“Middle of Man,” “Hmmm…”
Justine Lynch/Melinda Ring
The Kitchen
New York, NY
April 24, 2009
by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2009 by Leigh Witchel
Justine Lynch and Melinda Ring shared a program at The Kitchen and each was worth seeing. Lynch was an integral part of Neil Greenberg’s work for several years; she’s also trained as an acupuncturist. Her “Middle of Man.” inspired by her work as a healer, has a shamanistic feel; Lynch turned the plain black box of The Kitchen into a mysterious space inhabited by phantasms. A hooded woman in a short dress walked about carrying greenery. Two women cloaked in black, stooped and huddling, thrashed off their cloaks and were naked except for bikini briefs. They donned golden crowns attached to ropes.
The music (by Lynch’s husband, Tom McCauley) began with thundering crashes. Towards the back, one woman wrapped in a sheet reclined on a rock. Another lay against a wall, her legs pointed upwards, brushing up and down on a carpet runner. Lynch wandered into this environment stammering about in an incantatory dance. There was a connection here between a healer and an explorer – Lynch seemed to be voyaging into the situation onstage while remaining somehow apart and above it.
She was joined by the woman on the carpet runner, the eternally fascinating Paige Martin, to dance a skidding duet that grabbed and fell into space. Martin is a human curlicue, all legs and fingers, her chestnut hair flopping in front of her eyes. Lynch, wearing a slouch hat, went into an aggressive solo to Cheap Trick. The piece ended in a mysterious gathering. “Middle of Man” didn’t hammer home a point but there was plenty to watch.
Melinda Ring’s “Hmmm...” was as mischievous as “Middle of Man” was pensive. It began with no warning: There was a crash, a woman ran to shut the house lights and before we noticed, two women, Kimberly Hamlin and Sari Nordman, in long white underwear were running and dancing on stage. Their colliding energy as they slammed around was like toddlers let loose in the backyard to tire themselves out before bed. You could hear their gasping and breathing.
The title reflected the sense of experimentation in the piece, a child-like testing of the environment in the theater. The women turned on and off lights and played in the shadows they cast. Nordman knocked on one of the support columns and listened for an answer before knocking again. The piece was punctuated by loud noises and deliberate disturbances. Toilets flushed, chains rattled and the dancers had loud, inane conversations when they left the stage, most of this incongruently funny.
Enter a third woman, Inka Juslin, in a little black dress, heels and sunglasses. She walked the perimeter of the stage and disappeared behind a column for a long time as the other two continued their exhausting play. When Juslin reappeared, she brought with her a slow accretion of chaos. Though she’s the one in adult clothing, she gradually became even more of an impossible child than the other two. Juslin threw chairs haphazardly about the stage and invited the audience to come sit on them. She walked up the stairs of the bleachers where we sat and insisted that people hold random objects for her. She disappeared again behind a curtain announcing, “I’m fucking bored here.” Meanwhile the other two were fighting, threatening to remove each others clothing. “Hmmm...” ended with Juslin walking once more into the audience, shaking hands and thanking people for coming – and a godawful mess on the stage.
Ring intimately understood the crazy logic, experimentation and mischief of childhood. When Hamlin called from offstage that she had locked herself out (another planned disturbance), Juslin asked us from offstage if she should let Hamlin in. Most of the audience remained in uncomfortable silence but a few straggly voices said yes. “Kim, they said no,” Juslin called through the door. “Hmmm...” was bit long, but funny and well-observed.
copyright © 2009 by Leigh Witchel
Photos by Paula Court
Top: “Middle of Man”
Middle: Paige Martin and Justine Lynch in “Middle of Man”
Bottom: Kimberley Hamlin and Sari Nordman in “Hmmm...”
