Reflections on Performance: Russell Maliphant

THE BIRTH OF A DANCE
© Ann Moradian for The Dance Enthusiast

Le Projet Rodin (The Rodin Project)
Russell Maliphant / Sadler's Wells London
at the Théâtre National de Chaillot, Paris
February 9, 2012

Premieres are tricky... but being lulled to sleep during a dance performance is never a good sign. I assume that some of the weaknesses in Russell Maliphant's The Rodin Project will be worked out by the time it arrives in New York.

Alexander Zekke's music for this production is beautiful in and of itself. I keep hearing that sweet, low voice of the opening cello. It enters and merges with my blood. I mean, it's that beautiful! The movement, however, happens in a world apart from the music. Clear and often abrupt shifts in the score seem uncalled for and unrelated to the dance. This disconnect appears without purpose and, in spite of its beauty, I don't find the the lulling quality of the music helpful.

Russell Maliphant's The Rodin Project- Photo ©Charlotte MacMillan

The first half of the The Rodin Project is all white on white, with costumes (that remind me too much of diapers) in the same off-white tone as the the fabric that is hung and piled on stage, alluding to marble columns and marble quarries. The second half of the dance is black on black, referring, I assume, to the bronze that Auguste Rodin also sculpted with. Russell Maliphant's palette choice is understandable, but it carries with it a serious challenge to the dance's visibility.

The lighting by Maliphant's long-time collaborator, Michael Hulls, aims for atmosphere and feeling, but I can't see the dance or the dancers. There is an interesting moment where the partial lighting from behind almost works--the deep red tones hinting at the kind of heat that softens bronze-- but overall, the dancers are hidden from us in a way that doesn't serve.

And we want to see this dance, and these dancers! They are strong and beautiful, even if underutilized. Three women: Ella Mesma, Carys Staton and Jennifer White, seem decorative rather than integral to the piece. The male-female partnering feels almost formulaic. It is the men alone who have the interesting choreography in this work.

A capoeira-like duet between Tommy Franzen and Thomasin Gülgeç holds some lovely moments. The men move together with a smooth power and fluid control I have seldom seen.

And the duet in the second half, with Tommy Franzen and Dickson Mbi, is unforgettable. Franzen and Mbi move up and down and upside-down the face of a black wall, defying gravity as gently as if they were in free fall. We know that great effort must be required to hang by one hand and slide smoothly down the side of a wall, but we don't see it and we don't feel it. Instead we feel the tenderness of cat feet and kindness as the men help each other explore this vertical surface. It is impossible to ignore the reference to Rodin's masterpiece, The Gates of Hell, because of the sculptural play along the vertical plane. But it remains a reference to an inspiration, rather than an interpretation or reproduction of another artist's work.

Dickson Mbi in Russell Maliphant's The Rodin Project- Photo ©Charlotte MacMillan

The pinnacle of the evening (literally) was a solo performed by Dickson Mbi, high up on a black platform. This section is really black on black, with Mbi's dark skin sculpted beautifully by the light (finally!), just enough to see amidst the black void that surrounds him. Mbi's performance is brilliant and everything comes together here, visually, viscerally, emotionally and intellectually. Mbi pops from one precise form to another, creating a kinetic 'strobe light affect' . Interspersed between pure abstract movement are moments of passionate expression, measured carefully, but escaping nonetheless, like built up steam. This must be the "popping" (as opposed to hip-hopping) aspect of Maliphant's exploration in this work.

With the sound of metal hammering against metal, I experience the birth of this sculpture, with its own particular structure, yearnings and necessities. I am particularly struck by the contradiction between the impersonal quality of metal and the very personal expression Rodin imbued his most potent works with.

