Juliette Mapp and Beth Gill present brave new works in New York. Once in a while you go to a dance performance and think you’re in a mysterious world, whose inhabitants are familiar to you. . .and yet. . .not. You think about them, ask yourself questions. Then you try to stop asking questions and just watch what they’re doing. That’s how I felt during two recent, deeply absorbing works: … [Read more...]
Diary of an Image
DD Dorvillier adds a new work to her month-long reassessment of her history in dance. DD Dorvillier always seems, in her choreographic projects, to be testing something. Perhaps it’s the audience’s perception of dance, or her own. She probes into the interactions of light and darkness, into the effect of space on sound vibrations, into the interference of objects on live dancers, and more. … [Read more...]
Printed on the Space
Beth Gill and New York Live Arts and Lance Gries at Danspace St. Marks make a virtue of economy. In the deserts of the American Southwest, everything counts: the immense sky, that butte over there, those spiky plants, the track in the red earth (lizard? Maybe). Beth Gill’s beautiful New Work for the Desert has that kind of clarity. Watching it, you sense open space and the trails that … [Read more...]
How Do You Define “Object”?
Some choreographers devote a lot of creative energy to finding a great new way to lift a leg (or a partner), or maybe split unison into counterpoint. Wally Cardona and Jennifer Lacey? Not so much. Undertaking alone—he in New York, she in Paris — the research that led to their joint project, Tool Is Loot (at the Kitchen September 22 through 24 and September 29 through October 1), they sought … [Read more...]