Eyeing the Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo

Fair warning if you haven't spent a lot of time with American drama lately. There's a new kid in town at New York's Richard Rogers Theatre. We are not in Our Town anymore, and we are sinking lower than even Willy could imagine in our own horrific Zoo Story. Rajiv Joseph's Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo  will push you around and take away your god no matter how powerful you thought he, she, or it was. If a tiger bites off a man's hand, he should be shot and killed, right? Religion is so over in the estranged world of Baghdad after the U.S. mission was, uh, accomplished. But there are some lingering questions about morality.

Evil, it seems, is omnipotent. Luckily for us, actor Robin Williams is, too. Understated, lonely as a dead tiger talking trash, the fantastic conceit of man as beast works in his interpretation, and poignantly well, with a full spectrum of humor to accompany the animal's acquisition of knowledge after he falls into the afterlife. The audience may egg him on, but Williams will not mug. In this production, Kaufman allows the two American marines and Uday Hussein to overact a bit, and that is too bad. Joseph's scripting of the character of Uday, in particular, is so painstakingly cruel that it isn't necessary. The torment by Uday of the well-acted character Musa and his innocent sister, Hadia, is unspeakable, and we cannot stop watching it.

This is a play about the utter demeaning of words and The Word. Hats off to the writer who can compel us to listen to animals speaking as men and deliver a significant portion of the plot in Arabic, often the language of women, with very little need of translation, which often fails anyway. We cannot mistake what is going on here. The knowledge this play brings to a ruined topiary garden in the afterlife on this extraordinary set is not what we want to know. But we have to do something about it. Fast.

The Science Field Trip: The World's Largest Dinosaurs and the Hayden Planetarium

We're talking about those long-necked, long tailed sauropods that give new meaning to the idea of large. The American Museum of Natural History has an engaging exhibit set up about how they might have lived, beginning during the Triassic period. They survived that extinction through the Jurassic, and into the Cretaceous period, which ended with a huge extinction.

If you haven't been to this Museum for a long time, you might be surprised by the changes in the visitor-exhibit dynamic. When I recall my earliest visits there, I'm thinking of dimly lit glass cases that kept everyone at a respectful distance while sending back your awed reflection to your ever-widening eyes. Now, thanks to the short-attention span that rules everything, exhibits are made to be run through, and there's a lot of touching going on. The latter is a good thing, so please don't misunderstand. However...

 It's the sidebar-style chunking of information in disconnected ways that worries me. While the designers do a lovely presentation of sizes of various creatures, the context for each succeeding example shifts so rapidly (for me, anyway), that it's difficult to adjust your train of thought as the frame of reference for scale keeps shifting. This same behavior is noted in contemporary textbooks where narrative has all but disappeared. This Museum used to be a very grown-up place to go, The animated features in the Dinosaur exhibit, such as the cartoon of the sauropod's likely digestive system, below--Gingko leaves and all--

Did they me help me to learn as much as I wanted to learn? There's also a large glass bin of foliage, including the fan-shaped leaves to help reinforce the point. Museums have a difficult line to manage in all of this--people seem to be big on paying attention at the beginning, and wanting big things at that point, and their interest picks up again at the end. This one has a dig simulation, and some people stop to try it. There's a lot of amazing material in the exhibit and, of course, elsewhere in the museum, so you will be thrilled if you want to spend more time.

In the aftermath, I'm feeling nostalgic for the older parts of the museum. There's a beautiful tribute to Teddy Roosevelt, to whom we owe our natural park system, and the elegantly informative, purposefully quiet, Audubon Gallery. But the old Hayden Planetarium, now new--where Tom Hanks' narrative has succeeded to Whoopi Goldberg's amid the loud soundtrack of the universe evolvin-- that is where I feel most bereft. My favorite part of those long-ago visits was the live show by the planetarium operator. He was strict with us. No talking. The reward was losing yourself in the dark only to find yourself floating in the Milky Way. It was Paradise, slow-moving, and enchanting. If you download the Museum's video The Known Universe, but mute the sound, you might recall some of that feeling. So this next  moment of quiet is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Fred C. Hess, planetarium lecturer extraordinaire, and Helmut K. Wimmer, astronomical art wizard. These are the people who helped us believe we could reach the moon one day. Tonight, I'm wishing for a dark sky so we can hush and find ourselves again in the stars.

