Final Voyage for the Critic's Institute

Photo by ADF/Sara D. Davis, 2008

Take 14 dance critics and one eminent critic/leader, seat them around a table for hours each day speaking with guests including dance writing’s best practitioners plus presenters, artists, new media mavens and managers, send them out to see and cover a mix of popular mainstream and well-established contemporary dance within a major festival, continue for three weeks (with one day off) and at the end what do you have? Journalists ready to resume their berths at newspapers and web platforms all across the country to report on dance in a more effective, eloquent and possibly experimental way.

The National Endowment for the Arts deserves kudos for having the wisdom to fund this convening of critics over the last nine years. Officially named the NEA Institute for Dance Criticism at the American Dance Festival, this was the first of what are now several separate Arts Criticism Institutes for different art forms.

Within the dance ecosystem good-quality written commentary is crucial. Critics inform audiences about what they may experience watching different kinds of dance: why it matters, what they might take away and what the context for it is. They bring audiences to the work. They create a record in a form that’s evanescent, writing history. And for funders and presenters, their accounts become a way of identifying new artists to produce and endorsing ones worthy of support.

I was a participant in the Institute for Dance Criticism’s final voyage, just ended. It is not slated to receive any funding in next year’s cycle and so faces extinction. This is a shame. People doing terrific work like Claudia LaRocco at the New York Times and Theodore Bale in Houston have been past participants. While critics convene in weekend conferences, in no way do those replace the intensive input offered at the Institute. Suzanne Carbonneau who has been its leader for nine years cultivates not only writing chops, but also attitudes that engender supporting the field as a whole, maintaining allegiance to the reader while remaining respectful of artists and open to all forms.

Thank you National Endowment for the Arts for the great experience I had. I’ll better serve Philadelphia artists and audiences through what I’ve learned. I’m just sorry that a continuing stream of other writers and their communities will not enjoy those same benefits.

A Beautiful Beast

Photo: Jordi Bover, used by permission

Steve Paxton is a dancer I've been watching over the course of nearly forty years. When I told him that my children are grown enough that they now go up to Vermont on their own (that’s where he lives and where we met as teacher and student) he said that time just telescoped, decades down to a moment. Watching Paxton perform his new solo The Beast at Baryshnikov Arts Center, time telescopes too. I visualize the kinetic lusciousness of earlier Paxton incarnations, but here he shows us the dancing’s skeleton. Rather than nostalgia there’s joy in this fruition of his dancing life. The distillation of his focus and the stripping away of connective actions makes for the sparest presentation of one human body’s range of motion and properties of balance. Paxton presents his own body as a locus for inquiry, as he always has. His investigation has become increasingly detailed, exquisite. Without the spongy bounce and space-eating flow of his earlier incarnations, he is pure facet, pure torque, pure stacked bones and stretched sinew.

Merce taught us to look at movement without asking for its implied narrative. And the Raineresque performative straightforwardness of the Judson era finds its apogee in Steve whose weathered face is that of a deadpan everyman. Why then do we have the sense that there’s a scenario here, teasing us by laying just beyond our comprehension? The Beast has a sound score that’s hard to place – is it electronic, made to sound like birds? Water droplets? There’s a percussive rushing quality to it and it rises and ebbs, just as the light, a shifting pool now oblong, now a rough round, moves without provocation. Paxton seems to be lodged in this place, a dark nowhere. Atmospheric, mysterious, this visual and aural setting make a habitat for The Beast. And just who is that?

Paxton’s bio states right off that he lives on a farm. Watching him dance is not unlike watching someone scythe a field, or build a wall. Action is in service of something, and delivered without flourish or emphasis. He seems engaged with questions: ‘What is this? What happens if I shift balance by curving the spine laterally? What happens if I cross one foot over the other, standing? Or tip my head back as far as it goes?’ The action produced by that last inquiry, looking upward, is often associated with a kind of aspiration. Here it’s not that, or anything you could nail. And although that action recurs frequently, as does a full torqueing twist of head against pelvis, or a thrust through the hands, they never reveal any further reason for being. They just are. ‘Testing the Apparatus’ is the shorthand that comes to mind.

In 1986 Paxton began performing his Goldberg Variations to both of Glenn Gould’s recordings of Bach’s masterwork, the first made at the promising outset of Gould’s career, the second after a life in music, more settled and measured, and just months before his early death. The metaphor of the maturation of the artist over time was deeply moving. Paxton’s face in the second half of Goldberg was smeared with wet clay which, over the course of the work, dried and contracted, creating a crinkly premonition of older age. Today his face looks like the one he projected twenty some years ago. And I believe that the dancer he is now is the one he was imagining in Goldberg. And how essentialized and brilliant that dancer has become, like a diamond.

