we hear them insistently argue "This land is my land." "This land is not your land." It's wryly funny and perverse.
The verbal delivery is serious but not overblown, the movement has straight-arrow confidence, the sentiment of the familiar Woody Guthrie song is wickedly twisted. When they women return later speaking the same text live, they just seem like they don't mean it Other dialogue episodes repeat more successfully with the old words coming out of new mouths. This is one theme David Gordon has been exploring beautifully for many years (Martin has danced with him), and it's an amusing ploy in this context. Even if the dialogue seems personal the first time, it's arbitrary or gamelike the second, no matter how passionately or emphatically uttered. As audience, it's curiously agreeable to give in to the pleasure of a harmless emotional con. The bandaged couple haul each other around and wrestle each other down. They get into a dialogue about what one of them does in the morning - "I get the kids dressed for school..." - which the other belligerently denies. "You don't have any kids...You never worked a day in your life." When the battle's over, the first, stepping away, asks innocently, "Who are you anyway?" and the sudden vulnerability turns you inside out. Part of the face film reruns. The black leotard trio staggers back shouting and stops with a jolt. They huddle and shout inarticulate football cues, then dive to the floor. The robber returns, gets flipped this time by a woman who gets his gun and fiddles with it - does does this work? - till it pops off and the robber, with a red splotch on his belly, takes a long death stagger into the dressing room.
The whole crew, nine in all - Dorrie Smith, Ariella Vidach, Karen Bacon, Robert Kirn, Lucy Sexton, Dana Fulmer, N.P. Smithner, Jud Lawrence, and Martin - walk from opposite lines thwack into each other like the jaws of a bear-claw trap springing shut, then separate into a loose confusion of jumping, running, freezing, rocking... When you get outside, thins don't seem any different in the street.
At Performance Space 122 (February 10 to 12).
Nina Martin starts bang on time, spinning out solo, as bold and frank as a veritable American amazon. If her body's skewed, she still balances securely. She moves her arms in big, plain gestural statements with beautiful assurance. Skids to the floor, spins on her back till she slows. Then she's all agog with jerking jumps, stiff-armed, stiff-legged walks, slides and somersaults back. The damn buzzer's ringing. Somebody relentless is outside. Martin gives instructions to the stage manager (?) cum bouncer, walks back to the dressing room. A close up film of Frances Becker's face in a momentary snooze quick cuts from one shot to another: now the eyes are open, now closed. Transitions are chopped out. The mouth smiles, pouts, screws tight; the nose flares, pinches.
Meantime, a horde of latecomers, a couple of dozen it seems, blunder in, including a fraudulent bag lady who takes her time wandering in front of the screen which I can hardly see anyway because a pillar in front of my nose blots out the middle of it. Lights up. Two people, bandaged in white, remove a false pillar, designed to look, with its fussy capital, like the real support beams. Then Martin repeats her solo and, in the middle, some guy - claims he's not a bum but he was outside P.S. 122 cadging spare change before the concert - is here importuning the audience while Martin dances. She gets pissed, asks him to leave, and he ungraciously goes but comes right back He follows behind her reflecting her movements, then joins her with crude vigor, grabs her and swings her over his back "You're nuts! Let me down!" "What’s the mater? I'm not good enough for you?" I do like the roughhouse, and Martin gives as good as she gets. Who else is there? There's the bandaged couple; they hang on to each other, jiggle and twist, huddle in a corner, carry each other clumsily. There's the bag lady changing her location every once in a while, getting in people's way. There's a trio of women in black leotards and tights, the most traditionally dancy group. Once, when they do a fast, blind shuffle backwards, the middle one crashes into the bag lady's cart and heaves over backwards, stuck in it. Martin returns with a partner, both wearing fisherman's waders, doing neat gestural sequences - smacking, twisting, exhorting...
