Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk star in new season at the Joyce
by Mary Staub
Encore Magazine
http://www.encoremag.com/?q=article&id=394
Savion Glover is perhaps best known for his tap work on Broadway. After all, he made his Broadway debut at age ten, in The Tap Dance Kid, and won two Obie Awards for his Broadway show Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk about a decade later.
But Savion Glover’s dedication to tap reaches far beyond the flashiness of Broadway shows. It began when he was just seven years old and would take weekend trips to New York City for tap lessons. Around that same time, Glover caught glimpses of such legendary tappers as Chuck Green and was immediately taken. It was the notion of tap as music, more so than dance, that captivated and continues to fascinate Glover. And it is this, the sound of tap, rather than only its look, that he’s most passionate about.
“I was introduced to tap as its being music,” Glover says in a phone interview. “People like Chuck Green and Jimmy Slyde were great musicians because of their approach to tap. In the style of tap I do, tap is the leading instrument and I like to make audiences aware of that.”
This is the central theme of Glover’s multi-week season at the Joyce Theater this month. Although tap is usually associated with jazz or Broadway music, Glover decided many years ago that tap can flavor any musical style. For his current production, Savion Glover’s Solo in Time, tap and flamenco will come together.
“The connection of what I do to flamenco lies in the whole lament, whole cry, whole pouring back into the earth and giving energy back to the earth,” says Glover. “It’s a cry and a celebration. That’s what music, sound, vibration should do. It should spark energy in someone.”
For audiences wanting a narrative performance with the glitz and glamour of a Broadway show, Glover’s Joyce production may not be the ticket. Just like in most Joyce shows, in Savion Glover’s Solo in Time, narration is clearly beside the point. It’s a concert; not purely or primarily a dance concert, but a concert of sound and rhythm.
“One of the great things about a concert-style project is that it’s not Broadway and there isn’t a thematic thread throughout the evening,” says Glover. “The only story here is tap. Tap is music. Tap is song. It’s free expression, emotional expression, and I hope it allows the audience to be moved by what is on stage.”
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company
GaGa technique of strength and restraint featured in BAM run
Encore Magazine
http://www.encoremag.com/?q=article&id=396
by Mary Staub
Countless methodologies maintain they will bring on a healthier, more natural, effortless way of moving. The Feldenkrais Method, Alexander Technique, Body-Mind Centering, and Ideokinesis are just a few that come to mind. Most of these encourage practitioners to become aware of their own existent movement patterns by focusing on the minutiae: the muscle used to curl a finger, whether one breathes in or out when raising an arm.
Once awareness of these details has been gained, patterns can be broken and new, more natural pathways can be nurtured by professionals—i.e., dancers, actors—and amateurs alike. However, in order for these methods to have significant effect, the miniscule must first be translated into the grand. This is no easy feat, and changes in posture and movement are often unrecognizable to the untrained eye.
One methodology whose effects are easily recognizable is GaGa. The technique was developed more than twenty years ago by Ohad Naharin, the artistic director of Israel’s powerful Batsheva Dance Company, which is revisiting the Brooklyn Academy of Music this month. Naharin developed GaGa after he was forced to find new ways of movement for himself due to a back injury.
GaGa has more to do with discovering a certain quality, texture, and intention of movement than a specific technique. “The first thing we do is cover the mirrors and we try to get the dancers to really start sensing their bodies,” Naharin told me on a past visit to New York. “So many dancers dance with just one idea; their school’s idea, a strength idea, an idea of line, or form, or drama.
But there’s always more than just one idea that you can work with.”
The outcome, among Naharin’s dancers at least, is a captivating mix of seemingly conflicting expressive qualities. Batsheva dancers exhibit an extraordinary combination of power and softness, energy and suppleness.
These textures will no doubt be on view in the company’s New York City premiere of Naharin’s Max at BAM. In Max, Naharin plays with extreme notions of pain and happiness, solitude and sharing, individuality and community. Batsheva dancers, with their seemingly innate command of the soft and stark, powerful and meek, are expertly equipped to deal with these inherently interlinked polar opposites.
Encore Magazine
http://www.encoremag.com/?q=article&id=396
by Mary Staub
Countless methodologies maintain they will bring on a healthier, more natural, effortless way of moving. The Feldenkrais Method, Alexander Technique, Body-Mind Centering, and Ideokinesis are just a few that come to mind. Most of these encourage practitioners to become aware of their own existent movement patterns by focusing on the minutiae: the muscle used to curl a finger, whether one breathes in or out when raising an arm.
Once awareness of these details has been gained, patterns can be broken and new, more natural pathways can be nurtured by professionals—i.e., dancers, actors—and amateurs alike. However, in order for these methods to have significant effect, the miniscule must first be translated into the grand. This is no easy feat, and changes in posture and movement are often unrecognizable to the untrained eye.
One methodology whose effects are easily recognizable is GaGa. The technique was developed more than twenty years ago by Ohad Naharin, the artistic director of Israel’s powerful Batsheva Dance Company, which is revisiting the Brooklyn Academy of Music this month. Naharin developed GaGa after he was forced to find new ways of movement for himself due to a back injury.
GaGa has more to do with discovering a certain quality, texture, and intention of movement than a specific technique. “The first thing we do is cover the mirrors and we try to get the dancers to really start sensing their bodies,” Naharin told me on a past visit to New York. “So many dancers dance with just one idea; their school’s idea, a strength idea, an idea of line, or form, or drama.
But there’s always more than just one idea that you can work with.”
The outcome, among Naharin’s dancers at least, is a captivating mix of seemingly conflicting expressive qualities. Batsheva dancers exhibit an extraordinary combination of power and softness, energy and suppleness.
These textures will no doubt be on view in the company’s New York City premiere of Naharin’s Max at BAM. In Max, Naharin plays with extreme notions of pain and happiness, solitude and sharing, individuality and community. Batsheva dancers, with their seemingly innate command of the soft and stark, powerful and meek, are expertly equipped to deal with these inherently interlinked polar opposites.
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