Bill Young/Colleen Thomas & Co. February 22 & 23 I’m sitting in Bill Young and Colleen Thomas’s loft waiting for the rest of the audience to straggle in, greet friends, maybe pick up something to drink, and settle down for the program of dance in LIT No. 19 (Loft into Theater). Memories assail me, specifically those filed away under “good old days in NYC,” when … [Read more...]
Hunger Appeased? Maybe Not
Kimberly Bartosik/daela premieres I hunger for you at Lumberyard. Lumberyard first appeared in Maryland in 2011, providing residencies for dance artists who were preparing new work. It resurfaced this past summer in stunning new quarters in Catskill, New York as a center for performances and film showings and opened its inaugural season at the end of September. On October 12 and 13, … [Read more...]
Re-envisioning Shreds of Memory
John Jasperse presents a new work at BAM Harvey, September 21-24. John Jasperse’s new Remains has a clarity so exquisite that images from it have pasted themselves into my memory. The piece, which premiered at the BAM Harvey this past week, shows some of these images to us many times, but in different ways; imagine a painted group scene, from which someone has clipped individual figures and … [Read more...]
Blurring Thresholds
John Jasperse brings diverse sources and his own history into a bold new work at New York Live Arts, May 28 through 31. John Jasperse is not the kind of choreographer who draws a movement style out of his own body and sensibility and sticks with it. He reacts to ideas floating around in the culture, queries his own practice, tries something he hasn’t tried before. Often the movement he … [Read more...]
Consider the Body
Maybe this is something you haven’t scrutinized before; maybe it’s a familiar sight. But I imagine you haven’t noticed an asshole in quite this way. To begin John Jasperse’s Fort Blossom revisited, Benjamin Asriel begins an arduous trek on his belly across the floor of New York Live Arts; arms at his sides, he undulates along by a smooth process of humping and arching. Depending on where you’re … [Read more...]