More audience members dribble in. With the black leotard trio in the space between them, the yellows tamp and shift from foot to foot, gradually approach and meet, then push and pull against each other and fall down. Two of the black leotards are dancing together when some guy sneaks in the door, holds a gun on one of them. The other runs to the dressing room for cash, and the robber skips out. On the Other Hand seems a pretty apt title for such a jam-packed piece so full of distractions There's lots of interference, lots of rude interruptions, lots of people whamming into each other. Martin's little color-coded groups aren't hostile to or ignorant of each other, but they don't inhabit the same space quite independently or peaceable tither. There's a jagged formality to their ins and outs, like a bureau drawer that sticks and must be jerked and coaxed and rumbled just so. The interrupting and the full body whacking together doesn't happen pell-mell, but it loses some savor when the surprise peters out. In the beginning, what might be real interruptions mix happily with clearly planned internal disturbances and disruptive gags, and with a clean, blunt performing style. Martin is convincingly outraged when she's upstaged by that panhandler, and it unbalances you in an exciting way. Able as she appears, maybe she needs help getting rid of the guy. But, for example, you know that the bag lady is a fake, so that's not interesting. And when too many events begin to come off as little set pieces to garner laughs, a sense of strain and clutter intrudes. When two women in yellow waders do an exclamatory gestural routine while, on tape, we hear them insistently argue "This land is my land." "This land is not your land." It's wryly funny and perverse.
The verbal delivery is serious but not overblown, the movement has straight-arrow confidence, the sentiment of the familiar Woody Guthrie song is wickedly twisted. When they women return later speaking the same text live, they just seem like they don't mean it Other dialogue episodes repeat more successfully with the old words coming out of new mouths. This is one theme David Gordon has been exploring beautifully for many years (Martin has danced with him), and it's an amusing ploy in this context. Even if the dialogue seems personal the first time, it's arbitrary or gamelike the second, no matter how passionately or emphatically uttered. As audience, it's curiously agreeable to give in to the pleasure of a harmless emotional con. The bandaged couple haul each other around and wrestle each other down. They get into a dialogue about what one of them does in the morning - "I get the kids dressed for school..." - which the other belligerently denies. "You don't have any kids...You never worked a day in your life." When the battle's over, the first, stepping away, asks innocently, "Who are you anyway?" and the sudden vulnerability turns you inside out. Part of the face film reruns. The black leotard trio staggers back shouting and stops with a jolt. They huddle and shout inarticulate football cues, then dive to the floor. The robber returns, gets flipped this time by a woman who gets his gun and fiddles with it - does does this work? - till it pops off and the robber, with a red splotch on his belly, takes a long death stagger into the dressing room.
The whole crew, nine in all - Dorrie Smith, Ariella Vidach, Karen Bacon, Robert Kirn, Lucy Sexton, Dana Fulmer, N.P. Smithner, Jud Lawrence, and Martin - walk from opposite lines thwack into each other like the jaws of a bear-claw trap springing shut, then separate into a loose confusion of jumping, running, freezing, rocking... When you get outside, thins don't seem any different in the street.
At Performance Space 122 (February 10 to 12).
The Sex Life of the Polyp
February 21
The back wall of Dance Theater Workshop harbors a hard-to-identify, bluish film image that pulses as if seen through the flicker of dragon-fly wings. It is a watery surface. The music - drawn from Japanese, Tibetan and Indonesian folk sources, starts as a hollow gulping or tocking and develops into a quiet roar. In low, amber light (lighting by Dave Feldman), we see Eiko and Koma naked and isolated on the floor, facing downward but crooked, half on their sides, their rumps slightly lifted, their arms bent underneath. While the roaring continues, they slowly, at first almost imperceptibly, begin to rock their buttocks side to side and lift them up.
This is Night Tide, one of Eiko and Koma's simplest, most even and harmonious works, and only about 20 minutes long. It never erupts with sexual violence or frustration as do so many of the riveting and elemental works they've presented here since 1976. And there are no objects on stage to formalize the visual composition and help sustain a prickly sense of equilibrium. The focus is on Eiko and Koma alone in an undefined gloom; there is nothing o measure them against. They seem to be essentially immobile creatures to whom movement over any distance at all is usually unnatural. And they plunge, like most creatures, into extraordinary behavior in order to mate or to satisfy a blind need for physical contact.
But while they are instinctively pulled toward each other, they never seem remotely conscious that the other is anywhere nearby, or even exists. Eiko oh-so-gradually raises her buttocks so that her legs must be standing nearly straight behind her, and her back to us, nearly vertical. But from where I sit (perhaps from nowhere else), she seems just the opposite. The light is only adequate and allows her shoulders, for example, to blur into the floor. I can't help but see he as a kneeling woman, with her arms behind her in support, and her head and upper body arching so far back that her head vanishes altogether. Her body has he exquisite, ephemeral tenderness of one of Rodin's marble torsos. Though I can discern her head and mop of black hair on the floor, emerging from the crotch of the illusory figure, and step-by-step reascertain how she's actually positioned, the illusion is much stronger than reality. Until she starts to tip over and breaks it. Down on their sides, Eiko and Koma slowly creep toward each other. There's a hollow thunking sound and a thinness to the roar which develops into an airy whine.