Tasting "Excellence"

[Photo: "Only Sleeping" by Subcircle and Geoff Sobelle]

A recent meeting at The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage posed the question “what kinds of formats provide and encourage evaluative critical feedback that promotes excellence?” It’s obvious that most everything you see can be developed further in a variety of ways. Sometimes a choreographer has a blind spot, sometimes not enough time, or both. And sometimes excellence will elude even the most thorough worker. There’s a mysterious component too: the ineffable brilliance factor, impossible to manufacture.

How thrilling then to see a dance work, or even big hunks of a dance work, that are beautifully considered, clearly the product of prodigious intelligence, and breathtakingly executed. Two such experiences in one week leave this viewer delighted, relieved, as though drenched with rain in a dry time.

Pennsylvania Ballet demonstrates itself alternately as being top drawer or nearer second string. In mounting William Forsythe’s “In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated,” the Ballet has taken on a work that crackles with brilliance throughout and pushes the dancers to unimagined heights. Forsythe plays between the pedestrian and the meta-virtuosic. Shambling entrances or casual shifts in space are ‘breathers’ that just whet the appetite for more of his whippet swift distortions of traditional ballet line. Formations recall the studio dynamic of ‘in-betweens’ – a line far upstage with each dancer in a different resting pose, a cluster to the side that forms and reforms before the “hit it” moment. And when they do hit it, the action is perilous: partnering with leans at precipitous angles and thrown weight. This was Forsythe before his work strayed too far from the ballet lexicon so every stretch away from the familiar is illuminating, delightful. And the dancers, thoroughbreds that they are, lap up the challenge. I have never seen principals like Zachary Hench, Riolama Lorenzo, Julie Diana, Amy Aldrich move so big, so fast, and so wild. It goes so far beyond even the most virtuosic turns I have witnessed at PA Ballet in the past that I’m left dazed, an adulating fan.

On quite another end of the dance spectrum, Niki and Jorge Cousineau, known collectively as Subcircle, in collaboration with Geoff Sobelle, have mounted an exhilarating synthesis of projected video with dance, text and original music - “Only Sleeping.” This is one of those works where a long history of collaboration and time to chew on multiple possibilities before settling on finalized images have resulted in moments of exquisite complexity. You read intelligence from the get-go. Sobelle appears on video only, a Magritte-like everyman, a counterpart to Niki Cousineau’s everywoman/mother (we learn on audio). Mike Kiley’s music has a rock sensibility and uses a wall of voices for intensely cinematic moments.

In a set resembling a living room with two doorways, a window, and an expanse of wall serving as a large projection surface, “Only Sleeping” relates a tale of parallel worlds, a fantasy of being swept from one’s life into that of another. The lightly sketched story line is given a sense of place through video imagery of hallways, empty rooms, and an expanse of ocean. It mines earlier works by Subcircle (“Somewhere Close to Now” above all) with a live performer in perplexing circumstances involving changes of scale and orientation.

The piece has knock-out transitions that shift nearly imperceptibly from the offhand and conversational to the theatrical (like Forsythe’s switches from preparation to full out execution). The interrelationships of multiple projected video images are orchestral in their density. Layered over time they conform to or thwart expectation, as when after seeing a door open multiple times to reveal Sobelle behind it in some quasi-pedestrian but indescribable activity, the door finally opens to reveal another door and another and another, ad infinitum. “Only Sleeping” is like that, opening out to new ground, who knows precisely where.

Recent Writing

Please note, the Inquirer articles are no longer available online. Please contact me if you are interested in reading them.

A spate of recent articles and essays:
On the Dance With Camera show at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Philly - http://www.philly.com/inquirer/magazine/79879367.html
Observations about the recent International Association of Blacks in Dance conference and performances - http://www.philly.com/inquirer/magazine/82034482.html
A review of Fraulein Maria - http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/arts/70213087.html
And a piece on the Dance Advance archive where I had great latitude and mused about performance and travel in Asia - http://www.pcah.us/m/dance/six-reflections-six-snapshots.pdf

A Letter to the New York Times

To the Editors,

If dance is the “art with no history” as Alastair Macaulay states, fair and broad-minded reporting of it, which IS in effect its history, is all the more crucial. In Mr. Macaulay’s assessment of the last decade in dance (Choreographic Climate Change, 12/31), he dismissed the downtown modern and post-modern segment of the field as “too large for anyone to keep complete track of it.” Dance’s cutting edge is no more unwieldy than that of any other artistic field; this statement reads as lack of personal interest.

While the Times’ senior critic has considerable knowledge and skill, he’s missing the curiosity required for comprehensive reporting on dance. Biases become a problem. How can he limn the 1980’s without mention of Trisha Brown whose innovations in physical language and choreographic devices permanently changed the face of contemporary dance? While Mr. Macaulay’s stated preference for ‘joy’ in dance is understandable, deep investigation and the continuing evolution of the art form merit acknowledgement.

Sincerely yours,

Lisa Kraus

Macaulay's article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/arts/dance/03choreography.html

Contemplating the Cambodians...