Launching The White Room

Last night marked the launch of Jennifer Muller's The White Room at Michael Namer's Gallery 151 in NYC. Muller offered selections from the second act of this full-length work, and the dancers were in beautiful form. The company's season opens with a preview night on June 22. Come see this intense elaboration of innocence and experience at Cedar Lake.

HATCHed Sequel Series: Happening Choreographers at Jennifer Muller|The Works Studio

Last evening, three up-and-coming creators received a second gift of cost-free space to present their work before a live audience at the Jennifer Muller|The Works studio in Chelsea. The Works' Studio has incubated numerous up-and-coming performers, and this HATCHed Sequel performance offers a return-engagement to support the development of the next generation of dancers in New York. Pascal Rekoert, a member of The Works, curates this nurturing project, and he emceed with his usual wit, clad in bermuda shorts owing to the suddenly summer climate of the evening, and three choreographers' communities came together to support each other's art.An eclectic experience, ranging from the theatrical to the cool to the clown, the sequel evening was full and provocative. Experiments alternated with classical allusions to the history of dance in the works of three: Koryn Wicks, Kensaku Shinohara, and Kendall Cornell/Clowns Ex Machina. All three pushed the boundaries of integrating sound and movement.

Two works by Koryn Wicks stood out as the most fully formed in this evening of dances in various stages of progress. Op.117, danced by Wicks and Yue Tong Kwan exhibited the polish of a careful study that transcended the poignent Brahms score. They were graceful and technical proficient, and the dance is beautiful and full. A standout performance was offered in a second electrically theatrical piece about heading home intoxicated, It's a Long Walk Home, performed by Kudzaishe Geti, Malik Kitchen (both trained byAiley) and Jessie Niemiec (former Muller apprentice).  Wicks' company included Sarah Molczan, Hildur Olafsdottir, Tommy Sutter, Lindsay Hall, Matthew Manix, Natalia Messa, Kassi Narcisse-Cousar, Tatiana Sanchez, and Jane Sawyer. There's an epic effort going on here, and they will be seen!

Kensaku Shinohara's Third Supper, a spirited and fun take on urban experience, incorporating spoken word and a range of sounds, opening with barking dogs. Kuan Yu Chen, Mei Yamanaka, and Shinohara collaborate well together. The dance is more than its sound track, and it will be interesting to see how the work progresses.

Clowns Full-Tilt is an ambitious workby Kendall Cornell and the Ensemble exploring the female universe through the eyes of woman clowns: Carla, Bosnjak, Julie Kinkle, Michaela Lind, Diana Lovrin, Clare O'Sheeran, Aly Perry, and Lucia Rich. There are witty moments and good questions posed in this fusion of spoken voice and clown movements. The amusing appearance allows them to tackle otherwise tabu, intimate topics under the cover of a lot of laughter. Cornell opened with a wry sketch on de-whitening the walls of the Muller Studio, and the piece proceded sometimes with the hilarity of an imaginary overstuffed car, and other times looking at subjects like depression with all the sadness a clown can bring. Heading to LaMaMa where a number of Cornell's pieces have appeared, this effort, as they say, has legs!

Side note: Jennifer Muller's newest work, a full-length dance The White Room opens on June 22 at Cedar Lake. It takes a village to nurture the next generation of artists, and Jennifer has been supporting this effort since 1974. Tickets.

No Limit Dancers with Disabilities

 Just completed a brief exploration of this topic. Read it here. Integrated dance ranges from the recreational to the artistic. A common feature concerns the perceptions of differently abled bodies in motion. This article is related to The Estate Project piece I contributed earlier this month.

Meet The Artists Through Their Spoken Words at Lincoln Center

Search Amazon.com for teaching poetry to middle schoolYesterday began with a challenging commute for me. The traffic on the Turnpike was so bad that the Port of NY Authority was actually offering apologies for the delays in the bus terminal when I arrived. I was rushing to Lincoln Center for a school program called Meet the Artists.

Middle School is often a challenging age group, with its mix of growth spurts and interests. I say this because it’s sometimes a rough room even for the best performers. So the fact that Cecilia Rubino’s
Poetry Slam 102: Verbal Velocity players could generate enough excitement to get the whole room of students to raise their pencils in the air and write, and then, on the big stage of The Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, compete to volunteer to read aloud…Well! What teacher doesn’t dream of that kind of class participation? This program in the Meet the Artists Series delivers.