They move very slowly. Their progress doesn't seem painful or precisely a struggle, but merely unimaginable, impossible. They can't move, wouldn't know how to move, but they do nonetheless. The golden softness of their hairless knees, arms, thighs moving and gleaming under the warm light is incredibly sensual. Koma pushes himself up onto his knees and shoulder as the come head to head. Eiko, on her back, eyes closed, touches his hair. He pushes her up into an arch with his bent arm. She grasps the back of his neck and pulls him down to her; he pulls her upward; almost imploringly, she drags him closer. Then, that's enough. Either their need has been appeased or their contact has been a mistake and they're not the same species at all. He recedes from her slightly; she slides away. The lights grow very dim, shining only in a thin plane from the sides, about a foot from the floor, as they crawl back into isolation and invisibility.
At Dance Theater Workshop (January 25 to February 5).
The back wall of Dance Theater Workshop harbors a hard-to-identify, bluish film image that pulses as if seen through the flicker of dragon-fly wings. It is a watery surface. The music - drawn from Japanese, Tibetan and Indonesian folk sources, starts as a hollow gulping or tocking and develops into a quiet roar. In low, amber light (lighting by Dave Feldman), we see Eiko and Koma naked and isolated on the floor, facing downward but crooked, half on their sides, their rumps slightly lifted, their arms bent underneath. While the roaring continues, they slowly, at first almost imperceptibly, begin to rock their buttocks side to side and lift them up.
This is Night Tide, one of Eiko and Koma's simplest, most even and harmonious works, and only about 20 minutes long. It never erupts with sexual violence or frustration as do so many of the riveting and elemental works they've presented here since 1976. And there are no objects on stage to formalize the visual composition and help sustain a prickly sense of equilibrium. The focus is on Eiko and Koma alone in an undefined gloom; there is nothing o measure them against. They seem to be essentially immobile creatures to whom movement over any distance at all is usually unnatural. And they plunge, like most creatures, into extraordinary behavior in order to mate or to satisfy a blind need for physical contact.
But while they are instinctively pulled toward each other, they never seem remotely conscious that the other is anywhere nearby, or even exists. Eiko oh-so-gradually raises her buttocks so that her legs must be standing nearly straight behind her, and her back to us, nearly vertical. But from where I sit (perhaps from nowhere else), she seems just the opposite. The light is only adequate and allows her shoulders, for example, to blur into the floor. I can't help but see he as a kneeling woman, with her arms behind her in support, and her head and upper body arching so far back that her head vanishes altogether. Her body has he exquisite, ephemeral tenderness of one of Rodin's marble torsos. Though I can discern her head and mop of black hair on the floor, emerging from the crotch of the illusory figure, and step-by-step reascertain how she's actually positioned, the illusion is much stronger than reality. Until she starts to tip over and breaks it. Down on their sides, Eiko and Koma slowly creep toward each other. There's a hollow thunking sound and a thinness to the roar which develops into an airy whine.
They move very slowly. Their progress doesn't seem painful or precisely a struggle, but merely unimaginable, impossible. They can't move, wouldn't know how to move, but they do nonetheless. The golden softness of their hairless knees, arms, thighs moving and gleaming under the warm light is incredibly sensual. Koma pushes himself up onto his knees and shoulder as the come head to head. Eiko, on her back, eyes closed, touches his hair. He pushes her up into an arch with his bent arm. She grasps the back of his neck and pulls him down to her; he pulls her upward; almost imploringly, she drags him closer. Then, that's enough. Either their need has been appeased or their contact has been a mistake and they're not the same species at all. He recedes from her slightly; she slides away. The lights grow very dim, shining only in a thin plane from the sides, about a foot from the floor, as they crawl back into isolation and invisibility.
At Dance Theater Workshop (January 25 to February 5).
Traveling Light
February 2
Alice Kaltman's Maine travelogue, Owl's Head, is a kind of episodic vaudeville in eight segments - some playful, others studied and more nearly abstract. The space at 85 Mercer Street seems nearly cubical, with an exuberant blue and green painted backdrop by Willy Hook of big tempestuous waves. Hung close to the ceiling is a striped beach chair, a bright beach umbrella, a huge oar, a lobster trap, and a wooden seagull with propeller wings.
