We are SO back! September has rescued us from the sweaty palms of high summer, and beckons us back inside with a bountiful feast of performances for the 2024-25 season. September also marks my birthday month and (after 5 months of anticipation) the long awaited arrival of Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar’s R.O.S.E. Let me tell you, it was a MARVEL. Let’s unpack it!
PROGRAM NOTES
R.O.S.E. at Park Avenue Armory
If every club night were like my experience at R.O.S.E., I would religiously pray at the altar of club kid-hood every weekend.
Allow me to set the scene: you enter the dimly lit auditorium at Park Avenue Armory and are met by a big black wall with a massive projection of a rose. Beneath said projection is a DJ with an uncanny resemblance to Mark Ronson. After a while you see the crowd gravitating to the sides of the big black wall. An entrance? You follow. While the crowd filters through the slit in the wall, you also find out that the DJ was, in fact, Mark Ronson! An usher hands you a sticker to cover your phone camera. You enter into the ‘rave’.
In Sharon Eyal’s rave world, there is no demarcation between performer and spectator — we are all dancers; bodies moving together whether you’re an LES fashion girlie, or an UES art collector (or something else altogether). The space is dark enough that you can’t quite make out individual faces but strobes of light draw you to pockets of movement emerging within the mass. There are no phones so we dance all the more vigorously. DJ, Ben UFO is our conductor, orchestrating the score live from his booth in the corner of the dance floor.
In a slick sleight of hand, dancers appear in the center of the dance floor, clad in nude lace bodysuits (designed by Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri no less), with streaming red eyeliner and bejeweled tear drops embellishing their cheeks. The show begins. The dancers’ bodies are interwoven into one mass and they move like melting candle wax with the occasional glitch-like flicker. From here, the performance would unfold in various acts ranging between 5 and 15 minutes: sometimes a single soloist, another time a human chain connected fingertip to earlobe coursing between spectators. One of my favorite acts involved a completely new cast of dancers dress in the same Dior getup, this time in black, emerging to engage in a battle of sorts with the original cast. Standing at the border between the ‘warring’ troupes, felt like what I imagine the final scene of Step Up 2 would have felt like if it were about contemporary dance.
Courtesy of Stephanie Berger Photography
Eyal’s movement language is defined by its grotesque yet sumptuous quality, with flashes of familiar club moves: a pop of the hip, a bounce of the chest, a body roll, plus a healthy sprinkle of ballroom culture for good measure. There’s a regality to the company as they carve through the space, elevated on their tiptoes. They set their own stage and the shape of the surrounding mass as they go.
At the same time, there’s a sense of volatility; you can never quite anticipate the next move. You share an intimate moment of eye contact with a dancer as they hand you a rose, but the next moment, it’s as though the dancers are looking and moving straight through you. The mood can switch from flirtatious to confrontational to melancholic on a dime.
The format of the evening was equally illusionary. Each “act” would sneak up between intermittent dance breaks where we were left to our own devices and Ben UFO’s mix. I found myself looking over my shoulder trying to figure out where the dancers would appear next.
I cannot overlook the hand of the lighting designers, Alon Cohen and Brandon Stirling Baker, in keeping the audience on its toes. Sometimes, the lighting would bounce off the crowd and tease you into thinking the performance was happening, meanwhile a tableau of dancers hazily fades in on the opposite side of the room. Most impressively, in certain scenes the lightning made the dancers look surreal, like holograms, with an ethereal halo of RGB values emanating from their bodies.
Courtesy of Stephanie Berger Photography
Beyond interdisciplinary, R.O.S.E. was anti-disciplinary, refusing conventions and silos. The result was unbound experimentation and creative collaboration by artists committed to possibility vs expectation. More than that, it was a PARTY — and I could not have asked for a better way to celebrate my birthday. Don’t just take my word for it— the group chat testimonials speak for themselves:
In conclusion, if she wasn’t already on your radar, Sharon Eyal is one to watch. The next opportunity you get, go see her work! PLEASE! Until then, allow me to lure you down the rabbit hole: (Start here, then here, then here, then choose your own adventure!)
LIVE CULTURES: SEPTEMBER PICKS
September is the cultural equivalent of Superbloom. Programming is abundant and finding its way into new settings beyond the theater from your local bar to the museum.
Counting & Cracking comes to NYU Skirball this fall for its North American Premiere after critically acclaimed productions in Australia and the UK. Counting and Cracking is a joyous, epic story of family, forgiveness, the ghosts we leave behind, and the power of love, featuring nineteen actors from across the globe on a multi-generational journey of a Sri Lankan-Australian family from 1956-2004
A night of dance films by Soap Impressions (Lucia Flexer-Marshall and Joaquin Bear). The evening will premier two new films: One Woman in collaboration with Brooklyn-based company Wet Hairy Women, and MMM in collaboration Sasha Marlan-Librett’s TAQ. Grab a ticket, grab a drink and enjoy!
Works & Process is a performing arts series at the Guggenheim, that champions new works and offers audiences unprecedented access to generations of leading creators and performers. For this instalment, Martha Graham Dance Company, a giant of American modern dance, joins forces with the new vanguard choreographic duo, Baye & Asa.
As part of the Works & Process LaunchPAD residency, Baye and Asa offer a pre-premier preview of their new work, Cortege 2023. Inspired by Martha Graham’s Cortege of Eagles, in which the ferryman for the underworld, Charon, foreshadows the fall of Troy, Baye & Asa’s work asks, “Who is the ferryman for the fall of the American Empire?”. The duo is one of the most dynamic and physical choreographers I have seen in recent years, and I’m thoroughly excited to witness their work again.
NYC’s dance community takes over 3 Dollar Bill for a variety show like no other featuring performances from ABT Principal, James Whiteside, and Canadian choreographer, Akira Uchida amongst others. It’ll be hot, sweaty and spicy. There’s also some super cute apparel for sale (It’s still my birthday month, so hand me those “567Ate” briefs, please.)
Fall for Dance is NY City Center’s annual dance festival bringing the best in dance from all over the world. It’s the perfect starter pack for those looking for variety without needing to make decisions. The 12-evening festival boast 5 programs each comprising of 3 different performing guests. Of particular interest to me is Program 4 (Thu, Sep 26 & Fri, Sep 27), which includes MotorRover, a simple yet poignant duet performed by A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham (a live cultures favorite!) and a whimsical contemporary ballet set to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue performed by CCN/Aterballetto.
There’s nothing like a good museum day. Edges of Ailey, is the first large-scale museum exhibition to celebrate the life, dances, influences, and enduring legacy of visionary artist and choreographer Alvin Ailey. consists of an immersive exhibition in the Museum’s 18,000 square-foot fifth-floor galleries—featuring works by more than eighty artists and revelatory archival material—and an ambitious suite of performances in the Museum’s third-floor theater, including Alvin Ailey’s two repertory companies, as well as leading choreographers and their collaborators, including Ronald K. Brown, Bill T. Jones and Matthew Rushing. Tickets went on sale September 10, and you can view the performance calendar here.
Spilling out of September, I already have my sights set towards a can’t-miss field trip to see Olivier Award-winning choreographer Botis Seva and his London-based company Far from the Norm. Making its Joyce debut, BLKDOG, is an emotionally charged Hip-Hop dance performance that reveals the vicious connection between self-discovery and self-destruction. With our Live Cultures discount, tickets will be between $25-50 dollars. Sign up below if you’d like to join us (Tentative date: Thurs, October 10).