Their secret is an effective mix of accoustic cool, sound effects, music, and the keepin'-it-real poetry of Darian Dauchan, Erik "the advocate of wordz" Maldonado, and Shanelle Gabriel, who spit rhymes so compellingly you've just got to write when they tell you to. The show opens with the roar of a race car and does not quit humming until the end after the students applaud and cheer. Creative writing is sometimes a scary curriculum area, but this program goes a long way toward making the experience open and welcoming for everyone. While poetry slam is a fast-paced competitive sport with points and judging for the slam actors' stage efforts, they emphasize repeatedly that the students should applaud the poet not the scores. This duality works well to encourage the shy while offering some juiced literary combat for the extrovert.

Darian, Erik, and Shanelle wear many hats in this performance, alternately hosting a round of competition--with Darian donning a top hat and affecting a British accent, Shanelle, the guise of Sister Yvonne on her way to church, and Erik, the outfit of Ricky Rock 'n Roll--then spitting rhymes as the slam experts they are. The first round included puzzle poems about unnamed objects--Ink, from Erik, A Fast-Food Favorite, served up by Shanelle, and the Iphone, emceed by Darian. During the Breakdown moment, the poets explained personification--"I feel so personified"--and gave the audience 3 minutes to write to music. Rubino and the emcees circulated to help anyone who was stuck. There were volunteers aplenty, and one student came up on crutches to share his piece on “headphones.” He was generously rewarded with urban cool, and the audience loved how “dope” it was.

Round two featured highly personal tributes to favorite music—Darian to Coltrane’s sax, the Church of St. Hipness, Eric, to Salsa, el cantata, yo soy Boricua, and Shanelle brought down the house with her paean to Hiphop, “writing from the heart, spit trith…the power is ours!”  Erik provided a comic interlude by attempting an 8-minute air guitar tribute to Led Zeppelin, but he was interrupted for the second Breakdown, where this program’s high-falutin’ curriculum moment concerned the  Ekphrastic poem, which they quickly brought down to earth, Say wha? Hint: It’s inspired by art. This writing sequence figured a brainstorming freewrite accompanied by Lady Gaga for musical inspiration. Highly energizing.

Students were instructed to let this piece “marinate” and work on it another time, and Shanelle arrived as Sister Yvonne  to introduce a particularly poignant segment where the narrative poems concerned highly personal bittersweet moments about the girl Erik teased, the love Darian wanted to reach out for, and Shanelle’s struggle to understand and please her foster mother, to “Be the kind of woman you wished I’d be.” The last Breakdown encouraged students to affirm themselves through their words, and the students quickly composed sentences of their own, which many read aloud with great pride: “Hold your  ground because life is coming.”

Shanelle was the ultimate slam winner, but, as they say, "the point is not the points." At the end of the show, Heather from Lincoln Center told the students they could donate their poems to Lincoln Center. My turn to be amazed and a little jealous. What a great thing for the students and the arts! Cecilia Rubino's amazing slam poets make it look so easy. Behind this performance lurks a lot of energy and talent. If you are a teacher who wants to attend it, know that your students will go home inspired, and you can pick up a few tricks about turning that freewrite into a piece of cake. Word.

Just Published: New Article on Jennifer Muller | The Works

Take a look at this new article, "Innocence and Harsh Realities in Jennifer Muller's The White Room, featuring Muller's newest work. Think about getting tickets, and then go to Smarttix to reserve a good seat at a performance in June. Artistic Director, Jennifer Muller; Associate Artistic Director, John Brooks. Executive Director, John Louis Bryant. General Manager, Christie Zummo. Administrative Assistant, Elise King.

Company members in 2011 include Susanna Bozzetti, Mariana Cardenas, Elizabeth Disharoon, Rosie Lani Fiedelman, Seiko Fujita, Duane Gosa, Gen Hashimoto, Abdul Latif, Jen Peters, Pascal Roeckert, and Apprentices, Mario Bermudez Gil, Katherine Hozier, and Husing-Hua Wang, collaborating to deliver The White Room.