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Dance Until You Drop: High-Kicking On Celluloid

Brandon Judell — Fri, 20 Jul 2018 14:00:00 +0000

Dance Until You Drop: High-Kicking On Celluloid Brandon Judell July 20, 2018 - 10:00

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Lincoln Center

As Nietzsche noted, "We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once." The man who buried God would no doubt add, if still around, that watching a film or two on this most active of the arts a fine substitute.

And to make it easier for those of us who wish to honor Terpsichore by perching instead of pirouetting, The Film Society of Lincoln Center and Dance Films Association will for the 46^th straight year screen full-length documentaries and shorts from 17 countries within 16 joyously distinct programs.

From American tap to Mexican acrobatics, from Marcel Marceau to Spike Jonze, and from Japan to Finland, visual treasures will be unearthed that will make you rethink every aspect of dance that you were once so sure about.

For example, "Bleeding and Burning," a two-minute Canadian short directed by Guillaume Marin, in addition to causing you to ponder, supplies a pulsating finale that just might trigger a few seizures. Featuring the dancers Anabel Gagnon and Victoria Mackenzie -- one fully garbed in red fabric from head to toe, the other in black -- the duo sometimes encase each other, when not bombarding their other half. Heavily edited with a pounding accompaniment, the film, the press notes claim, is "an eerie encounter between a malleable human form and a galaxy unknown." I saw a Middle-Eastern woman fighting for survival against a specter of death. Possibly the same conclusion.

Stephen Featherstone's short, "Stopgap in Stop Motion," highlights how a company that "employs both disabled and non-disabled artists [can] find innovative ways to collaborate." Not unlike what The Apothetae brilliantly demonstrates with the current production of Teenage Dick at the Public Theater, the British Stopgap Dance Company accomplishes on both film and no doubt live.

Cleverly choreographed by Lucy Bennett, the film showcases black-and-white photographs of the troupe situated on a colorful office desk with its pens, pencil sharpener, and eraser. Suddenly the dancers come alive and let loose, eventually breaking out of the boundaries of the snapshots, an appropriate metaphor if there ever was one. Clearly, this work provides evidence that great art thrives on limitations, assumed or otherwise.

Marie Brodeur's A Man of Dance (Un homme de danse) begins with Vincent Warren noting, "I love what Agnes de Mille used to say, 'Dance is written on air.'" He might have added, noting his own career, "It's also written with blood, sweat, and tears."

Mr. Warren was born in Florida in 1938, the youngest of 14 children. At age 10, he saw The Red Shoes, and instantly became infatuated with ballet. He started a scrapbook on dance and began paying for his own lessons with an after-school job. He not unexpectedly wasthe only boy in the class. Then, in his teens, he eventually realized he did not fit into the macho culture he was born into so it was off to New York City to develop his talent and to be gay.

Warren soon became the poet Frank O'Hara’s lover, and remained so until O'Hara’s tragic death on Fire Island. With his world turned topsy-turvy, he eventually wound up with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, retired at age 40, became a renowned dance teacher, and later a highly recognized dance historian.

"Sometimes I meet people who remember me as a dancer. Maybe some old ladies It's something you have to accept." Vincent Warren

A Man of Dance, which begins with Warren packing up his home in box after box, ends with him in his new, smaller abode with the physical remnants of his life more squeezed together.

Clearly articulating the joys and frustrations that accompany one's career in dance, this biography spotlights the early aching of the joints, the lack of decent salaries, and the strains placed upon romance. It also asks why choreographers do not create pieces for older dancers.

Summing it all up, the grey-haired former star states, "We weren’t rich, but we were happy." Sadly, Mr. Warren won't be at Lincoln Center for the New York premiere of the documentary. He died in 2017, one year after the film was completed.

