Archives for 2006

Thank you. I love the musical perspective. Dance utilizes her elements in similar ways. We choreographers can draw attention to things without creating connections. We can be still to call attention to motion, but it must be framed in order to read. Molissa Fenley did a piece 25 years ago that never stopped moving, and there was no line to etch the movement, and all I could think of was stillness. … [Read more...]

I thought the main part of Annie B's argument was about non-rhythm, the arrhythmic. The point wasn't to consider what rhythm is, but the thing that isn't it, and that thing's merit. It's a similar question to the harmony versus dissonance debate in music, although pretty much everyone now agrees on their intertwining. I think it's much better to think of these conceptual poles as tendencies … [Read more...]

I guess you're the hostess on this site, and it's great that you're concerned about our equilibrium, but I don't think you need to worry. I'm having a good time, and so far as I could tell Annie B expressed herself to her own satisfaction. I do want to expand on the idea of kinesthetic identification, since as a critic that's where I take off from. Many in the audience may "look" at the dance, but … [Read more...]

In the first sentence of the first entry of Foot in Mouth, I made what I assumed would be an incontrovertible and innocuous assertion: dance audiences are small. Paul Parish pointed out, in the very next entry, that millions watch ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" each week. A couple of posts later, he and Annie-B Parson, codirector of the glorious Big Dance Theater, got into a discussion about the … [Read more...]

... I promised an essay today. It will be coming either later today or tomorrow morning. Also, it won't be on the promised topic. I know I'm beginning to sound like the Monty Python restaurant that--what was it?--has nothing on offer to eat, but about the topic, at least, I have this excuse: Douglas McClennan, the lovely and incredibly hardworking founder and main force behind Arts Journal, … [Read more...]

Well I actually wasn't thinking about the comfort zone. I was asking why rhythm would necessarily be a more interesting element than any other element that dance is composed of. Rhythm, or any other element or combination of elements, is only as good as its choreographer, inside or outside the comfort zone. I would disagree with you also, Paul, when you say rhythm sets us apart from animals. It … [Read more...]

it ws ME that cheered...... at least, in Berkeley, I was the only one. it was funky -- literally, the weight and attack that belongs to funk, that's what I felt about it. I've only seen it once. Apollinaire adds: In New York, at the State Theater, there was a small contingent of cheerers. They were seated in the first balcony, in the usual balletomane corner, and my first thought was that the … [Read more...]

[from this first bit from previous post, Apollinaire asks:] Paul, did you see Cunningham's 2002 "Loose Time," with that incredibly impossible solo by Holley Farmer at its apex? It seems to me that it was made EXACTLY according to the principle of legato for one leg, allegro for the other, and it was so exciting that the audience CHEERED: a Cunningham audience cheering smack in the middle of a … [Read more...]

no time to post MUCH right now, but all I meant is that from my observation, the only choreography that's POPULAR is based in rhythm.... I think that rhythm is a primitive interest, one of the basic things that sets human beings apart from other animals is the love of moving together in time -- rhythm interests everybody, and very deeply, and is perhaps the most important shared thing between … [Read more...]

Why would rhythmically based choreography necessarily have more interest than the example you give of the two sides of the body performing disparate intentions? Both utilize simple dance elements, so why the hierarchy? [editor's note: Annie-B Parson is co-choreographer and co-director with Paul Lazar of the widely acclaimed Big Dance Theater, based in New York] … [Read more...]