Critical Correspondence
Transport: Farewell Merce Cunningham Dance Studio by Anita Cheng
Anita Cheng reflects on the final month of classes at the Cunningham Dance Studio at Westbeth, home to generations of dancers and dance-makers. Writes Cheng: “Merce’s choreography capitalizes on the dancer’s innate love of specificity. It is a great romance: the right time in the right place, facing the right direction.”
2012–My Year in Dance or: A Farewell/Comeback Tour by Clarinda Mac Low
Clarinda Mac Low reflects on her identity as a dance artist in the first of a series of several writings for CC in 2012, which she has dubbed “The Year of Dance.” Mac Low will be performing on Friday, May 18, 2012 at Danspace Project as part of a Food For Thought evening curated by Heloise Dacrq.
On Retirement by Christine Elmo
“A year and a few months ago, I set out to find what sort of retirement plan is available for dance. However this question is really a topical surface; a lid on a huge can of worms, knotted and torn amongst each other.”
John Vinton on Kei Takei
The CC editors are pleased to share an e-book by John Vinton, “Diary of Light: An intimate portrait of Kei Takei’s Moving Earth.” John Vinton’s poetic contemplation of Moving Earth covers the period 1974-75, when the company was in rehearsal for “Light, Part 9.”
Elizabeth Streb on Trisha Brown
Choreographer Elizabeth Streb gave the following tribute to Trisha Brown, the 2011 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize Recipient, at an award ceremony in New York on November 2, 2011.
Marissa Perel on Conversation Without Walls: Mutual Seductions
Artist Marissa Perel writes about November’s Conversation Without Walls at Danspace Project, entitled Mutual Seductions, which “presented a complex matrix of relationships between choreographers, theorists, visual artists and curators. A succession of three panel discussions developed and moderated by theorist/writer Jenn Joy, it was not only a space of conversation and investigation into ideas, but also a space of reflection for all of the speakers involved, which proved to be as challenging as it was insightful.”
Immaterial Bodies, Embodied Materials by Andros Zins-Browne
The following is a paper given by Brussels based choreographer Andros Zins-Browne at the Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht January, 2010, and at Netwerk Center for Contemporary art in Aalst, October 2010. Immaterial Bodies looks at the difference between real, artficial and virtual bodies and what these differences mean to dance/performance history and to Zins-Browne’s work and history.
Emergence (in two parts)
Lindsey Drury
Dance’s emerging artists are suspicious. We are suspicious of everything, but mostly of ourselves. We have learned, for example, to have purist, intellectualized taste, yet we are riding subways home at night from shows to watch reruns of Project Runway in bed. We belong to a community of renegades and beauty queens. Some of us attempt to be both.
Christine Elmo in response to Megan Byrne’s “Ever, Ever”
On Friday, December 17th, 2010, I saw Megan Byrne’s Ever Ever, a duet performed by two women, Jessica Ray and Laurie Berg. The work was part of Dance and Process at The Kitchen on a program curated by Sarah Michelson and shared with Antonio Ramos and Oren Barnoy.
Christine Elmo on Artists Writing About Artists
I’ve been wondering how to be public about how I write, feel about other artists work while playing artist myself.
Moving Dialogue: LULU’S ROOM – THE (ARCHI)TECTONICS OF GESTURE
Gina Serbanescu
Lulu’s Room, the performance created and performed by Mihaela Dancs (Romania) at Judson Church on 25 October 2010 had its premiere in 2009 at the National Dance Centre in Bucharest. At that time, I published an article in the Romanian cultural magazine “Dilema Veche”(nr.283, 17 July 2009) about the importance of this solo within the dance and performance context of the 2008-2009 season at the National Dance Centre. Here you can read its English version.
Moving Dialogue: THINK FOURTH!
Gina Serbanescu
It must be mentioned that even if the exchange in New York ended, Moving Dialogue is an ongoing project. Its continuity will be mostly noted at the level of each partner’s experience in relation with what was received, shared or understood. Looking back now, we can start to evaluate what happened during two weeks of exchange.
Moving Dialogue: Just One Question
Anna Drozdowski
Just One Question
I try to ask each of the participants in the Moving Dialogue one question that I haven’t asked, for lack of time or bravery or simply because it came to me this late. Our interaction has really just begun, in the flesh, and now has the opportunity to become more established in our long-distance relationship over the winter.
Moving Dialogue: A Critical Report on Made in NY/28th October Moving Dialog
Cristiane Bouger (NOTE: I participated as one of the performers in Vava Stefanescu’s work. For this reason, I nominated the following text as a critical report instead of an article or review, as my perspective of her work encompasses my experience as a performer.) During her residency showing at Dance Theater Workshop for the Movement […]
Moving Dialogue: Notes on “Thanks for the Poncho”
Cristiane Bouger The showing presented by Romanian choreographer Mădălina Dan at Dance Theater Workshop was part of Movement Research’s Moving Dialogue: A Bucharest/New York Dance Exchange and represented the culmination of her work-in-progress developed during a two-week residency at DTW studios. In her program notes, Mădălina Dan tells us about the embarrassing diplomatic incident which occurred in 1997, when then American President Bill […]