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Video of the Week: M3LL155X

Dusty Wright — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 02:54:42 +0000

Video of the Week: M3LL155X Dusty Wright August 20, 2015 - 22:54

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British singer, songwriter, producer and dancer FKA twigs has released a brand new EP entitled M3LL155X (Young Turks), that features five songs, four of which -- "Figure 8," "I'm Your Doll," "In Time," "Glass & Patron" -- are accompanied by a video directed by FKA twigs herself. The four film pieces form one continuous FKA twigs-directed work, cementing who she is as an artist with an aggressive statement conceptualizing the process of feeling pregnant with pain, birthing creativity and liberation. She breathes a quiet but potent energy into every frame. One of the freshest musicians on the scene today.

Album of the Week: Awakening

Dusty Wright — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 22:47:57 +0000

Album of the Week: Awakening Dusty Wright June 13, 2014 - 18:47

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David Starfire - Awakening (Amrita Recordings)

I'm not much of a DJ music freak, but when I do feel the urge I turn to my friend David Starfire. One of the smartest cats I've ever heard, his collisions of hypnotic worldbeat soundtracks and clever samples are second to none. (You Burners know what I'm talking about!) For a limited time he's offering his latest Psydub album -- Awakening -- for free. and it features collaborators Ganga Giri, Jamie Janover, Rik Shiva, Casey Forest Riley, and a remix by Kaya Project. Just put 0 when prompted on the download instructions. That's insane, but I know he'll make it back tenfold on his next live DJing gig. 'Til then, let this kick off your Saturday night party. Boo ya!

SEVEN is and 7 are...

Robert Cochrane — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 15:21:45 +0000

SEVEN is and 7 are... Robert Cochrane March 14, 2009 - 11:21

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Designer Body BALLETlorent

The Lowry Theatre, Manchester, UK

March 13, 2009

The Lowry stage resembles a gaudy swamp. Dimly lit, and soundtracked by an insistent electronic hum, seven circular plinths turn slowly. A suggestion of dry ice rises around this haunting installation, each platform draped in rich fabric, as though seven haughty models have flounced off, leaving in their wake opulent drapes in artistic heaps. As the lights change and the music rises, there are shifts amongst the discarded cloth. Gradually, from a cocoon of fabric, figures emerge to stand elegant and poised. They resemble Victorian Bohemians. The men are in foppish top hats, the women in elegant dresses. Velvets, brocades, and silks combine in a cavalcade of finery.

A surrealistic dream made flesh. They move in synchronized perfection. The plinths constantly revolve, sometimes in the opposite direction to their tenants. It is a tribute to the dancers that they maintain their difficult positions without a hint of unease. In this battalion of grace, each employs skirts or frock coats to extend the magnitude of their gestures. The effect is haunting and refined, a treat to the eye. Like escaped music box dancers they twirl and shift shape, whilst remaining marooned on their ever-turning platforms, simultaneously unified and isolated. When all collapse on the edges of their small revolving worlds to prostrate themselves like wounded birds, or freshly pinned butterflies, trapped but alive, this cavalcade of movement, color, and form continues to draw the audience along. Occasionally one dancer breaks free from the actions of the rest, a visual insubordination that is all too fleeting, and a subtle surprise to the uniformity of the proceedings.

The stage resembles a dressmaker's floor at the end of the day, for as the piece unfolds, the dancers shed their clothes with invisible discretion. The organic piles that grew into the expensively attired figures now resemble seven flailing and exaggerated life-class models. We have passed through a landscape by Dali into the scene from old tin lids of Quality Street and are now witnessing a cross between an art class and the dissection room. As they writhe naked on their plinths like victims of Pompeii, or outstretch their arms like wingless angels, their previously robed and refined exertions are exposed and bare. Simplicity lies at the heart of such an uncluttered ensemble.

The final moments of this magical piece are both uplifting and melancholy as darkness slowly claims the proceedings and the soundtrack rumbles into silence. The problem with much work of this kind lies in a failure to connect. Such an issue does not arise here, a fact betrayed by the prolonged applause the audience provides.

Designer Body retains a serene power derived from Liv Lorent's restrained choreography, the cohesive strength of the visual narrative ably supported by the isolated sense of gravitas each performer exudes.

A lingering reward, a visual treat, and an hour from which each viewer can individually savor and interpret at their own leisure. They are left to recognize aspects of themselves, invisible partners in an exquisite burlesque.