The introductory section, to an intermittent tape announcing Maine towns, tourist sights, and special events like the Dixie Bull regatta, is a solo for Kaltman - aggressive, high-stepping, sputtery. She displays a determination that seems stiffened by the abrupt, emphatic way she bits off a phrase and thwarted by the dimensions of the space: nothing can continue very far in any direction. In the second solo, "Loon", to taped bird calls, Kate Mitchell, in a black leotard and tights, with her hair capped and a loose, glossy white fabric across her upper chest, steps eagerly, cleanly into perching balances, with her arms open and floating. But big poised shapes with nowhere to go read uncomfortably ad suggest a misplaced confidence. Instead of clear achievement, they seem like the tail end of an impulse. Whatever happens next must be smaller.
Happily, some of what's nicest in Owl's Head, and in this section, are those smaller things, the more delicate, ephemeral gestures that convey a subtlety of mood or character - shivery movements of the arms, fragile shudders of the chest and shoulders, slow reeling moves of the arms and upper torso, the limp, jointed, zigzag descent of an arm. "Fetch", a section for a young girl in a long, pale blue dress and a spotted dog (David Hurwith) is simple and charming. Hurwith, hands floppy, bounds and rolls and prances almost dreamily, almost waltzing. The girl tosses a big rawhide chew-stick bone which, attached to a wire, boomerangs in an easy circle. "Fetch" is quiet and winning, partly because the two are gently absorbed with each other. We are not their total focus. Anyway, it's the almost offhand, naive sections like this which are most pleasing. Like two men in fishing gear who drag in a net loaded with dancers, and bounce, spin, hop - rhythmically galumphing, broadly casting and reeling in - to a sparkling Irish tune. The three dancers pick themselves out of the net for the next part, doing slow dives and tight shuffles to the sound of surf. They're fish, puffing, rolling, heaving themselves up, kicking their feet, lying pretty still on the floor where they've been landed. They're in pink fishnet tops spangled with those bid plastic sequins popular on older women's knotted hats. Read fish scales for spangles.
But the literal idea is too crude here. Similarly, the blue and green costume Annuel Dowdell wears for "Wind", with swatches of cloth dangling off the shoulders, is cliched and inelegant. But some of the costumes, literal or suggestive, are beautifully conceived, like the black-and-white loon outfit or a lobster, or a pair of gulls in this section, in light blue leotards and tights, with their hair capped and shreddy oversize t-shirts. The boss seagull (the Seagull Queen) comes in, holding her arms like stiff wings, and with sharp, pulled-up legwork, pokes at the "fish" with her feet. Two other gull/girls (Mercy Sidbury, Gail Teton), accenting their scavenging aspect in the way their heads sag forward from hunched shoulders, like vultures, pull up the "fish" with their feet, then drag two of them off. They're marvelously creepy, spiky twitchy in the shoulders as pally and alike as Heckle and Jeckle and a bit, too, like Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein.
The costumes gets an immediate laugh in "Snap", with the sight of lean, long-limbed Paul Engler in a red cap, red sweat pants and fat red mittens. His syncopated routine with its throbbing feet, hopping, big snatching gestures, and spraddling half-turns is a bonus. In the final section, "Lighthouse", a steady flashlight beam swings in an arc, then swings blinking. Emily Fenn picks up the theme in a slow turn of the head. Turning, dipping, gazing out, hanging forward, evenly sweeping both arms and a leg in a wide half circle, thrusting into sharply stressed sideways bends, flashing her hands over her eyes, she always returns to an erect posture and a straight torso and brings the piece to a reticent close. But it's the frank, good-natured quality of the men's sections (the dog, the lobster, the fisherman) - the least dancerly and freest in feeling - that stays with you when it's over.
At 85 Mercer Street (January 20 to 29).
Alice Kaltman's Maine travelogue, Owl's Head, is a kind of episodic vaudeville in eight segments - some playful, others studied and more nearly abstract. The space at 85 Mercer Street seems nearly cubical, with an exuberant blue and green painted backdrop by Willy Hook of big tempestuous waves. Hung close to the ceiling is a striped beach chair, a bright beach umbrella, a huge oar, a lobster trap, and a wooden seagull with propeller wings.