It would be satisfying to say that The Rodin Project explored this concept (or another one even) successfully throughout, but it doesn't. Not yet, anyway. There are some beautiful moments, to be sure, but too often the dancers lacked that focus and commitment that can help us enter into an otherwise inaccessible world. Apart from the more vivid sections, the overall work, at this stage, is oomph-less. The use of a strobe light seemed like a cheap way to try to wake us up at the end. Still, I am curious to see this piece a year from now.


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Choreography: Russell Maliphant
Lighting: Michael Hulls
Music: Alexandre Zekke
Sets/Décor: Es Devlin and Bronia Housman with Russell Maliphant
Costumes: Stevie Stewart
Rehearsal Director: Dana Fouras
Technical Team: Andy Downie, Jon Beattie, Ben Walker

Reflections: Danser sa vie (Dance Your Life)

Exhibit of Dance and the Visual Arts
at the Centre Pompidou, Paris
November 2012 –April 2, 2012
 
©Ann Moradian for The Dance Enthusiast

Less than 20 steps into the Danser sa vie (Dance Your Life) Exhibit at the Centre Pompidou, it is clear that seeing dance demands an enormous shift out of our habitual rhythms. You really have to slow down. If the exhibit had only been made up of paintings, photos and text, I am sure I wouldn't have noticed or thought much about it.

Le Saut de Palucca (vers 1922-23) Photography Charlotte Rudolph
Collection Centre Pompidou, Musee National d'art moderne


Fortunately, the Centre Pompidou has an extraordinary collection of dance films and a number of these were central to this exhibit. Many were projected onto huge screens that brought the recordings to life. Live performances were lightly peppered in as well. The balance between all of the different mediums was well measured -- at least through the first half of the exhibit -- and invited a sense of total immersion into an era or an idea.

The exhibit reveals, before our very eyes, the relationship between dance and the visual arts, and the "hidden side of the avant-gardes" where dance, we learn, played an important and pivotal role. The works are displayed not only in relation to each other, but also in relation to the flow of history and a culture in constant transition.

Seeing Isadora Duncan's free-flowing body projected alongside the work of artists she inspired, like Auguste Rodin and Antoine Bourdelle, sheds a tangible light on the influence she had on their work. Similarly, Vaslav Nijinski's Afternoon of a Faun performed by the Paris Opera Ballet and projected in grand format, is displayed alongside artists he inspired and collaborated with, like Léon Bakst, the Russian painter who designed the costumes and sets for this virile and controversial work.

The films of Mary Wigman's Hexentanz (Witch Dance) and Totenmal (Call of the Dead) are potent, and made even more so when placed in relation to World War II and the Third Reich, which she had cooperated with. The precursor to the iconic, masked, robotic monster, Darth Vadar (from George Lucas’ film Star Wars) appears not only in Wigman's Totenmal but also in The Green Table by choreographer, Kurt Joos, who fled Germany in 1933.

Rudolf von Laban, a Hungarian known in the United States mostly for developing Laban Movement Analysis and Laban Dance Notation, is revealed to be not only an extraordinary performer, but also the creator of what might be described as an arts commune (which looked to me like it was mostly made up himself and a troop of adoring female dancers.) I was as surprised by this as I was to learn that Laban also cooperated with the Third Reich, working with the Ministry of Propaganda.

Descriptive texts weave a path throughout the exhibit. Sometimes they bring a new understanding to the relationships at play on an historic level. Sometimes the words offer insight into the personal explorations and motivations of the artists. I had never heard of Sonia Delaunay before, but I loved reading her writing about how the rhythms of the foxtrot and tango made them want to explore the dance of color on canvas--and she did in her abstract work La Bal Bullier.

Totentanze der Mary Wigman Painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 1926-28, Witchtrach/Berne, Galerie Henze& Ketterer& Triebold

A film by Theirry de Mey, Counter Phrases, featuring the choreography of the contemporary Belgian Anne Theresa de Keersmaeker, is the centerpiece in yet another room. This film follows the Duncan and Nijinski presentations and, unexpectedly, creates an almost tangible thread spooling out from those earlier works. Normally I would associate de Keersmaeker's work with the more minimalist choreography of someone like Lucinda Childs, but here less obvious links to the beginnings of the early modern dance movement are made visible. 

