Choreographer Yasmeen Godder, who was born in Jerusalem and then moved to New York (where she studied at the High School of Performing Arts and Tisch School of the Arts at NYU), opened her new work entitled “Singular Sensation” at the Kitchen in New York City this past Thursday night.

This piece features five dancers who create a horror movie-esque feel and scene. They “slap themselves and poke out their tongues; they stick scissors in their (fake) breasts and wield blood-red talons on their fingers; they eat their appendages and vomit them out; they wrap their heads in stockings and smear green paint and red jelly over their bodies. By the end, they are drenched in sweat and goo”, according to a recent New York Times article entitled “With Flesh Like This, Who Needs Food?” (which can be read here).

The ultimate purpose of this dance is for the dancers and audience members to bring focus to sensations and consciousness. I think that through the grotesque and provocative nature of this performance, such a focus is reached. However, I personally find this display disturbing.

Take a look at a snippet from “Singular Sensation” here:

What do you think?

It’s pretty sad that we live in a world where a dance performance can’t be put on without bringing political protesters with it. Currently, an Israeli dance troupe called Batsheva Dance Company is performing at the Joyce Theater. On Saturday night’s New York Premiere of the male dancers, a huge crowd of members of Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel showed up not to watch the dance performance, but to protest the country of Israel and anything associated with it. “Adalah-NY has been protesting throughout Batsheva’s run, picketing and handing out pamphlets criticizing Israeli policies toward Palestinians and urging a boycott of the company.” In fact, protesters were seen yelling political accusations outside the theater like, “You’re dancing around apartheid.”

Because our country grants freedom of speech to all its citizens, the protesters were legally aloud to be there; however, it is morally important to our society that people have the common sense to differentiate between politics and art. Regardless of your personal stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I believe that it is inappropriate to transform the purely artistic pursuits of an Israeli dance company into a platform for protest.
Maybe, if the Israelis and Palestinians started recognizing the beauty in each other’s societies, such as dance, they would be able to make more progress in their goal of achieving peace.

Watch the Batsheva Dance Company’s new duet “B/olero”

Read about it in The New York Times

In the current state of economic depression, I’m always interested to see what kinds of art thrives and what kinds of art fail. The company “Dance New Amsterdam” is facing eviction from their school/performance space and even though they are stuck between a rock and a hard place, they are still performing unconventional pieces.

In this article in the Village Voice, one of their recent pieces is examined. What first drew me to the article was the phrase “Africa-Themed Duet”. I read on and I discovered that some parts of the dance piece didn’t seem very culturally accurate (including one part of the dance where rubber bands are thrown at the dancers).

It would be interesting to follow this story and see if the dance group can save their space and continue their unconventional work.

Voguing, a dance form characterized by an outside projection of fluid, yet strong and definite shapes. Named after the famous high couture publication, the form of dance was presented at the Whitney museum in Manhattan over the spring. Since I am a huge fan of vogue, I figured I would disregard the obvious outdated timestamp on the NY Times article from March in order to express my uncompromising love.

The article focused on the artist’s reworking and “reframing” of vogue, which has been around for 3 decades. Based around a single dancer, Newsome, who coordinated the installation, mainly concetrated his piece on a fairly recent form of vogue, called “vogue femme”.

“I like that style because it’s all about trying to portray this hyper-femininity,” he is quoted as saying.

Inspired by the 1990 film, “Paris Is Burning”, Mr. Newsome found his first “ball” (a vogue and drag competition) in New Orleans.

Unfortunately, the vogue installation at the Whitney only ran for a short time. If anyone is interested in attending a ball with me, please let me know! I’ve always wanted to share my love of vogue with others.