The introductory section, to an intermittent tape announcing Maine towns, tourist sights, and special events like the Dixie Bull regatta, is a solo for Kaltman - aggressive, high-stepping, sputtery. She displays a determination that seems stiffened by the abrupt, emphatic way she bits off a phrase and thwarted by the dimensions of the space: nothing can continue very far in any direction. In the second solo, "Loon", to taped bird calls, Kate Mitchell, in a black leotard and tights, with her hair capped and a loose, glossy white fabric across her upper chest, steps eagerly, cleanly into perching balances, with her arms open and floating. But big poised shapes with nowhere to go read uncomfortably ad suggest a misplaced confidence. Instead of clear achievement, they seem like the tail end of an impulse. Whatever happens next must be smaller.
Happily, some of what's nicest in Owl's Head, and in this section, are those smaller things, the more delicate, ephemeral gestures that convey a subtlety of mood or character - shivery movements of the arms, fragile shudders of the chest and shoulders, slow reeling moves of the arms and upper torso, the limp, jointed, zigzag descent of an arm. "Fetch", a section for a young girl in a long, pale blue dress and a spotted dog (David Hurwith) is simple and charming. Hurwith, hands floppy, bounds and rolls and prances almost dreamily, almost waltzing. The girl tosses a big rawhide chew-stick bone which, attached to a wire, boomerangs in an easy circle. "Fetch" is quiet and winning, partly because the two are gently absorbed with each other. We are not their total focus. Anyway, it's the almost offhand, naive sections like this which are most pleasing. Like two men in fishing gear who drag in a net loaded with dancers, and bounce, spin, hop - rhythmically galumphing, broadly casting and reeling in - to a sparkling Irish tune. The three dancers pick themselves out of the net for the next part, doing slow dives and tight shuffles to the sound of surf. They're fish, puffing, rolling, heaving themselves up, kicking their feet, lying pretty still on the floor where they've been landed. They're in pink fishnet tops spangled with those bid plastic sequins popular on older women's knotted hats. Read fish scales for spangles.
But the literal idea is too crude here. Similarly, the blue and green costume Annuel Dowdell wears for "Wind", with swatches of cloth dangling off the shoulders, is cliched and inelegant. But some of the costumes, literal or suggestive, are beautifully conceived, like the black-and-white loon outfit or a lobster, or a pair of gulls in this section, in light blue leotards and tights, with their hair capped and shreddy oversize t-shirts. The boss seagull (the Seagull Queen) comes in, holding her arms like stiff wings, and with sharp, pulled-up legwork, pokes at the "fish" with her feet. Two other gull/girls (Mercy Sidbury, Gail Teton), accenting their scavenging aspect in the way their heads sag forward from hunched shoulders, like vultures, pull up the "fish" with their feet, then drag two of them off. They're marvelously creepy, spiky twitchy in the shoulders as pally and alike as Heckle and Jeckle and a bit, too, like Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein.
The costumes gets an immediate laugh in "Snap", with the sight of lean, long-limbed Paul Engler in a red cap, red sweat pants and fat red mittens. His syncopated routine with its throbbing feet, hopping, big snatching gestures, and spraddling half-turns is a bonus. In the final section, "Lighthouse", a steady flashlight beam swings in an arc, then swings blinking. Emily Fenn picks up the theme in a slow turn of the head. Turning, dipping, gazing out, hanging forward, evenly sweeping both arms and a leg in a wide half circle, thrusting into sharply stressed sideways bends, flashing her hands over her eyes, she always returns to an erect posture and a straight torso and brings the piece to a reticent close. But it's the frank, good-natured quality of the men's sections (the dog, the lobster, the fisherman) - the least dancerly and freest in feeling - that stays with you when it's over.
At 85 Mercer Street (January 20 to 29).
High Rollers
February 14
The atmosphere was particularly light on the third night of Channel Z’s performances at the Ethnic Folk Arts Center. A marvelously apt group of improvisers (Paul Langland, Diane Madden, Stephen Petronio, Randy Warshaw, Robin Feld, Nina Martin, Daniel Lepkoff). In most of their professional careers they get to do things right. But improvising together they can mix challenge and cooperation in a special way: free to fumble, to go too far, to resist, to make trouble, to mastermind a screw-up, to follow an impulse as long as it seems interesting. They, in fact, kept alive a dippy, infectious group spirit of playfulness. One of the qualities that made the evening such a delight was the performer’s directness - plenty of occasional role-playing and playacting, but no attitude. They reminded me very much of the nearly-legendary Grand Union in their blend of elements and distinctly engaging personalities. They talked if they wanted to, were obvious in their jokes, blundered good-naturedly when the mood struck, mocked themselves kindly, and danced superbly.
