APLOMB

So I spent a few days this past week volunteering at The Forsythe Company’s production of “You made me a monster” at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. It was really, REALLY interesting, and I have some thoughts about it, but I’m still trying to figure a lot of them out myself.

(As a side note though, I got to spend some time with Bill and the dancers and the production crew, which was awesome, plus I got to see the show for free and they gave me a nifty little tag which made me look really cool and official, and Misha said hi to me, so just wanted to give a quick shout out to VOLUNTEERING! For real though, I’ve spent some time volunteering at various companies to help out with things as mundane as mailing drives - lots of folding papers and stuffing envelopes and licking stamps - but it’s really helpful to them and give you a great opportunity to spend time around a dance company, maybe check out rehearsals/get tickets to a show, etc.  So look into it, and I even if you don’t see an actual request for volunteers, give their offices a call and ask them to contact you when they are looking for help, they’ll be totally grateful for it.   It also makes me feel good, because I don’t have money to donate, and often I can’t even afford tickets to a performance, but I can offer my time for a few hours on a Saturday and that can be just as valuable.)

Anyway! Tonya went to see the show on Tuesday and wrote a great post about it to which I left a comment that hopefully explained a few things for her. Also, here is Jennifer Dunning’s review from the New York Times.

I really liked the piece, and I also liked being involved in the production. One of the things that it also made me think a lot about is my personal interest in representations of the body in dance. There are a couple things that have popped up lately (besides the fact that I took TWO totally different courses last semester with the words “body” and “politics” in their titles), including a discussion at Dance/NYC a few months back, and the fact that this piece premiered as part of the Venice Biennale in 2005, and a little further research revealed that:

The International Festival of Contemporary Dance runs June 14 to 30
The 5th International Festival of Contemporary Dance will take place June 14 to 30, 2007, directed by Ismael Ivo. The festival will complete the three-year project that director Ismael Ivo has planned on the theme of the body. Right after Body Attack in 2005 and UnderSkin in 2006, the body as desire will inspire choreographers and dance companies from all over the world. During the last two weeks of June, Venice will be a lively scene with shows, performances, meetings and workshops.

I think I need to go!

But really, I think this was a wonderful example of use, manipulation and representation of the body in dance, and also a really great study in interdisciplinary arts and audience collaboration. Working on it was a great experience, and I got so much out of it.

and just for fun, here’s a picture of me working on one of the models: