Red Yellow Blue

Red,Yellow, Blue

The Equus Projects/ JoAnna Mendl Shaw and Ryan Hartley

The 4th Part of the DrawNow! River To River Festival on Governors Island

Sunday, 2:00, July 1, 2012 - FREE EVENT

I am constantly amazed at the 'hidden gems' I find throughout this vast city. Governor's Island is one such place, a peaceful oasis where time slows to a more relaxed pace with sprawling green hills, afternoon picnic goers, and tandem bicycles for rent. 

Last weekend I experienced the site specific work "Red, Yellow, Blue," a collaboration between The Equus Projects/ JoAnna Mendl Shaw and visual artist, Ryan Hartley. Dancers and painters both drew inspiration for their course of actions from the actions of each other.

Aimee Good, Director of Education and Community Programs at the Drawing Center, curated the DrawNow! River to River Festival. She explained the piece to me as "a real time collaboration between artists." DrawNow!  is presented by the River to River Festival and by the Drawing Center, whose ongoing mission is to constantly explore and expand the definition of drawing. Aimee further disclosed how throughout "Red, Yellow, Blue," drawing is present on tactile paper and also in metaphysical space allowing "dance gestures to be part of the dialogue."

...

Dancers charged and rebounded off the stoic brick walls of Fort Jay under the intense afternoon sun. Wielding a steel ladder overhead, the band of dancers flocked in spiral pathways and ping-ponged from wall to ledge. Using helicopter-like lifts, the dancers hoisted each other above their shoulders, spiraling and traveling in circles. Eventually the dancers mounted the ledge via ladder forging their own front row before the artwork.

Simultaneously, the artists upon the ledge interpreted the trajectory of dancers with the gestures of their brush movements on the oversize banner painting. Both narrating and directing the dancers, brushes swirled and swooped while cray pas scribbled and carved the dance out onto paper.

An appropriate ending, the artists assisted the dancers to step over the painting and exit beyond the group of onlookers; a final meld to this sunny collaboration.

photos by ACM

To learn more about the creation process for this piece including videos and drawings, see The Equus Projects' website, http://www.dancingwithhorses.org/performances.php

PRESS RELEASE

Rebirth

After a three year hiatus from blogging, I bring you the long awaited return of 'dancing on the edge.'

Next post coming soon! 

Dancing in a Crowd

review by Amber Connors

The struggle to find peace amidst chaos
BosmaDance’s, “Sky Kisses Earth”
Joe’s Movement Emporium, 4th Annual Gala, June 14, 2008
Meisha Bosma- Artistic Director/ Choreographer

What this second “Sky Kisses Earth” performance lacks in formalities of live music, it makes up for in the intimacy of space. Having witnessed the premier collaboration with Alexandria Symphony Orchestra in the Rachel Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center, I prefer the live music presentation. However, in the narrow confines of Joe’s Movement Emporium, raw emotions in facial expressions are more readable and comprehensible to the audience.

Seven dancers in brightly colored silk move clumsily; tripping bumping and chugging like crowded pedestrians. One at a time, a dancer removes them self from the bustling mass, to settle peacefully and calmly in a second position squat, breathing from the gut with an organic sway. In an awakening duet, dancer and choreographer Meisha Bosma catches her partner forcibly between her palms; placing one hand on her forehead, and the other on her partner’s jaw. By forcing her eyes to look out into space, Bosma was commanding her to see the reality of now. Her partner resists, stubbornly insisting on the role of empty vessel, eyes extended out beyond the manipulative hands, ignoring the efforts of Bosma.

Gallantly bounding onstage, dancer Daniel Zook plunges into action with an expressive solo comprised of engulfing leaps and swooping turns. His mustard-yellow silk dress trails after his body like a noble’s cape. At the climax, the seven dancers fall in sync with one another, lunging and diving in a colorful, clean moving unit, repeating the same gesture-laden phrase on each of the diagonal facings, until eventually settling peacefully on the floor.

BosmaDance’s next performance is at Dance Place on June 21 and 22. Details can be found on the Dance Place website.