The space was arranged with the audience facing the dancers on a diagonal, with a row of TV monitors turned toward the dancers. I’m happy to say I never found out what, if anything, was on those screens, but when the lights were down, they cast a useful, low-key illumination.
Warming-up wasn’t very different in character from performing, except for its sparseness and fragmentation. We’re listening to cocktail music. Petronio bounces sharply with little backward jerks, does some gorgeous squiggly leaps. Madden, a bit of hair pulled into a little fountain jet on top of her head, slumps back into a wall. Warshaw massages Lepkoff’s back; then they push against each other, switch into heavy, slow pulls. Warsaw rubs his head into Lepkoff’s back, Petronio and Martin flap closely around each other with cushiony sort of movement. He’s barefoot. She wears what I first think are clodhoppers, but are just thick-soled running shoes. Everybody seems to be wearing any old thing so long as it’s comfortable. Style conscious they’re not.
They begin officially with the lights out, coming into a line. Two of them naturally wander off just then, but return. At one end, Petronio and Madden kiss and feel each other up. When they stop, the same impulse begins to travel the line from the other end. Langland pulls Martin’s sweater, touches her chest while she levitates. She turns to Warshaw, places her hand against his crotch, snuggles her head and chest against him. Warshaw kisses and maybe licks Feld who feels Lepkoff’s chest and crotch and gives him a big kiss. Lepkoff kisses Petronio who turns round to Madden, but she sneaks behind him as he makes do with caressing her imaginary body. I liked that lineup - what it said to me was: we know each other pretty well, we’re fond of each other, we’re not afraid of each other.
Together, Langland, with abrupt springy moves, and Martin, with sporty jumps, work their way to the ante-room and then, surprisingly, out the door. In a moment, they bundle in a bunch of latecomers. All seven doorways along the right-hand wall - usually ignored - are used frequently tonight to disappear into, to pop out of, to spy from. Madden and Langland snake around each other. Warshaw moves sideways, bent-legged; Petronio and Langland pick up on those side-to-side shifting balances; Warshaw topples sideways, Petronio dives; Lepkoff and he coil, snag, swing around together.
Nina Martin lopes in a circle, slanting nearer and nearer to the floor as she runs until she slides down. She lays there for a while. Warshaw and Langland call to her “I fell down,” she says. “I’m too embarrassed to get up.” When she does get up, she runs in big figure eights, again leaning in too far and falling. Feld gives her a hand to help her up. Martin plunks her foot in her hand. Petronio and Langland appear from a doorway and fall into a similar position on the floor. Warshaw, I think, joins them. They spring and bang around on their backs like turtles. “Is this what you were doing?” asks Langland. “No,” he answers for Martin. “It doesn’t hurt enough.” everyone offstage is watching. They play out this silliness for a long time, and it’s marvelous. Martin’s long gone. Warshaw and Langland count foggily and try to bounce themselves erect with spastic thunks, traveling a good way around the space. They get to rocking together, revving up, wind up pinned on top of each other.
Petronio belly-bumps Martin, slides into her. She knocks into him. When he lifts her up, she goes all swanny, and then slithers through his arms to the floor. She hoists him across her shoulders. “Very heavy,” she mumbles, and lets him down easy. Lepkoff does a lovely skipping solo. An intermission is announced and doesn’t happen.
It’s always hard to convey what’s so splendid and rare abut such an offhand-seeming occasion. So what if the dancers have been working together for a year? They’re all what you call “nice movers,’ but it’s not the dancing that’s so special - it’s the interchange. Un-self-consciousness is a big part of it, and the mix of occasional talk and banter, the timely incident that gets blown into a big deal, he quality of sharing with, rather than performing to, the audience.
At Ethnic Folk Arts Center (January 28 to 30).
