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Biennial Buzz

2019 Whitney Biennial
Whitney Museum of American Art
New York, New York
May 14, 2019 

by Tom Phillips 
copyright 2019 by Tom Phillips 

Neck-deep in controversy even before it began, the 79th Whitney Biennial opened today –- organized by two adventurous young women, showcasing emerging artists and artists of color, many of them under 40 years old. Curators Jane Panetta and Ru Hockney set out to reflect the current American turmoil in both social and aesthetic issues. Their show delivers with a panoply of objects d’art from the purely beautiful to the politically explosive.

On the aesthetic end of the spectrum is a live installation by Brendan Fernandes called “The Master and Form,” which examines the relation of ballet to sculpture. This occupies a spacious room with props including a large jungle gym structure, used like a barre by a half-dozen well-trained New York ballet dancers. It’s a black leotard ballet without dancing, static poses rather than movement. More interesting for sculpture buffs than balletomanes, probably, but physically bracing and fun to walk around in. 

Photo by Tom Phillips

Beatledom without the Beat

Pepperland 
Mark Morris Dance Group 
Brooklyn Academy of Music 
Brooklyn, New York
May 11, 2019 

by Tom Phillips 
copyright 2019 by Tom Phillips 

Great artists know where they shouldn't go. George Balanchine, for example, never choreographed to Beethoven, because he said Beethoven's works  were complete in themselves, nothing to add. Mark Morris could have used that kind of discernment when he accepted a commission for a 50^th-anniversary tribute to the Beatles’ masterpiece “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” The resulting “Pepperland” is an uncharacteristically shallow work that does worse than add nothing. It subtracts much of the album's content, substituting original segments by composer Ethan Iverson that have only fleeting connections to the Beatles. Beyond that, the whole project completely misses the spirit and the style of "Sgt. Pepper." 

Photo: Mark Morris Dance Group in Pepperland. Photo by Mat Hayward.

Parable of the Plant Kingdom

"Estado Vegetal" 
Manuela Infante 
Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York 
May 3, 2019

by Tom Phillips 
copyright 2019 by Tom Phillips 

In medical Spanish, "Estado Vegetal" means a vegetative state, where basic life functions go on but consciousness and thought are absent. Politically, a "Vegetative State" could mean rule by the plant kingdom. This intense theatrical piece, starring a young Chilean woman and an array of potted plants, suggests such a state is exactly where humanity is headed.  

Photo: Estado Vegetal, by Maria Baranova.

Holy Ground, Dirty Dancing

"One. One & One"
Vertigo Dance Company 
Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York
March 6, 2019

by Tom Phillips 
copyright 2019 by Tom Phillips 

Except for a neat row of dirt at the front of the stage, the opening section of “One. One & One” by Israel’s Vertigo Dance Company looks much like the closing elegy of George Balanchine’s “Serenade.” It’s a solemn communal idyll, to sonorous cellos in a minor key, with a motif of dancers leaning on each other for balance and support. They seem to be a close-knit group, working out complex tasks together –- as when three men braid the hair of a woman while she uses her long tresses to pull them across the stage. 

Photo by Stephanie Berger.

Hip-hop Round-trip: London to New York

"Blak Whyte Gray"
Boy Blue
Michael "Mikey J" Asante, Creative Direction and Music 
Kenrick "H2O" Sandy, Choreography
Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College 
Lincoln Center White Light Festival 
November 16, 2018

by Tom Phillips 
copyright 2018 by Tom Phillips 

Members of Boy Blue held a post-performance chat last night after the US premiere of "Blak Whyte Gray," and it was a shock to hear their British accents. Their intense and acrobatic hip-hop dancing was straight from the streets of New York -- having made a round trip from east London.  

Flipping the usual progression from darkness to light, this young British troupe gives us a three-part journey of liberation that starts with "Whyte" and ends with "Blak." The progress is upward, from a kind of enslavement to a celebration of strength and freedom.  But the opening depiction of present-day slavery seemed the most relevant to an American audience.

Photo by Carl Fox. 