The exhibit is divided into three parts that are not as clearly defined as they could be. The first is focused on personal expression and the second on abstraction and mechanization. The third section is labeled "performance" and covers theatrical performance, the body as a performance event, dance 'happenings', popular dance and performance art.

By the time I reached the last section, I admit that fatigue had set in. I found myself more often repelled from the work rather than drawn into it. I began skimming over the surface of things. I couldn't see the relationships clearly, and I did not always agree with the work chosen. I was intrigued by the physicality in the creation of visual works by Kazuo Shiraga and Jackson Pollock. Man Ray's intelligence in his poignant broken clock piece Danger/Dancer resonated deep within the dancer in me, and my awareness of the inseparable link between movement and life itself.

A film of Anna Halprin's Paper Dance, with nude dancers moving quite naturally with and in a huge pile of paper, satisfied me enormously with its visual beauty and simplicity. I was delighted by the challenge presented in Olafur Eliasson's 2011 film, Movement Microscope, showing the dance that resides in the most ordinary of movements and gestures.  

Performance painting #2, 2005- Nicolas Floc'h, Video HDV, Interprète Rachid Ouramdane © Adagp, Paris 2011

In one of the last rooms, small photos and sketches were hung on the large walls. After the larger than life presentations in the preceding halls, those pictures seemed like scratch marks on a vast canvas. The rows of little black boxes lined up on viewing tables in the center of the room did little to invite me in to the films of work by contemporary dance artists like Lucinda Childs, Deborah Hay, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, and Robert Rauschenberg. I did little more than glance at the last room with a film of choreographer Jerome Bel's work. It just couldn't capture my attention at this point.

You really have to slow down to take dance in. It is almost like you have to live along with the dance to really experience it. This can be a little irritating when you are tired or rushed. In an exhibit such as this, it becomes clear that if you only glance at it, you will see next-to-nothing. If you stop for 3 minutes when a dance is ten minutes long, you will get a taste of its texture and colors, rhythms and form, and possibly a feel for the artist's aesthetic and choices, but you won’t see the work, nor will you see the artist's composition or vision. It is like looking at a small corner of a painting, rather than the entire piece.  

I learned an enormous amount from this exhibit and appreciated the intelligence and love of dance, art and life at work here. After spending four hours there, I could only take in the first half. I guess I'll be going back!  Thankfully Danser sa vie runs through April 2nd.

Call for Performers: Experimental Physical Theatre Workshop

(for the English version, see below)

Appel aux artistes de scène en quête d'aventure. Si vous avez une expérience dans au moins une des disciplines suivantes, vous nous intéressez : théâtre, expression corporelle, arts martiaux, danse, mouvement, yoga…

Venez explorer l'interaction de ces expressions artistiques dans la nouvelle production de Méduse, dans une version qui remet le mythe au goût du jour. Notions d'anglais nécessaires. Tous les participants à l'atelier pourront être candidats pour un casting ultérieur. Pour plus d'informations, cliquez ici

samedi 31 mars & dimanche 1er avril
13h00 -18h00
Tarif : €50
à Galerie G / L'Art au Garage
23 rue des Lilas
75019 Paris
M° Place des Fêtes

Pour toute candidature, merci d'envoyer CV, photos, liens internet, etc., à : Ann Moradian - perspectivesinmotion@gmail.com

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Seeking the adventurous.
If you have experience in one or more of the following, then this workshop is for you: Theatre, Physical Theatre, Martial Arts, Dance, Movement, Yoga...

