A Puppet Who Dances Like a Real Boy
The New York Times
by GIA KOURLAS
Published: May, 30 2008
Nami Yamamoto’s new dance, “a howling flower,” is a work for six stellar performers and a puppet named Tony, an enchanting creature both for the way he looks and for the way he compels the others to act.
Before the production began on Wednesday night at Dance Theater Workshop, the marionette lay limp on the floor, a jumble of oddball parts: a porcelain face, a back made from a tiny violin, legs wrought from metal springs, and a distended abdomen that looked a bit like a bowling pin cut in half lengthwise.
Created and manipulated with deft precision by Matthew Acheson, whose large bare feet move with great delicacy, Tony is, in many ways, the living soul of the dance. With a light, sure touch, Ms. Yamamoto explores dualities between the puppet, a vessel of sorts, and her dancers by contrasting ideas of detachment and raw emotional connection.
Excluding the horizontal strips of colorful lighting by Jason Boyd that illuminate the back of the space, the stage is naked. In half-shadows, revealing Ms. Yamamoto’s penchant for hidden angles, dancers perform episodic scenes that erupt and retreat.
In one bewitching duet Ryutaro Mishima stretches on his back as Tony crawls, knees first, onto his chest. Later, when Mr. Mishima jumps on Mr. Acheson’s shoulders, it is Tony’s steps that become labored. In another scene the puppet, all alone, raises his arms into the air with longing as Beethoven plays faintly as if through an open window on a summer night.
Other music, from Thurston Moore to Yura Yura Teikoku, is skillfully knitted into the largely silent production, but in the final moments of this atmospheric dance, the rock band Malkuth performs live in the wings. As the phantom shapes of the musicians and their instruments flicker onto the back wall of the stage, now awash in red, Ms. Yamamoto stands under a spotlight with her arms raised: a howling flower in the flesh.
Christopher Pelham (June 4th, 2008 at 12:32 pm)
OK, Gia, for the sake of starting some dialog here, I will say that I thought the piece was still in the first stages of development and was uncompelling. I thought that what Matt did, he could do in his sleep. Moving a marionette around stage does not automatically make things interesting. There was not a single moment or image that inspired me nor did I think the moments, taken collectively, added up to anything. Howling? Barely. Flower? Wallflower maybe?
Just what was bewitching about that duet for you? I would say on the contrary that the moments were so stripped down and muted as to be nothing more than weakly telegraphed charades. The piece does not create a world or a context to embue any of these moments with specificity or meaning. How can you possibly find it interesting, moving or original to see Nami raise her arms to the rock music at the end? I think that, in order for this piece to work, it needs a lot more detail, more specificity. Since there is no narrative arc, it must derive its power from the lyricism of the individual moments, and those moments for me were simply not riveting.
I am friends with half the people in the piece so I would love to be able to find more in it to savor. But as of now the best I can do is to respond honestly, and say please help me to open my eyes if I am just not seeing it.
Christopher Pelham (June 4th, 2008 at 8:27 pm)
Talking about it with another friend who also saw it opening night, I found I can say that I did enjoy the dancers’ quality of movement. The whole ensemble moves very well. I like them. I really wanted to enjoy the piece…
Christopher Pelham (June 5th, 2008 at 12:24 am)
One last comment, my friend enjoyed the show and pointed out that it was of course meant to be subtle and that maybe that approach rather than being ineffective in this case is just not my cup of tea. maybe so. one of the fun things about art is you can see something with your friends and have completely different reactions and then spend days talking about it. so, Nami, you have kept me thinking about this show all week so it must be having more effect on me than I initially thought. art can work in mysterious ways.