Godot and Warhol in New York

"Waiting for Godot"
By Samuel Beckett, directed by Garry Hynes   
Gerald W. Lynch Theater, Lincoln Center, New York 
November 5, 2018 

"Andy Warhol -- From A to B and Back Again"
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 
Opening November 12, 2018 

by Tom Phillips
copyright 2018 by Tom Phillips

In the mid-20^th century, Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” seemed like an end game. Two vagabonds meet daily by a tree, and hope for a deliverance that never comes. In Act One they decide to hang themselves, but can’t decide on the best method: 

ESTRAGON:  Use your intelligence, can't you?                            

Vladimir puts hand to head, uses his intelligence. 

VLADIMIR: (finally) I remain in the dark. 

Diversion arrives in the form of a master and slave, but they seem to be regressing towards doom. Pozzo oppresses his lackey Lucky, who babbles theology on demand. Pozzo goes blind as they exit in Act Two.  Vladimir and Estragon remain waiting, but Godot never shows.    

Aaron Monaghan and Marty Rea in "Waiting for Godot"   Photo by Richard Termine

Humanity in Splitsville

"Split"
Lucy Guerin Inc 
Baryshnikov Arts Center
New York 
October 13, 2018 

by Tom Phillips 
copyright 2018 by Tom Phillips 

Two women -- one naked, one in a modest blue dress -- dance parallel figures to the sound of drums, on a bare stage marked off by a square of white tape. The gestures suggest a range of human activities: play, sport, religious ritual, repetitive work, rest, sex, sleep, and dance itself, ballet and modern and folk. The moves are identical but look different, articulate and sensuous in the flesh, hidden or suggested in the folds of a dress. The two dancers have plenty of room to share, and seem to co-exist peacefully. After 15 minutes or so, they pause and divide the square in two, laying a line of tape straight down the center. 

Photo by Gregory Lorenzutti

Beyond Butoh

"Darkness Odyssey Part 2: I or Hallucination" 
Kota Yamazaki/Fluid hug-hug
Baryshnikov Arts Center
New York December 14, 2017

by Tom Phillips 
copyright 2017 by Tom Phillips 

Five dancers take part in Kota Yamazaki’s “Darkness Odyssey Part 2: I or Hallucination,” but for the most part each dances on his or her own, on a shiny floor, with a diaphanous rectangle of silver fabric hanging overhead. The overall feeling is one of slow, liquid movement -- but with fits and starts troubling the surface calm.     

Photo: (L-R): Julian Barnett, Mina Nishimura, Raja Feather Kelly, and Joanna Kotze. Photo by Stephanie Berger.

Monk on Monk

"Dancing Voices" 
Meredith Monk and the Young People's Chorus of New York 
Lincoln Center White Light Festival
New York 
October 20, 2017 

by Tom Phillips
copyright 2017 by Tom Phillips 

As an artist Meredith Monk has never done just one thing at a time. With “Dancing Voices,” which helped kick off Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival this weekend, she attempts both a retrospective of her own career as composer-choreographer and a transmission of her dharma to a new generation of artists.  

“Dancing Voices” is divided into two parts. Part One is a selection of her early experiments, from the Sixties to the early Nineties, performed with a chorus of young kids. Part Two is more recent, reflective works, with older children joining in. The first part was the most fun, and the most moving.

Meredith  Monk, photo by Julieta Cervantes.

Noh Now

"Left-Right-Left"
Luca Veggetti, Director/Choreographer
Japan Society, New York
October 13, 2017

by Tom Phillips 
Copyright 2017 by Tom Phillips 

"Left-Right-Left" describes the basic act of walking, or dancing. It also might describe a historical or dramatic dialectic: a movement from hope to despair, to new hope. Taken together, this is the material for an experimental drama combining western contemporary dance with the 600-year-old Japanese Noh Theater. It's a tall order, a joint project of Japan Society in New York and the Yokohama Noh Theater. Italian choreographer Luca Veggetti, whose career has taken him from La Scala to Tokyo and New York, is bold enough to take it on. 

All photos:  Yoichi Tsukada.