Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Experimental dance theater that’s possessed by past works of art: Marlene Monteiro Freitas’s BACCHAE and an evening of Annie-B Parson

• By drediman
• November 11, 2019
• No Comments

I recently encountered two programs of experimental hybrid dance theater that seem to have been possessed by ghosts of past works of art.

The company of Marlene Monteiro Freitas’s “Bacchae: Prelude to a Purge”, a Next Wave Festival offering, at BAM’s Harvey Theater.

The Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival is now in full swing, and my most recent visit was to take in Marlene Monteiro Freitas’s Bacchae: Prelude to a Purge (RECOMMENDED) at BAM’s Harvey Theater. Using Euripides’ The Bacchae as a springboard, the relentless, confounding fever dream of a show takes to a visceral extreme the carnal visions only hinted at in Euripides’ text. One could arguably make sense of the piece by making the connection between Ms. Freitas’s Dadaist approach (with garish blasts of Brazilian funk, miming, a birthing film, etc.!) and the work’s subject matter; in such bacchanalian orgies, logic is subordinated by the mysteries of sexual desire. The piece concludes with a blaring recording – augmented by a live brass band, who provide lively accompaniment throughout – of Ravel’s Bolero, one of the most sensual pieces of music out there, but here reinterpreted as a debauched, blood-stained set piece that would make Quentin Tarantino proud. There’s little doubt that this Bacchae is destined to be divisive; its obsessive, arguably gratuitous choreography and lack of any semblance of a narrative arc won’t be to everyone’s taste. But for me, as an expression of the bacchanal at the heart of Euripides’ play, there’s something oddly compelling and compulsively watchable about Ms. Feitas’s grotesque pageant.

The company of Annie-B Parson’s “The Road Awaits Us”, as performed by Big Dance Theater, at NYU Skirball.

Then at NYU Skirball for two performances only, I caught a program of short works from the renowned experimental dance and theater makers, the aptly-names Big Dance Theater (RECOMMENDED). The brainchild of Annie-B Parson (who is currently represented on Broadway of all places by her joyously idiosyncratic choreography for David Byrne’s euphoric American Utopia), the company continues to challenge preconceived notions of theater, dance, and dance theater. The company’s latest set included three pieces – “Ballet Dance”, “Cage Shuffle: Redux”, and “The Road Awaits Us” – all of which channel works and artists of the past and imbue them with a physicality that borders on ghostly possession. “Ballet Dance” summons blurred encounters with Balanchine’s “Agon”, as well as The Complete Ballet by John Haskell. “Cage Shuffle: Redux” is a truncated version of a longer solo piece that has Paul Lazar verbally regurgitating and dancing to randomly-selected one-minute lectures from Mr. Cage’s 1963 Indeterminacy. The centerpiece of the evening, however, was the North American premiere of “The Road Awaits Us”, a quirky, movement-based recasting of the Ionesco play The Bald Soprano that’s been refreshingly designed for a group of older dancers. Both rigorous and playful, these uncompromising works were quintessential Big Dance Theater.

BACCHAE: PRELUDE TO A PURGE
Dance/Theater
BAM Harvey Theater / Next Wave Festival
2 hours, 15 minutes (without an intermission)
Closed

BIG DANCE THEATER: THE ROAD AWAITS US
Dance/theater
Big Dance Theater / NYU Skirball
1 hour, 30 minutes (with one intermission)
Closed