Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Works & Process unveils Jamar Roberts’ A CHRONICLE OF A PIVOT IN A POINT IN TIME, a rigorous, devastating depiction of bodies under duress during the pandemic

• By drediman
• March 22, 2022
• No Comments

Last night at the Guggenheim, I attended the second of two Works & Process performances investigating the pandemic works of choreographer Jamar Roberts. Mr. Roberts, a celebrated former Ailey dancer, has in recent years emerged as an important contemporary dance-maker. He first came to my attention with “Ode” for Ailey, a sensitive and subtly heartbreaking response to the rising gun violence in this country. Of late, he’s been commissioned by City Ballet to create “Emanon – In Two Movements”, which is set to a recording by celebrated jazz musician Wayne Shorter. Although I thought it lacked a tangible point of view, the ballet was nonetheless pretty and imminently watchable, a notable first foray choreographing for a classical ballet company.

Mr. Roberts has also partnered with the Guggenheim’s Works & Process series, first producing Cooped, a deeply personal piece of filmed solo choreography that painfully captured pandemic-induced isolation, particularly from the perspective of an artist and a Black man (the work was screened last night as part of the program). Continuing this symbiotic journey together, Works & Process has further nurtured the choreographer’s ongoing evolution via several “bubble residencies”. The culmination, two years later, is the ballet A Chronicle of Pivot in a Point in Time, which was unveiled in front of live Works & Process audiences over the past two days. The intensely-danced new work is a rigorous, abstract composition (severe, rigid movements and positions dominate the piece) that only gradually reveals its potent agenda. It’s ultimately a devastating portrayal of our collective bodies – inferring both societal structures and own physical bodies – collapsing under the weight and duress of this seemingly never-ending pandemic.

The wonderful thing about Works & Process is how it acknowledges and excavates the importance of process in the creation of art. Here, it was illuminating to hear the creators – particularly Mr. Roberts and composer David Watson – speak about the creation of both Cooped and A Chronicle of Pivot in a Point in Time (e.g., Mr. Roberts actually choreographed the latter before he was handed the music, a la Merce Cunningham). The evening concluded with Sketch (of a Chronicle of a Pivot in a Point in Time), the choreographer’s probing work-in-progress pas de deux depicting life as we carefully, tentatively reach towards “normalcy” once again.

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A CHRONICLE OF A PIVOT IN A POINT IN TIME
Dance
Works & Process at the Guggenheim
1 hour, 15 minutes (without an intermission)
Closed