The atmosphere was particularly light on the third night of Channel Z’s performances at the Ethnic Folk Arts Center. A marvelously apt group of improvisers (Paul Langland, Diane Madden, Stephen Petronio, Randy Warshaw, Robin Feld, Nina Martin, Daniel Lepkoff). In most of their professional careers they get to do things right. But improvising together they can mix challenge and cooperation in a special way: free to fumble, to go too far, to resist, to make trouble, to mastermind a screw-up, to follow an impulse as long as it seems interesting. They, in fact, kept alive a dippy, infectious group spirit of playfulness. One of the qualities that made the evening such a delight was the performer’s directness - plenty of occasional role-playing and playacting, but no attitude. They reminded me very much of the nearly-legendary Grand Union in their blend of elements and distinctly engaging personalities. They talked if they wanted to, were obvious in their jokes, blundered good-naturedly when the mood struck, mocked themselves kindly, and danced superbly.
The space was arranged with the audience facing the dancers on a diagonal, with a row of TV monitors turned toward the dancers. I’m happy to say I never found out what, if anything, was on those screens, but when the lights were down, they cast a useful, low-key illumination.
Warming-up wasn’t very different in character from performing, except for its sparseness and fragmentation. We’re listening to cocktail music. Petronio bounces sharply with little backward jerks, does some gorgeous squiggly leaps. Madden, a bit of hair pulled into a little fountain jet on top of her head, slumps back into a wall. Warshaw massages Lepkoff’s back; then they push against each other, switch into heavy, slow pulls. Warsaw rubs his head into Lepkoff’s back, Petronio and Martin flap closely around each other with cushiony sort of movement. He’s barefoot. She wears what I first think are clodhoppers, but are just thick-soled running shoes. Everybody seems to be wearing any old thing so long as it’s comfortable. Style conscious they’re not.
They begin officially with the lights out, coming into a line. Two of them naturally wander off just then, but return. At one end, Petronio and Madden kiss and feel each other up. When they stop, the same impulse begins to travel the line from the other end. Langland pulls Martin’s sweater, touches her chest while she levitates. She turns to Warshaw, places her hand against his crotch, snuggles her head and chest against him. Warshaw kisses and maybe licks Feld who feels Lepkoff’s chest and crotch and gives him a big kiss. Lepkoff kisses Petronio who turns round to Madden, but she sneaks behind him as he makes do with caressing her imaginary body. I liked that lineup - what it said to me was: we know each other pretty well, we’re fond of each other, we’re not afraid of each other.
Together, Langland, with abrupt springy moves, and Martin, with sporty jumps, work their way to the ante-room and then, surprisingly, out the door. In a moment, they bundle in a bunch of latecomers. All seven doorways along the right-hand wall - usually ignored - are used frequently tonight to disappear into, to pop out of, to spy from. Madden and Langland snake around each other. Warshaw moves sideways, bent-legged; Petronio and Langland pick up on those side-to-side shifting balances; Warshaw topples sideways, Petronio dives; Lepkoff and he coil, snag, swing around together.
Nina Martin lopes in a circle, slanting nearer and nearer to the floor as she runs until she slides down. She lays there for a while. Warshaw and Langland call to her “I fell down,” she says. “I’m too embarrassed to get up.” When she does get up, she runs in big figure eights, again leaning in too far and falling. Feld gives her a hand to help her up. Martin plunks her foot in her hand. Petronio and Langland appear from a doorway and fall into a similar position on the floor. Warshaw, I think, joins them. They spring and bang around on their backs like turtles. “Is this what you were doing?” asks Langland. “No,” he answers for Martin. “It doesn’t hurt enough.” everyone offstage is watching. They play out this silliness for a long time, and it’s marvelous. Martin’s long gone. Warshaw and Langland count foggily and try to bounce themselves erect with spastic thunks, traveling a good way around the space. They get to rocking together, revving up, wind up pinned on top of each other.
Petronio belly-bumps Martin, slides into her. She knocks into him. When he lifts her up, she goes all swanny, and then slithers through his arms to the floor. She hoists him across her shoulders. “Very heavy,” she mumbles, and lets him down easy. Lepkoff does a lovely skipping solo. An intermission is announced and doesn’t happen.
It’s always hard to convey what’s so splendid and rare abut such an offhand-seeming occasion. So what if the dancers have been working together for a year? They’re all what you call “nice movers,’ but it’s not the dancing that’s so special - it’s the interchange. Un-self-consciousness is a big part of it, and the mix of occasional talk and banter, the timely incident that gets blown into a big deal, he quality of sharing with, rather than performing to, the audience.
At Ethnic Folk Arts Center (January 28 to 30).