American Dance Guild Performance Festival
Manhattan Movement & Arts Center
New York, NY
September 10-13, 2009
by Lisa Rinehart
copyright © 2009 by Lisa Rinehart
With more than fifty different works packed into five different programs, the 2009 American Dance Guild Performance Festival is a well intentioned rummage sale of an event. I say well intentioned because ADG is essentially an educational organization. It was founded in the 1950's by twelve New York based dance teachers determined to promote dance in America and provides a meeting ground for an esoteric mix of performers, choreographers, historians, writers and even dance therapists -- all with a common love for dance as a means
of self expression.
Does this noble mission make for a strong choreographic festival? Not really. This year's event features a lot of
junk, some bona fide treasures and a few unexpected finds. But, as any treasure hunter will tell you, one or two great discoveries can justify anything -- in this case, surviving four days of long programs marred by delayed starts, lighting glitches and some really bad choreography.
But let's sift through to the good stuff. An exquisite rendering of Erick Hawkins' 1963 masterwork, "Cantilever," was the star of the festival. And rightly so. Performed to live music (as are all Hawkins' pieces), this four person work is no less than an historical document of post-Eisenhower optimism and angst. "Mad Men" sleek, this dance is taut as a fitted sheath dress on a firm body. Lucia Dlugoszewski's blaring trumpets, rippling sheet metal and jangling wind chimes make fanfares of sound heralding Kristina Berger, Jacquelyne Boe, Jeff Lyon and Luke Murphy as they scan the horizon with rigid attentiveness. It sounds old fashioned, but Hawkins mixes soft caresses and big, curvy swoops of the arms with angular T-shaped jumps and static poses that look as radical now as they must have almost five decades ago. Boe, in particular, is a marriage of feminine curves and detached sensuality that makes Hawkins' work sing with an internal joy.
Other historically important offerings were Claudia Gitelman's "Six Ings" and innovative clown Lotte Goslar's "Life of a Flower." In the broad, almost cartoonish Constructavist style of Hanya Holm (Gitelman was associated with Holm for many years and has written a book about Holm's years at Colorado College), "Six Ings" chuckles at how vividly glimpses of a woman's inner life are revealed with a little glitter, glue and fabric. Dancer Ashley Meeder transforms from elegant bathing beauty to masked Chinese puppet with the help of a tubular piece of purple jersey and a waif-like prop mistress (Gitelman herself). Even more bare bones, "Life of a Flower" is a sweet ditty based on a flower's four brief seasons. Performer Ara Fitzgerald, decked out in a green smock, a head of large daisy petals and giant green clown shoes, smiles up to the sun, gets a sprinkling of rain from above (literally) then goes clown shoes up with the winter frost. Such dance ephemera performed live has long reaching implications for young dance makers and ADG should be commended for making it possible.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure many fledgling choreographers are paying attention. Few new works in the festival demonstrated much understanding of American dance history, music appreciation or even basic composition. Strange. There seems to be a pervasive belief that if something feels meaningful to dance, it must be meaningful to watch. If that's the thrust of today's dance education, watch out.
The exceptions were "The Waiting Room" by Karen Gayle, "th(RE)a(D)" by Isabel Gotzkowsky, "Jake's Dilemma" by Lane Gifford, "Dancing on the Radio" by Sue Hogan in collaboration with Heather Sakima and, most notably, "SPLITTER" from TANZ*HOTEL. These pieces are linked by the understanding that post modern dance must be anchored by at least the shred of a comprehensible idea or mood. Otherwise, it's dance therapy (valid, but I'm not sure I need to witness it), or simply masturbatory.
Gayle's "The Waiting Room" captures the leg jiggling, cuticle chewing agony of waiting for a thumbs up or down from a doctor we never see. Gayle showcases the dancers nicely with big, jazz flavored moves and Tom Tykwer's score keeps the tension high. It's obvious -- everyone dons hospital gowns by the end -- but promising. Equally pleasing, Gifford's "Jake's Dilemma" mixes tragic/comic rap inspired text (well delivered by actor Rick Busser) with street dance to make an effective portrait of a young man's lust for a beautiful woman. I wanted it to go deeper somehow, but it still works.
In "th(RE)a(D)," Gotzkowsky borrows freely from Shen Wei (she and partner Jon Zimmerman dance topless in flowing skirts of crimson taffeta attached by a single train), but imaginative partnering and a flair for painterly composition captures the love drunk bliss of Handel's Tu sei la bella serena stella.
Sue Hogan's "Dancing on the Radio" is straight up lip-synching punctuated by highly stylized gesture. Hogan and Sakima sit, roll and lay over two chairs while mugging their way through a dissertation on the joys of "transforming your neurosis into art" by way of radio dance. Get NPR on the line.
The slickest and most imaginative new piece I saw (I did not see either of the two Saturday programs) was TANZ*HOTEL's "SPLITTER," a quirky tirade of named body parts connected to the mostly spastic movement of said parts. Funny, weird and expertly delivered by a dead-pan Andrea Nagl and choreographer Bert Gstettner, "SPLITTER" is well thought out, well developed and satisfyingly strange enough for me to want more.
Not so for the festival in general. In spite of several very fine performances (Christine Germain, Slater Penney, Kyla Barkin, Aaron Selissen, Ursula Payne, Pascal Benichou got my attention), too many works were indulgent and amateurish for a festival championing American modern and post-modern dance. We shouldn't be running for the doors the minute the lights come up. Given the challenges of the festival's shoestring budget and rented space, a more tightly edited selection would better serve ADG's function of advocating dance as a communicative art form.
Top photo: Erick Hawkins' "Cantilever" (dancers unidentified)
Middle photo: Isabel Gotzkowsky and Jon Zimmerman in "th(RE)a(D)"
Bottom photo: Sue Hogan and Heather Sakima in "Dancing on the Radio"
