Dance, music
Missy | August 24, 2008
Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet in Jill Johnson’s The Copier. (Photo by me.)
This weekend I saw Cedar Lake perform a 40-minute dance installation at their space in Chelsea and I liked the piece so much I went back the next day to see it again. The Copier’s premise is rather simple: our day-to-day routines, our natural inclination to live our lives similarly, to essentially copy one another. In an interesting twist (for me, at least), photography was not only allowed, it was encouraged. In some sense, that is fitting with the piece: no two photographs will look the same or capture the same moment, just as we as individuals are never truly synchronized with each other. (See some of my other photos here. I’ve shot a lot of 3200 film this week in low light conditions and, with a little Photoshopping, have been pleased with the results.)
The company is well-funded (it was created by Wal-Mart heiress Nancy Laurie, whose contributions allow for the company’s own space and salaries + health benefits for the dancers) and potentially one of the most exciting companies in New York City. I say ‘potentially’ because of the flexible theater space, the talented dancers, an artistic director who believes in risk-taking without having to worry about the company’s own legacy (see: City Ballet) or aesthetic (see: Cunningham, Taylor, etc). Their risks, however, haven’t always paid off; reviews for past works have been mixed. That said, two of my favorite performances in the city over the past year or two have come out of this company: The Copier; and Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin’s Decadance. The dancers are eclectic and yet adaptable; they’ll work at length within a certain style in order to accurately represent the work.
I also went to (le) poisson rouge to see Nico Muhly, Sam Amidon, and Doveman collectively perform (with special guests Oren Bloedow from Elysian Fields and violist Nadia Sirota…that’s Nadia on Nico’s “Keep In Touch”, which I was so happy to hear live, minus Antony.) Sam and Doveman (aka Thomas Bartlett) I knew of previously through my friend Ezra, he of teaching cancer to cry and assless bikes. Ez and Thomas are brothers; Sam and Thomas are best friends from Vermont. Nico I came to completely independently, when I first heard him last fall via a commissioned work for American Ballet Theater. Of course, I have blogged about about my fondness for him. The show was terrific, and in an intimate theater-in-the-round set-up (where, by the way, I am seeing John Zorn and Lou Reed in about a week); they all played on each others’ songs instead of splitting the evening into distinct sets. A true highlight was Nico’s piece for Sam, “The Only Tune”. Nico is delightful; when his pieces were being played, he became very conductorly in his face and gestures. His newest record, Monthertongue is an interesting record that I’m still feeling my way through. The opening work contains repetitions of numbers and addresses–initially, my reaction was, “Is he trying to be cute? Having someone sing the phonebook?”. Then it occurred to me that these numbers have meaning and have been stored away in the singer’s brain. I can’t help but wonder if it is a direct reflection of Muhly’s own brain and how he/we try to quiet the chatter.
What else? Watch some Cedar Lake clips here;. If you haven’t heard Doveman’s take on the Footloose soundtrack (for reals), go here. Sam blogs here. And, of course, Nico blogs here.
