Category Archives: DANCE

MICHAEL CLARK — COSMIC DANCER

I never really had a plan, except to express myself as purely as possible… I still make work on my own body first, as I always have. I can only understand it from the inside. — Michael Clark

MICHAEL CLARK—COSMIC DANCER, recently at the Barbican, was the first comprehensive retrospective of the British dance artist. Interrupted by the pandemic shutdowns, the exhibition lives on in the catalog, edited by Florence Ostende.

Bringing together materials from his choreographic work and collaborations with artists—including Elizabeth Peyton, Silke Otto-Knapp, Sarah Lucas, Wolfgang Tillmans, Leigh Bowery, Peter Doig, Cerith Wyn Evans, and Duncan Campbell—the book is a beautiful complement to MICHAEL CLARK, a 2011 monograph edited by Suzanne Cotter and Robert Violette.

See link below for details.

MICHAEL CLARK—COSMIC DANCER

Edited by Florence Ostende.

Prestel Publishing

From top: Charles Atlas, Hail the New Puritan (1986), Michael Clark, stills, 16mm film transferred to video, image courtesy and © Charles Atlas and Luhring Augustine; Michael Clark and Company, I Am Curious, Orange, 1988, photograph by Richard Haughton, image courtesy and © the artists and the photographer; Michael Clark, Before and After: The Fall, 2001, in Berlin, Lorena Randi and Victoria Insole, photograph by Andrea Stappert, image courtesy and © the artists and photographer; Clark during the filming of Hail the New Puritan, photograph by Alexander James, image courtesy and © the artists and the photographer; Wolfgang Tillmans, man with clouds, 1998, image courtesy and © the artist, Galerie Buchholz, Maureen Paley, and David Zwirner; Elizabeth Peyton, Michael Clark, 2009, image courtesy and © the artist and Sadie Coles HQ; Silke Otto-Knapp, Group (Formation), 2020, watercolor, image courtesy and © the artist, Galerie Buchholz, and Greengrassi; Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer (2020), edited by Florence Ostende, exhibition catalog cover image—Clark, Mmm, photograph by Hugo Glendinning—courtesy and © the artist, the photographer, the Barbican, and Prestel Publishing; Leigh Bowery and Rachel Auburn in Hail the New Puritan; Clark at the opening of Derek Jarman’s 1984 exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, photograph by Steve Pyke; Hail the New Puritan, courtesy and © Atlas and Luhring Augustine; Ellen van Schuylenburch and Clark in Hail the New Puritan, photograph by Haughton. Images courtesy and © the artists, the photographers, and the Barbican.

KYLE ABRAHAM — WHEN WE FELL

The dance event of the season, understandably, happens to be a film. WHEN WE FELL—choreographed by Kyle Abraham and directed by Abraham and Ryan Marie Helfant—was commissioned by the New York City Ballet and was shot inside their Lincoln Center home.

WHEN WE FELL is danced by India BradleyJonathan FahouryChristopher GrantClaire KretzschmarLauren LovetteTaylor Stanley, KJ Takahashi, and Sebastian Villarini-Velez. Music for the 16-minute work is by Morton Feldman, Jason Moran, and Nico Muhly.

The film is introduced by dancer-choreographer Wendy Whelan, Associate Artistic Director, New York City Ballet. See link below for free streaming details to the film as well as the short RETURN TO FORM: CREATING KYLE ABRAHAM’S WHEN WE FELL.

WHEN WE FELL

Directed by Kyle Abraham and Ryan Marie Helfant.

New York City Ballet

Streaming through April 22

Kyle Abraham and Ryan Marie Helfant, When We Fell (2021), stills by Helfant. Images © Kyle Abraham and Ryan Marie Helfant, courtesy of the artists and New York City Ballet.

RASHIDA BUMBRAY AND JEFFERSON PINDER IN CONVERSATION

This week, MICA presents The Body As Black Archive, featuring performance artist and choreographer Rashida Bumbray and interdisciplinary artist Jefferson Pinder in conversation, moderated by curator Niama Safia Sandy.

See link below to register for the webinar.

THE BODY AS BLACK ARCHIVE

RASHIDA BUMBRAY and JEFFERSON PINDER IN CONVERSATION

Maryland Institute College of Art

Thursday, March 18.

1 pm on the West Coast; 4 pm East Coast.

From top: Rashida Bumbray, photograph by Jamie Philbert, courtesy of the artist and the photographer; Jefferson Pinder, Prowl, 2020, Chicago, image © Jefferson Pindar, courtesy of the artist; Jefferson Pinder, Monolith (dreamcatcher) , Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, 2015–2016, image © Jefferson Pindar, courtesy of the artist and the Hyde Park Art Center.

JESSICA EMMANUEL

Jessica Emmanuel presents ‘kwirē/, a new solo, multimedia dance work that “considers a dystopian world where the majority of historical and ancestral information has been destroyed.”

The wealthy have left the planet and few humans survived. A dance and sound retrieval system has been created to help us restore our connection to our memories and the history that is stored in our DNA. Guided by Emmanuel’s ancestors, she gathers and collects information, nurtures the soil and roots that are used to restore the earth for those left behind.* 

Filmed on the REDCAT stage and available to watch this week online, the work takes place in a sculptural installation created in collaboration between Emmanuel and Trulee Hall.

See link below for details.

JESSICA EMMANUEL—‘KWIRE*

REDCAT

Thursday and Friday, March 4 and 5.

8:30 pm on the West Coast, 11:30 pm East Coast.

Saturday, March 6.

5 pm on the West Coast, 8 pm East Coast.

From top: Jessica Emmanuel, ‘kwirē/; Emmanuel in Reflections of the Vastness Within at The Chronicles of LA: Chapter 2: Self, 2018; Emmanuel in Trilogy: Witnessing Her + Decolonize That Mind + Proliferation of Joy, Teatr Studio, Warsaw, 2018; Emmanuel in Poor Dog Group, Dionysia (aka Satyr Atlas), Getty Villa, 2011.

CALARTS WINTER DANCE — REPERTORY / TRAJECTORY

This year, the CalArts Winter Dance—presented with Redcat—will be online, “an immersive, digital performance… synthesizing the embodied memories of the faculty and students… charting [their] personal and shared histories with fresh insights through cutting-edge cartographies, [imagining] new dances in new forms through new technologies”*

Works by Holley Farmer (Bricolage), Rosanna Gamson / World Wide (vignettes from As Yet Untitled), Yusha-Marie Sorzano (Threat), Spenser Theberge (Fit), and Sam Wentz (the proximity dance), are scheduled for this weekend. See link below for details.

CALARTS WINTER DANCE—REPERTORY / TRAJECTORY*

Sharon Disney Lund Dance Series, co-presented with Redcat

Friday, December 4, at 8:30 pm PST.

Saturday, December 5, at 4 pm PST.

From top: Yusha-Marie Sorzano, photograph by Eric Politzer; Holley Farmer, image courtesy The Pool, the CalArts alumni magazine; Rosanna Gamson / World Wide, Sugar Houses, photograph by Rebecca Green; Winter Dance Concert; Spenser Theberge, photograph by Jacob Jonas; Sam Wentz, photograph by Anca Brizan. Images courtesy and © the artists, the photographers, CalArts, and Redcat.