Related Articles:

Review by Amber Connors of previous BosmaDance performance,

http://choreo-grafitti.blogspot.com/2008/02/bosmadances-euphoria.html

Songwriters Re-Write History

review by Amber Connors

Historic choreography paired with legendary music
CityDance Ensemble, The Songwriters, Friday June 13, 2008 8 pm
Folksay- Sophie Maslow, music of Woodie Guthrie
Born to Run- Paul Gordon Emerson, music of Bruce Springsteen
Harmonica Breakdown- Jane Dudley, music of Sonny Terry
Falling- Paul Gordon Emerson, music of Otis Redding
On a Train Heading South- Brenda Way, commissioned score Jack Perla

Closing its 2008 season with a bang, CityDance Ensemble performed an eclectic mix of repertoire spanning the past 70 years. Last Friday, The Music Center at Strathmore was home to a full audience, excitedly anticipating The Songwriters.

Sophie Maslow’s “Folksay” (1942) is so timeless a piece of choreography that it still has resonance to a modern audience sixty-six years after its birth. “Folksay” began with a poetic exchange of commentary, folk songs of Woodie Guthrie, dancing, and small-town conversation. It was a brilliant combination of text and movement. The men danced squarely with flexed feet and ninety-degree-angled legs and arms, and wore cuffed jeans and flannel shirts. The women danced equally square but their three-dimensionality was highlighted in the swirl of their flowing cotton skirts.

“Born to Run,” (2007) a recent addition to the CityDance repertoire was choreographed by Paul Gordon Emerson. Set to the music and voice of Bruce Springsteen, the piece began in bold-colored silhouettes. An audience favorite, “I Ain’t Got You,” transformed a table into the jungle gym of dancers Delphina Parenti and Jason Garcia Ignacio. The couple flirted and fought over several cigarettes as they cart wheeled, slid, and tumbled above, under, and around the table. Later, a duet between two men unfolded to the sound score, “The River.” Dancers Bruno Augusto and Christopher K. Morgan successfully displayed a give-and-take tension during a Springsteen monologue about the relationship between him and his father in the late sixties. The two men log rolled over top of one another. Sporadically they paused, the weight of their bodies counterbalanced between them.

“Harmonica Breakdown,” (1938) choreographed by former Graham dancer, Jane Dudley, was a clean and concise solo filled with pelvic contractions. Slowly dancer Alicia Canterna glided across the stage, consistently maintaining a forward incline in her body. Composing herself, she planted her feet firmly in place and began to tremble and quake from the knees up to her head.

“Falling,” choreographed by Paul Gordon Emerson, was a seductive and entangled duet between Bruno Augusto and Kathryn Pilkington, rough with pauses. The audience was surprised when Frederic Yonnet strolled in from the back of the house blowing into his harmonica. He wailed away with a dirty-blues tone, steadily working all through the audience until he arrived on stage. “Falling” was tightly woven with unconventional lifts and inventive balances. It seemed despite the dancers’ conscience resistance, the physical attraction between them overpowered, bringing the two together like magnetic poles.

The evening ended on a political note with “On a Train Heading South,” (2005) a piece by choreographer Brenda Way, which addressed the issue of global warming. The stage was set with twelve dangling ice blocks that continued to melt as the stage heated up and the story progressed. The clairvoyant Greek figure, Cassandra, played by dancer Delphina Parenti, frantically warned her counterparts of the dangerous rise in temperature that was to occur. Despite her efforts she was continually ignored, until her dancing, like the liquefied ice blocks, gradually melted and was too heavy to leave the floor.

Collectively, the past and present fused to create a memorable evening at The Music Center at Strathmore. Farewell and best wishes to dancer Bruno Augusto who will be leaving the company in September to pursue a MFA in Dance from New York University.

Related Articles:
Article by Nora Guthrie on the collaboration between Woody Guthrie and Sophie Maslow, http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/guthrie110706.html

Interview of Brenda Way about "On a Train Heading South," http://www.grist.org/comments/interactivist/2005/02/28/way/index1.html

CityDance Blog, by Paul Gordon Emerson, on the restaging of Folksay http://powerpassionpurpose.blogspot.com/