Posts Tagged ‘performance’

Movement Media is proud to announce that on December 3rd, Kinetic Cinema will be curated by Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre, a New York-based contemporary dance theatre company that has developed a unique process using Skype to create new work during the temporary relocation of Artistic Director Samar Haddad King to Palestine.

On October 21 & 22 the company will premiere their latest performance project, Bound at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, examining the lives of nine individuals living under occupation. For Kinetic Cinema, they will provide a demonstration of their unique working technique with Samar Haddad King live on Skype, along with a curated selection of videos related to Bound.

Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre has been hailed as “awesomely athletic” by Chicago Stage Style, and “Like a ray of light coming out of the arid desert…leaving the audience mesmerized in their seats” by Hussein Daaseh, Al Rai. You can more about their long distance creative process in this article by Jennifer Edwards for the Huffington Post.

Here is a video about the making of Bound.

BOUND

October 21-22, 2011 at 7:30pm

LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Mainstage Theater
31-10 Thomson Ave, Long Island City
7 Train to 33 St/ Rawson St
Tickets: $15 Advance / $20 at the door / $10 Students
www.ysdt.org

Kinetic Cinema with Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre

Saturday December 3rd, 4:30pm

CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing)
123 4th Ave, 2nd FL
New York, NY  10003
212.677.8621
info@crsny.org
$10 suggested donation

As a student in the Florida State University in NYC program, I was fortunate enough to be invited into Noémie LaFrance’s work studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to discuss her new project. Sitting in wooden chairs in the homey brick apartment, Noémie entered the room spewing information about her newest work, the White Box Project. In response to our questions, she explained that she is ever-interested in infusing dance with the everyday. The Black Box is known as a place to sit in an audience and to be spoonfed a presentation. Hence, the White Box.

Successfully, the White Box Project is the furthest thing from a proscenium, concert dance performance. As I entered the museum space, I was approached by what I thought to be a fellow observer, and naively pushed out the back door into the cement enclosed porch. The crowd chattered and looked around skeptically, until suddenly and miraculously the room fell totally silent (a brilliant tactic brought about by the performers, I realized on my second visit).  As the hour passed, it became clear that at least one of the men in the room was a performer. He, in my opinion, took on the role of the initiator; the leader. Otherwise, I was completely unsure as to who was a performer, and who was an observer. As a woman dressed in a trendy black coat and heels stood inches from my face and proceeded to lie down on the cement in front of me, I battled myself with whether I should do the same.

The feeling of uncertainty gradually melted away, as we were put into groups by a few men and women, and whispered instructions…“On the count of three, run!” By the end, I felt more like a child playing games in the schoolyard than an audience member.

Noémie invited everyone in attendance that Saturday back to another showing, free of charge, to witness the constant changes being applied to the project each day. I arrived the next week, eager to scrutinize the events I knew would happen and to identify the changes, of which there were several. This time, there was more dialogue between the dancers and the crowd; I was asked incognito to learn a succinct dance step, and teach it to another. Again, the realization that everyone was in clear groups/teams near the close of the work came with a playful sentiment. I was a participant, not a spectator. I cannot assume that this feeling fell upon every person in the ‘box’, but each individual surely brought something of their own to the experience, simply by entering the space.

The White Box is not a dance show. It is instead a mind game of sorts. Whether or not one chooses to run and turn the length of the walls at the demands of a scruffy man whose role is unknown is irrelevant. Choosing to act is participation. Choosing not to act, also, is participation. The audience ultimately, and blindly, has control of the show.

Carly Lozo is a dance major at Florida State University and an intern with Pentacle’s Movement Media this fall.

Ann Robideaux, Sternberg Park Dances

August 22, 2011, 8pm

Sternberg Park (map)

Bushwick, Brooklyn

Local park-goers of all ages, encouraged by choreographer Ann Robideaux, participate in a community dance collaboration resulting in a montage of movement and other talents for the camera. Open to everyone, this site-specific dance film celebrates Sternberg Park’s unique personalities and social community in one of Williamsburg’s most historic parks.

Full details on the MovieHouse website.

by Nicholas Bruder

Pina Bausch was one of those living legends. Her work has been seen by many. Her influence is felt throughout the dance world, and her memory will live in the history books, although she had already infiltrated them.

Her choreography reached a wider audience when snippets of Cafe Muller was shown in Pedro Almodovar’s film Talk to Her. Bausch’s work had a raw and timeless cloud around it. Her pieces were about “things,” not just one “something.” Metaphor was huge. The relationships between men and women always being dissected and presented to an audience that never knew what exactly they were going to see when she premiered a new work.

And the scale of the pieces were unthinkable. Snow falling on stage for a whole second half of a show. A mound of dirt blocking half of the stage. Flowers, chairs, walls, screams, sweat, tears, bruises. All real. Although the visuals were impressive, I do not believe they were ever used to impress upon. I feel that her work was honest and humble. It was ugly and beautiful. If one opened themselves up to the experience of the dancers, they would leave exhausted, but not abused. Bausch was true to her vision and dancers. The audience had to take the role of accepting that and to enjoy the ride, no matter how uncomfortable it might get. The pieces always ended beautifully.

Her pieces were made to be seen in grand, large theaters, but the attention that she asked for, and got, from the audience, was that of an intoxicating program on television.

Her work, I feel, was living cinematogrophy. There are many clips of her work around the Internet that can be found and enjoyed. But the greatest news is Bausch’s collaboration with famous film director, Wim Wellers Wenders. Before she passed, they announced plans to create and film a retrospective documentary on Bausch, and in 3-D. Wenders had cancelled the production after her death, but through public opinion and the amount of letters he received from lovers of Bausch’s work, he will be continuing on with the project.

A 3-D film on the life and work of Pina Bausch. This might be one of the best gifts that the dance world will receive. And in 3-D!! It might seem cheesy, but personally I have only had the privilege to see one Bausch piece live, and I am welcoming the opportunity to see another, in a way, Bausch original.

So before we get into the pre-production goodness, there is, in the true fashion of all things dance, an update that affects, well, everything. To start, my soloist dancer Julia has a major neck injury/illness, and won’t be able to move for a while (probably somewhere around three weeks).  So that’s something. Additionally (perhaps for the best) a sudden rain/snow leek at the production co’s office directly on top of my work station and computer put us behind a few days (although, wouldn’t you know it, that little G4 took the water like a pro, and is back up and running!).

So there’s that.  However, while i can’t fascinate you with all the exciting post-production details that we’ve yet to discuss at our yet-to-be meeting, i can take this post to tell you about the general structure for this piece, and the side project that’s developed off of it.

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