–by Drew Kozusko

Parson’s Dance at Bryant Park was a wonderful introduction to many aspects of the dance world. The artistry, dedication, fluid lines, athleticism, etc. were all in place. They also demonstrated an amazing capacity to rehearse and work. I love the inventiveness of Modern dance, but I also appreciate the “classical” lines that Parson’s incorporates. This clip juxtaposes those two strands of his work.

click here

As mentioned in an article one of my classmates posted recently about the “stand-offish” impression dancers leave, it was brought to my attention that the dancers are instructed not to make any sounds whatsoever during their performance.  This is to eliminate distractions and ensure that the audience is fully captured by the moment.  For this reason, an article from Time Out New York grabbed my attention.  The article describes how 62-year-old Canadian choreographer Paul-André Fortier performed his solo 30×30 (a 30 minute piece) in New York every day for 30 days straight.  He was out dancing on the concrete, rain or shine, starting every day at noon.  Fortier said that he wanted “a place where you don’t expect to see a man dancing”–one where people did not feel like they had to stay and watch the entire performance.

Here is a video clip of Fortier’s performance.

This is so unlike any dance performance that one would go to a theatre to see.  The theatre prohibits distractions; Fortier practically welcomed them.  I remember preparing to go to NYSSMA each year, and I can still hear my teacher telling me that I had to be super focused on playing or singing–so much so that if a bomb went off outside the room I was performing in, I would be able to carry on with the piece as if nothing had happened.  A bit over the top, for sure, but I got the point.  I can’t imagine how focused Fortier had to be in order to carry on with his dance performance despite so many various distractions.  If it was raining, he had to go on.  If he was freezing, he had to go on.  If no one stopped to watch him, he had to go on with his performance!  He must have had to put everything else out of his mind for the 30 minutes that he danced.  Or maybe he expressed how he was feeling each day through his dance.  Maybe his performance of 30×30 was different each day, depending on what was on his mind at the moment.  I think that is what Fortier wanted.  He wanted to do this sort of “raw” concert in New York to depict the life of a New Yorker (or other urban city dweller).  And at 62 years old!  It just fascinates me.

Check out the article here!

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a ballet dancer. They were the symbol of grace, beauty, and a whole other world. Of course, my little dream of becoming a ballerina did not last once I discovered how completely uncoordinated I was, but the beauty of ballet never faded in my mind. They were still so graceful and mysterious in their usually completely silent performance. Now, things are changing. Ballet dancers are trained to keep as silently as possible on stage, even their stages are specially designed to keep noise to a minimum. So the idea of a ballerina talking to the audience and introducing the show is definitely something very new and untraditional. The New York City Ballet are introducing a new idea to the dance, and making the audience connect more with the dancers. People are naturally curious and having the performers be more approachable seems like an excellent way to expand the field of ballet.

To read the article click Here

And here’s the website of the New York City Ballet

Sandra

New York City Ballet

This past Thursday night, our class had the pleasure of meeting Michael Gordon, an innovative composer, before attending a percussion concert performing his works. I found that this made the experience more personable and welcoming; it was comforting to know that the performers, organizers, and even the composer were willing to take time before the show to sit down and talk with us. This made me wonder if artists involved in bigger and more public productions do pre-show discussions as well. An article in the New York Times yesterday clarified my curiosity.

Surprisingly, this is becoming a practice featured before performances at the New York City Ballet. Ballet has always been a quiet and mysterious art-form, and so it often came across to viewers as “standoffish.” In order to erase such previous judgments, those involved in the company have decided to feature meet-the-dancer interactions. The goal is to connect the audience with the performers, which will hopefully increase ticket sales.

However, this seems unorthodox when compared to the dance’s established traditions. The performers were trained to not make a single sound when dancing – vocally or non-vocally – in order to have the audience become lost in a trance of art and beauty. The slightest noise from a dancer’s foot hitting the floor could easily distract a steady listener. Thus, the idea of speaking to an audience before a performance was not initially welcomed with enthusiasm. Now that they have experimented with the idea, the ice has been broken and the practice is becoming more popular. Other artists, such as painters and musicians, are also encouraged to do similar interactions in order to build relationships with their audiences.