I took part in “By Gesture By Word” – workshops and presentations on Cambodian Dance with members of the Khmer Arts Ensemble, sponsored by Dance Advance. Here are some reflections:

1 Dancing has the power to lift you out of misery. In daily practice Chamreoun Yin worked adjacent to me as we learned the “giant” role, one of the primary archetypes from Cambodian dance. He had never worked on this role before. He first danced classical Cambodian dance thirty years before in a refugee camp, at the time when his entire country had been subjected to extreme violence and destruction. You could see on his face that doing this dancing was a refuge – a space of equanimity, of serenity, of joy. The power of inhabiting these slow-moving, spatially contained and gesturally detailed forms is, by its nature, one of growing more centered and uplifted and connected to the divine.

2 You can see what is in someone’s mind. I was fascinated to read on the faces of Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, her sister Charya Burt and the two younger dancers from Khmer Arts a quality that is transmitted to the collective: each of them projects an image of extreme dignity, restraint, and (what I read as) fundamental goodness. The half-smile seen on the gigantic faces of the Buddhas at Bayon is on their faces. Their eyes are steady, confident, receptive, awake. None of this appears pasted on, but instead seems to emanate from entering a particular a state of mind, a collectively understood experience. This may be engendered through initially assuming the form, but in time it comes to be a much deeper expression, where practicing the dances seems to shift one’s mind.

3 Small can be more powerful than big. As giants we had some large actions – brandishing our swords, declaring an intent to catch our enemy. But we also had many subtle shifts in the torso, ripples moving from the ribcage to head or from the wrist through to the head. This was even more prevalent in the women’s role: certain actions were so small as to be nearly invisible, vibrations almost, like a beat of hummingbirds’ wings. I love this quality of “resting” on one spot as a very tiny movement animates the body and space.

4 There is a space in between holding fast to tradition and throwing away the past to focus solely on the “new.” Many artists are looking for a way to effectively balance respect for and conservation of what has gone before with an openness to new influences and innovations. Questions about how to practice traditional arts in a contemporary way are paramount for many of the traditional artists who took part in this workshop. And for those of us coming out of the experimental wing of our field, the question is how to effectively embrace, build on and bring along the knowledge and strategies of what has gone before.

5 As an older dancer, it’s completely appropriate to be judicious while putting my body in situations that could result in injury. Being somewhat more delicate and more prone to injury than when I was younger, I am “conservative” regarding how I want to use and train my body. This feels completely correct. Stretches designed to actually alter the shape of the body (like ones to create a hyper-extended elbow) felt awful and I chose not to do them.

6 Devotion to lineage is at the heart of Cambodian dance study. My study as a Buddhist emphasizes this as well. I could feel in my fellow participants a kind of settling into the spiritual aspects of this dance practice, with this one idea as an entry-point.

7 Providing simple frameworks for responses to arise can be more effective than more carefully crafted “assignments” or forums. Our group was asked simply to present some of our work and examine how the contact with the Cambodian dancing is relevant to it. The range of responses was stunning, reflecting a deep connection and thoughtful contemplation. I was very impressed with what practicing and hearing about the forms brought to each of us.

8 Cultures that emphasize the individual are more likely to celebrate the lone-wolf auteur. Cultures that prize the life of the group and community are more likely to hold to tradition. “Conservative,” in the sense of preserving what from the past is of value, is not a dirty word. When we abandon conservation because we so prize the innovators, the named artists who are stars rather than the anonymous ones whose work preserves and builds on what has gone before, what have we lost? Is our sense of societal disconnect and tendency toward isolation bound up with this? This question has nagged at me since visiting Bali in '85. On returning to the U.S. I remember writing a grant application complaining of our collective "cultural bankruptcy." That's one application that certainly didn't get funded!

Honoring Mama Kariamu

photo by Joseph V. Labolito/Temple University

How often does a concert end on a note of such unbridled joy that audience members head out into the night singing? Kariamu & Company: Traditions’ concerts at Temple University celebrating 40 years of Umfundalai technique ended in just this way, with a shared ecstasy and sense of affirmation more reminiscent of a community gathering than a concert in a proscenium theater.

Dr. Kariamu Welsh (Mama Kariamu), head of the Dance Department at Temple, makes dances, but I experienced them in this concert more as vessels into which her dancers pour every drop of their passion and personal power. They address tragedies of diaspora and challenges of urban life with humor, urgency, unity and dignity.

Works from across the years were interspersed with moving testimonies by students who became teachers themselves. C. Kemal Nance, Kariamu’s student from the time he was 8 years old, is today a doctoral candidate and a powerhouse mover. Each of the older dancers who demonstrated their moves was a knockout, having applied her teaching over the long haul.

Honoring the life’s work of those who develop techniques, foster the development of dancers, and provide them with fulfilling performing opportunities doesn’t happen nearly enough. Mama Kariamu, whose Umfundalai technique amalgamates aspects of dance languages from all over Africa, richly deserves this tribute.