This round of community choreography provides some avoidance techniques, throwbacks to “classic” CCs, and one epic dance number. I’m sure Jillian wouldn’t mind if someone commissioned her to create an evening length work around this one. Enjoy!
Twitter Community Choreography is an ongoing experiment from Dance Theater Workshop. Each week we ask our Twitter followers to send us one movement (or nonmovement), then we put all the responses together into one dance and film it.
In remembrance of Pina Bausch, who died this morning, we’re pulling together some favorite moments from favorite Bausch pieces. Here’s a couple from some of us on staff. Feel free to contribute your own memories.
Marusca Fogo - A woman with a twinkle in her eye is wheeled onstage inside a clawfoot bathtub, in which she luxuriates amidst bubbles. A stoic gentleman pushes the tub along, while the woman slyly gins. Mysteriously, she dips down, and pulls a dripping wet dinner plate from within, and hands it off. The gentleman feverishly dries the plate, and stacks it upon the stage’s edge. This happens again and again. –Sarah K.
Nelken – The carnations. The serious man in a suit who signs Gershwin’s “The Man I Love.” And also, the odd moment when a man checks another (be-skirted) man’s passport. After inspection comes the line: ”You may continue hopping.” — Jillian
After a little bit of a delay (we get busy sometimes, you know?), we bring you our fifth installment of Twitter Community Choreography. This time around we asked for movements relating to the word, “pedestrian.” Here’s what we came up with:
“There is nothing black or white about Pam Tanowitz’s newest work, Be In the Gray With Me, presented this past weekend at Dance Theater Workshop. Navigating the gray area between ballet and modern is tricky, but Tanowitz, who avoids labeling herself or her work, is an intelligent dancemaker.”
Susan Yung writes, “Tanowitz has made a piece that speaks not only about dance and its history, but also about the very nature of a theatrical dance presentation. It feels somehow of the moment, and yet timeless; simple and elegant, yet inquisitive on many levels.”
Kathleen O’Connell writes, “[n]o ideas but in steps— to paraphrase William Carlos Williams—would be a fitting summary of Pam Tanowitz’ “Be in the Gray with Me,” and that is a compliment. ”
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and Dance Theater Workshop have been selected to participate in EmcArts third round of the Innovation Lab for the Performing Arts. The Lab supports arts organizations as they research major changes by providing a strict structure for strategic investigation and planning. Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and Dance Theater Workshop will be using this opportunity to explore and research a possible strategic partnership between the two organizations.
Other recipients of EmcArts third round funding include:
COCA—Center of Creative Arts
Liz Lerman Dance Exchange
University Musical Society (UMS).
Previous recipients include:
Civilians, MAPP International Productions
Roadside Theatre/Appalshop
STREB
Children’s Theatre Company
HERE Arts Center
Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Visit this link to read EmcArts’ statement and learn more details about our plans with Bill T. Jones in researching the feasibility of a partnership in which we would share the Chelsea facilities and operations resources.
Claudia La Rocco reviews Pam Tanowitz’s new work for The New York Times.
“Dancers usually know when they are given something special. They perform with a particular inward-outward duality, turning in as if to savor the gift, while simultaneously offering themselves up to the choreography, the audience, the world.
Such was the feeling resonating from the elegantly turned out Dance Theater Workshop stage on Thursday night, when Pam Tanowitz’s “Be in the Gray With Me” had its premiere.”
Susan Reiter previews Pam Tanowitz’s “Be In the Gray With Me” for New York Press.
“As her dancers rehearse several sections of the new work, the choreography exemplifies a refreshingly refined, thoughtful tone that makes a case for pure movement without the abundance of multi-layered elements incorporated into many contemporary Downtown works. Her dancers are strong on line and move with a calm, elegant control. ”
BOMBblog posted some wonderful thoughts on dance audience building from Jacob Pillow’s Ella Baff. (with notes from Presenting Dance, a book by Mindy Levine in collaboration with Jacob’s Pillow.)
Of course, we are no strangers to this conversation. And perhaps you have more to say on this… or stories like Ella Baff’s when overhearing new dance goers express their post-show uneasiness.
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