Oh, the Places You’ll Go

“Fanfare”

Naomi Goldberg Haas/Dances for a Variable Population

Whitehall Terminal for the Staten Island Ferry

New York, NY

June 24, 2009

By Martha Sherman

Copyright © 2009 by Martha Sherman

Sitelines 09, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s performance series of site specific work aims to show us there’s almost no limit on where we can dance. Naomi Goldberg Haas/Dances for a Variable Population brought dance to the Whitehall Terminal for the Staten Island Ferry, and demonstrated definitively that there are also no limitations on who can dance. This eclectic troupe of women are tall, short, young, old, fat, thin, lithe and lumbering. Each one is worth watching alone, paired and most richly in ensemble, where the sensibilities of the whole reflect as they mirror, support and play with each other in movement. The short, satisfying world premiere of “Fanfare” was beautifully suited to the space in this unfettered and multi-stage celebration.

 This was a performance that invited its audience to move around, trail the dancers, and experience the movement. Even the costumes were democratic, dancers all in mixed white outfits, looking quite comfortable (and Carol Chave’s mane of shoulder length white hair was a particularly apt and well-coordinated accessory). 

On the large floor, around the fixed marble passenger benches were three stages marked by bright orange tape. The clarion call of minimalist Michael Nyman’s marvelous score, Fanfare, rang out to open the show, and the dancers strode into the main hall, moving to either side of the central benches. Even rushing New York commuters couldn’t ignore the performance, and some of them were caught among the dancers as they entered or moved around the hall. Goldberg Haas moved into one of the stage spaces, arms briefly opened wide as the other dancers watched from both sides, and the dance began. To start, two halves of the troupe danced in and through parallel circles, faced and retreated from each other, and commenced the games that wove thematically through the piece.

The music transitioned and ever-changing combinations of dancers moved in parallel stretches and poses as well as their own idiosyncratic moves. Two dancers leapt and rolled, as two others circled each other slowly in measured steps, arms linked over their shoulders in an old swing dance partner move. In one scene, half of the dancers gathered in a corner and donned sunglasses, a Men in Black moment of fancy, as three of their compatriots danced a high energy trio on the far end of their stage. As one section ended, we could peripherally see motion in another part of the hall -- another set of dancers had begun in a different stage space, and we turned or moved to catch them from a different angle, straining to see past the crowd, making room for children who were fascinated throughout. The movement was fun and generous, wide arms, extended legs, a prance done with a wiggle. 

Quotidian movement, especially of childhood games, provided the vocabulary of several scenes: tug of war tensions as pairs or trios pulled and pushed through space, card playing hands, dribbling basketball legs, pat-a-cake motions. A jumbled parade moved between two of the stage spaces. A red wagon, pulled by one dancer, inhabited by another (waving her best royal wave), and trailed by two flag-bearers joined a funny scene where a dancer curled, reading, in a wheeled suitcase and another slid by, riding on her back on a skateboard. 

The music transitioned into a gentler passage and a quartet formed with petite Betty Williams at its center. The others lifted, turned, cradled Williams in a series of tableaux. As Williams raised an arm toward the massive Southern windows, she was beckoning to a visible Lady Liberty, inviting the whole world to join this dance. 

In a final scene, orange tape was stretched to create a fourth, shallower and longer performance area. Dancers moved through the crowd inviting children and adults to join them, and coached the newcomers on their movements -- skipping, marching, hopping, arm waving, even arabesques. The company evidently has groupies; at least one man knew the dance. Goldberg Haas danced with her young son and his friend, and then took her wheelchair-bound mother for a whisk across the stage. This final delineated stage area could accommodate all of the dancers in a single line, as they raised their arms in the muscled pose of prize fighters with victories to proclaim. After bowing, the dancers mingled with the crowd, re-joining and melting among us.

The Whitehall Terminal begs to be filled. For these weekday lunchtime performances, the ferry building was well-populated but there was still plenty of room for the several performance spaces that Goldberg Haas carved out. The high slanted ceiling, the undulating tiled floor in white, gray and silver, and the windows overlooking the New York harbor make you want to pause and look before rushing to the ferry. 

It was easier see the piece as an integrated whole on a second viewing. The orange flags, like those from Christo’s project in Central Park, The Gates, highlighted each primary “stage” to help the audience move its attention. The flags also turned the dancers into standard bearers of an army on the march. Changing cast members carried the flags, starting with Goldberg Haas and Williams, but moving to several others. One could see the dancers respectfully and admiringly watching their fellows as they prepared to move into their own scenes: the parade, the dancing pairs, the quartets, the sunglass-shaded mob.

The match of this dance  with the Whitehall Terminal went beyond a physical match, as the performance space shifted with the size and spread of the crowd, and the performance  was expansive enough to do justice to its surrounding. This site specificity also included its timing -- twenty two minutes, to coincide with the ferry schedule and the movement of passengers (audience) through the space. Most important, the work and the dancers’ own diversity was a mirror of the slice of New York that traveled through the terminal on a Thursday afternoon, with places to go, and definitely with things to see.

copyright © 2009 by Martha Sherman

Photos by Douglas Back

Top: Jill Frere, M. Lindsay Smith, Betty Williams, Jamie Graham.

Bottom: Jamie Graham, Betty Williams, Carol Chave, Rebecca Woll, Judith Chazen Walsh, Geraldine Bartlett, M. Lindsay Smith, Sarah Kenny, Penelope Dannenberg, Jackie Ferrara, Maxine Steinhaus, Naomi Goldberg Haas, Molly Leiber, Jill Frere.