...What’s really going on is all inside our heads, in the transformation of arbitrary detail into meaning, the exploration of how memories lodge in our minds and eventually take on personal resonance. For example, how does an image of God’s hands, starting out as big goofy Mickey Mouse-like hands attached to an unremarkable naked guy change from being completely silly to being a symbol for the creative spark that gives something like a dance performance life and an image that gives you goosebumps?
...Punning, lexical stopgaps, and rhyming riffs that match rhyming patterns of movement give the choreography its head. Sonya and Layla’s collaborative planning is repeated and dramatized in a French-style film that is shown—which, in its café-time pacing, serves to establish the work’s overall rhythmic structure. God is introduced as an idea and then as a nude boy with giant hand mitts whose movements are at once imperious and amateurish—retro hand chairs are also utilized as metonymic props which seem to imply the transferability of divinity....
...Later in the performance, when the dance vocabulary is repeated without language, you remember all of the associations of the spoken phrases, so that the now-wordless dance is imbued with meanings that you recognize. This is something that is difficult to achieve in a dance work, since movement, unlike language, does not carry a codified meaning, and so it is difficult to create meaning and recognition by using movement. I think this is something they are able to achieve through their reduced vocabulary and their way of re-using it and recycling it in new ways, with new configurations of dancers, so that new meanings are constantly being generated. In this way, it is a very ecological piece, employing the motto of “reduce, re-use, and recycle”…using reduced means to create rich results.....
I never much liked modern dance when growing up. Once I remember arriving at Lincoln Center too late to get in to see Martha Graham’s company perform. We watched her on a TV set from the lobby and it all felt cold and very far away. Another time I saw Merce Cunningham’s troupe perform at Westbeth, a loft on the lower west side of Manhattan, and was left feeling like a private ritual had been performed in front of me, one that was not to be understood by the uninitiated....
Here’s the thing: I’ve never seen anything that didn’t intrigue me at Mt. Tremper Arts. Kudos to AynsleyVandenbroucke and Mathew Pokoik for offering such a variety of work to the audiences and supporting the artists with such heart during these celebrations. This has been true since the first one I attended and the one I performed in with Vincent Thomas and was absolutely exemplified last night. Here’s my stream of consciousness response, followed by a translation into more follow-able, critical thought: Lots of solos and duets on the program. Why are those lights flashing so much? The space is filling with water and baritone. Ocean, piano, opera, nascar racing...
Hilary Easton + Company’s performance of Noise + Speed last night left my head swirling. In a good way. During the course of the hour-long performance, set to music and text, I found myself drawn in again and again and again. Which brings me to my first observation: the challenge of staying totally present to a work of art like a dance performance. Much of my experience of art has been limited to queuing up behind a line of other spectators to stand for a few moments in front of a painting, photograph or sculpture in a crowded museum. Only in recent years have I learned to sit in front of piece for a half hour or more, letting it work on me. But watching a dance performance demands a sustained close attention to the action and a wider awareness that can take in the music, the energy inside the space, movements happening on the periphery, etc....
Almost from the first beat of the performance, I felt the breath in my belly deepen and slow down. This is a typical response of mine to artistic expression, but I was watching a dance called Noise + Speed. The music was dissonant and the dancers’ staccato, angular movements reflected that. So, why was I feeling so relaxed? Noise and a fast and frenzied existence usually engender sensations I struggle to keep at bay. The dancers in front of me, however, were choosing a different response: they were allowing these sensations to penetrate them and to embody the dissonance they heard. How did that embodiment make them feel? Did they, too, feel relaxed, and was that feeling of relaxation communicating itself to me....
Dear Aynsley and Mathew:
I want to congratulate you on the success of your festival, Mt. Tremper Arts.
By creating anything new, we embody the spirit of Walt Whitman, who believed in nothing more than he believed in the possibility inherent in the American experience to set precedent; to do what has not been done before; to decide for ourselves that, yes, this is how we want things to be, even if it means breaking from tradition and/or propriety.
Although, with new things come risks. I’m sure you both know, as artists, that it is impossible to satisfy the taste of every person who comes into contact with artwork. Artists are always aware of this conundrum, and each finds her/his own relationship between their work and the public. We must agree, though, that, in terms of art, it is always better to err on the side of risk. Risk is how we grow, discover, and learn.
That is why I would like to commend you for the risk you both took to program–without interference–the dance work of Elke Rindfleisch, whose two dances I found compelling, bold, enigmatic, incisive, and thoroughly brave.
On Saturday I went to see Dusan Tynek’s Dance Theatre perform two pieces, Fleur-de-Lis and Apian Way, at Mount Tremper Arts. As a poet and writer, I find much of my expression through words, and was blown away by the dancers’ precision and communication through the body. In both pieces there was a commitment from the dancers to connect with one another and the audience in such a concentrated way over an extended period of time with a clear and conscious ability to express story and emotion. Wordlessly....
I couldn’t help thinking that I have had very little exposure to dance and movement in my lifetime, so consequently it is very new art form for me. Like many of us who have grown up in this culture, we are exposed to a variety of art forms; painting, sculpture, music, photography etc. but movement seems to be the one form that we don’t experience much of. So to see last night’s performance was new, intriguing and I’d have to say refreshing....