As an artist myself, I couldn’t agree more with the idea. When one is forward with others, one gives off a sense of confidence and amiability, which are both attractive features. The more attractive the personality an artist has, the more people will be drawn into his/her crowd. I have experienced this phenomenon myself both ways – as a musician and an audience member. If one is looking to increase his/her popularity and attention, this is an excellent method to try.

To read more, click here for the article.

Since we are going to go see Fall for Dance soon as a class, I figured I would look in the dance section of the New York Times to freshen up my knowledge in that area a bit.  I came across an article about a famous ballet dancer, Jose Manuel Carreno, who will be retiring in August 2011.  Jose joined the American Ballet Theater in 1995 and has danced many important roles.  The article was short but I was intrigued so I figured I would look on  YouTube to see if there were any videos of  him dancing and there are plenty.  I can’t imagine the discipline and all the years of practice that have gotten him to where he is at now.  His talent is amazing so I figured I would share with you guys a short clip of him dancing solo.  If you want to see more, just type his name in the search box on youtube.com and you will get many results. Enjoy!

Click here to watch the youtube video!

click to read the article!

What first caught my eye while scrolling through the dance section in the news was not the title of the article or the content itself, but rather the author’s name, Alastair Macaulay. So I figured, with the name Macaulay, what could be bad? And I was right. Macaulay wrote a review on Michelle Obama’s recent hosting of the Fall for Dance program in the East Room of the White House.

Fall for Dance, as Prof. Smaldone told us in class, is an annual production presented by the City Center and it is something which most New York dance-goers take pride in. Fall for Dance combines various styles, giving new perspective to something already familiar.

Although space was constricting, various pieces were performed representing four major choreographers including Ailey (excerpts from the solo “Cry” and the group dance “Revelations”), George Balanchine (the “Tarantella” pas de deux), Paul Taylor (male quartet from “Cloven Kingdom”) and Twyla Tharp (a duet from “Nine Sinatra Songs”).

Aside from the exciting performances executed at the White House by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Nasha Thomas-Schmitt, co-director Ailey company’s Arts in Education program, held a class prior to the performance for nearly 100 students from schools all across America. As Judith Jamison, artistic director as Ailey, so cleverly put it, “Dance is the soul of this nation!”

Link to the article

The attack on September 11th happened just nine years ago. Many of you have your own story about what happened to you on that particular day, and the “Skyroom Project” was Raimund Hoghe’s recollection of the day. Raimund Hoghe is a German cheorographer who performed in this year’s Crossing the Line Festival with his piece “Skyroom Project”, a personal view of the attack on September 11th. I didn’t get a chance to see it and I’ve never even heard of him before reading the article, but it was very interesting to me how he put his memories into a dance. Personally, I’ve never seen a dance performance that was derived from a memory, it seems like a cool concept to be able to put together a string of movements to reenact something special (whether it was good or bad.) It is such a shame that I missed the show, if I had found out about it earlier, I definitely would have gone to see it.

Here’s the article of “Skyroom Project”

After reading the article, I decided to find out more about Raimund Hoghe and found a piece that he cherographed called Sans-titre, which is about being an illegal immigrant.

Here’s a video of Sans-titre

-Sandra Lau

I decided I would post about the Pilobolus Dance Theater I saw perform over the summers. I’m not a huge modern dance person but I found each piece they performed to be extremely compelling and fun. They have so many innovative and creative ways of combining movement and imagination.

I found this article discussing the group in the New York Times from 2007: check it out.

One of the pieces that really stuck out for me was a collaboration with Art Speigelman, whose work we will be studying in Dr. Davison’s class. I personally love seeing collaboration in the arts. It reminds that life is made up of so many different complexities that result in this beautifully messy mass that can sometimes only be reflected by art.

Here’s a link to the video of highlights from the Speigelman-Pilobolus collaboration: watch it!

You can find more of their videos on their youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/PilobolusDance

-Lara Porter

Merce Cunningham

This is a picture of Merce Cunningham, an extremely influential dancer and choreographer who passed away this year. You can read his obituary here.