Come and explore material from the multi-disciplinary movement-theatre production of Medusa, updated and re-told. Some understanding of English is needed. All workshops participants will be considered for a later casting. For further information, click here

Saturday & Sunday, March 31 & April 1
13h00 - 18h00
Cost: €50
at Galerie G / L'Art au Garage
23 rue des Lilas
75019 Paris
M° Place des Fêtes

If interested, please send any support materials (CV, photos, links, etc.) to: Ann Moradian at perspectivesinmotion@gmail.com

Reflections on Performance: Richard Siegal

Richard Siegal and The Bakery
If/Then Dialogues
The Arts Arena at the Door Studios, Paris
Monday, November 21, 2011, 7:00pm

DESIGNS IN MOVEMENT ARCHITECTURE
© Ann Moradian

Richard Siegal, an American now based in Paris and Berlin, talks in Paris. Okay, he actually dances--long legged, loose-limbed power with articulation, and play-- and talks at the same time. And he even makes a lot of sense, despite the fact that he seems to be running off on tangents right and left, lost in his own stream of consciousness.

Richard Siegal. Photo © Arnaud Ferry.

If/Then Dialogues is not a lecture-demonstration, nor a performance, nor a presentation. It really is a 'dialogue.' Okay, Siegal talks and moves the most in the first half of this informal presentation in the lower level loft space at the Door Studios. This is true. As he dances, moves, doesn't move, he is chatting with us all the while (“Is this music getting boring? Should I change it?”).

Siegal has made a series of what I think are very conscious choices, like: movement and words that seem casual, lights that keep the audience almost fully visible, sweats and tee-shirt for a costume, water when thirsty, chocolate to munch, sound system within reach. He gives us permission to be something other than “fine", a word he hears all the time in the States that isn't really fine at all. Added together, these choices create an environment that gives us permission to be honest and vulnerable, as Siegal is. (I mean, if we want to be).

Richard Siegal. Photo © Arnaud Ferry.

In his tangential stories (that are not really so tangential), I pick up on the bits that speak most to me: like 'we're all aging,' the body getting 'a little rickety' (Sigh). I am strangely reassured by his re-telling of Simon Forti's story of coming across a dead man lying on the sidewalk in front of a Paris bakery. As she tries to get information from the two policemen standing guard she meets their unyielding denial: "Rien à voir" (Nothing to see). Faced with a dead body on stage and the solid mass of unyielding police-flesh, 'aging' and 'a little rickety' start to seem pretty “fine” to me!

Richard Siegal. Photo © Arnaud Ferry.

But can you believe he gave away the secrets of dance, and I missed it?! Eccentric contraction and concentric contraction did he say/show (shay?)? I must have blinked in the flurry of spitting movement. Rats! I'll have to ask him about that.

I hope this gives you a vague impression of the first half of the evening. It felt like a series of looping, sweeping, rolling non sequiturs, but... by the end of the evening it is clear that they were not all tangents.

Richard Siegal and the audience. Photo © Arnaud Ferry.

The second half begins with all of us shifting from the ground floor up a level. "Follow me..." to a second and equally charming space. A little champagne, “un petit goûter” (a little snack) and we, who were the audience, start to mess around a little, moving in (and out) of the totally white performance space--a studio usually occupied by upscale fashion photographers and their models.

Who would ever think you could get a very mixed group of usually reserved French people (well, to be fair, the Arts Arena has a very eclectic and international following) to, not only move together and improvise for hours, but to touch each other -- even touch each others leggings! (I send my apologies to the lady in the lamé.)

The audience. Photo © Arnaud Ferry.

This is a Paris I've never experienced before outside of the Contact and 5-Rhythms dance communities. I was telling a couple of friends about it this morning and the French woman's jaw dropped open in disbelief. Unheard of here!

It just seemed to happen. In thinking back on it, it is clear that Siegal designed the evening specifically for this possibility, and that his casually sharing the definition of "Affordance" (the intention of the architect that is left behind through the parameters of the design itself) was anything but an irrelevant aside.

Looking at the design of the evening, Siegal first and foremost prepared us to be willing to move–to accept our limitations, and to forgive those quaint or outright bizarre expressions in movement that show up from time to time. (I mean, how could we not find Siegal's danced “sheep” – that looks nothing like any sheep we have ever seen – completely endearing? “That's supposed to be a sheep,” he tells us, about as surprised as we are!).

The audience. Photo © Arnaud Ferry.

Of course, the champagne helped a bit, too. So while Siegal joined us to chat a bit (now in a black suit, like many of us), some of his dancers must have discreetly got a few willing souls moving. By the time I noticed anything interesting happening, there was a group moving in unison against the smooth curve of the wall that seemed to invite me, too, to touch. And to be willing to be touched too!

Thank you Richard, and Arts Arena, for such an extraordinary evening!

If/Then Installed can be seen at the Centre Pompidou in Paris as part of the exhibit “Danser sa vie”

How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body

Last fall, I began working with a private student who had practiced yoga for many years, mostly on her own with videotapes for guidance. She had developed spinal stenosis and, after a year of limited movement and severe pain, wanted to verify that she was working safely in her home practice before returning to it. She brought this article to my attention, and I think it is worth sharing. (Click here to link directly to the article, How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body, by William J. Broad for the New York Times.)

It is easy to mistake Yoga for "exercise" and to imagine that its goal is perfected postures or a beautiful body. But yoga postures are only a very small part of Yoga, and not even a mandatory part. Yoga is the calming or stilling of the whirling activity of the mind, and it comes from the Sanskrit root word "yuj," which means union or yolk.

According to Yoga philosophy, our individual consciousness or mind (chitta) is comprised of the ego-mind (ahamkhara), the senses (manas), and discriminating intellect (buddhi). To still the illusory dramas and stories of the ego is Yoga practice. To release the attachments, desires and aversions provoked by the senses is Yoga practice. To distinguish between the information the discerning mind provides and our feelings or ideas about that information is Yoga practice. To yolk the "mind stuff" and unite it with mahat, that "cosmic intelligence" that is the "womb of all creation," is practicing Yoga. And transcending all of this is the aim of Yoga: samadhi.

Asana is simply "a steady, comfortable" posture. Unlike many forms of exercise, the asanas work deeply on every level, affecting not only our muscles, tissues and joints, but all of the body's systems, including the nervous, endocrine and cardiovascular systems.

For me the article, "How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body," serves as an important reminder to seek ease and stability in our posture work, and in our lives. We open into our fullest potential simply and gracefully when we are ready, not when we are forced. I am grateful for this reminder of how important it is to listen to and work within the body's limits, and to take the time and attention to be honest about what is driving us in our "doing."

Opportunity Updates

Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Special Presenter Initiatives Grant Program
$500 to $5,000 grants to small and mid-sized presenting organizations in Delaware, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Deadline: various, February 1, 2012

Sundance Documentary Fund Spring 2012 Grants Round
Up to $50,000 to support documentary films that focus on current human rights issues, freedom of expression, social justice, civil liberties, and related issues.
Deadline: February 9, 2012

"Thanksgiving is an action"

Just a reminder that Ann will be teaching Community Class this
Sunday, November 27th from 11h30 to 13h00 at the
Centre de Yoga du Marais, 72 rue Vertbois, 75003
M° Reamur-Sebastopol, Arts et Metiers, Temple, Republique, Strasbourg-St. Denis
Suggested donation 10€ - 50€

Community Classes at the Centre are donation-based, and every cent goes to support those in need: 'Families for Children' is a not-for-profit agency that cares for over 600 destitute and mentally challenged children and women in India and Bangladesh. The organization is run entirely by volunteers from their own homes, so the money goes directly to the orphanages and schools that they have set up. The Centre de Yoga du Marais and its teachers have been supporting this organization for several years through regular and ongoing Karma Yoga practice.

Reservation encouraged, but not required.
Contact: pranastretch@yahoo.com or call 06 89 70 23 58