PARANARRATIVE/ P.S. 1 / MOMA
Untitled (visually speaking)
A man and woman read pornographic 18th & 19th century literature alongside 20th century art and literary criticism while moving in patterns through arcs of brightly colored paint flung into the air, over and on the readers. The action is transferred to the interplay of text to text, text to paint. The paint eventually obliterates the text held by the readers, forcing them to turn the page mid-thought, mid-sentence, breaking the continuity of a possible storyline, emphasizing a free play of signifiers and the corporality of existence, language, and art. The text has long been lost, covered in layers of paint, but there is one phrase from the 18th century pornography that stays with me: “his bald head pressed like a hot turnip between my thighs”. Definitely from a woman’s vantage point. The other texts were from Sculpture in the Expanded Field by Rosalind Krauss, The Prison House of Language by Frederic Jameson, and Roland Barthes’ Image - Music - Text.
PERFORMERS: SUSAN BROWN, DOUG WRIGHT, DAVID DIAO, JACK WATERS, PETER CRAMER, JULIE WEST, JEANNE QUINN, JOAN KARLIN, BRIAN TAYLOR, DIETRICH LETENES
Photos: Paula Court
FRAMES AND SEQUENCES / THE KITCHEN
NYC
PERFORMERS: NANCY ALFARO, ROBERT PANUNCIALMAN, DOUG WRIGHT
FRAMES AND SEQUENCES explores the framing of movement and gesture much as a camera organizes our reception of an image. But unlike a camera’s single point of view, a decentralized focus is emphasized through multiple vantage points. The stage is set with three types of framing devices: a hanging wall of opaque paper, two large overlapping frames creating rectangular grids, and an exploding frame. The paper is cut into, creating expanding view points. The framing devices initially establish a lexicon of movement, then reorganize the gestures to form a syntax of rhythm and image. No single image is privileged through the constant cross-references between each exposed movement.
photos: Jacques Perron
THE HAND THAT HOLDS THE KNIFE
THE KITCHEN / NYC
THE HAND THAT HOLDS THE KNIFE explores the trajectory of movement and light through rectangular spaces.
Commissioned by the Kitchen, NYC.
PERFORMERS: NANCY ALFARO, JANE SETTEDUCATO, PETER CRAMER, JACK WATERS
MUSIC COMPOSED AND PERFORMED BY QUADIR/ ALTO SAX SOLO
photo: Mary Patera
photo: Carrie Boretz
DEAD LANGUAGES
DTW / NYC
Borrowing from religious iconic imagery and paintings of Piero della Francesca, Fra Angelico, Cimabue, Giotto, Simone Martini, and the Netherlandish painters, DEAD LANGUAGES breaks apart the relationships between gesture and meaning: meaning removed from religious content, devoid of contextual cues, through the addition and subtraction of body, landscape, and gesture.
PERFORMERS: JANET PANETTA, FREY FAUST, NANCY ALFARO, JANE SETTEDUCATO, KIM FLOWERS, PETER CRAMER, JACK WATERS
photos: Jacques Perron
CHOPS
DTW / NYC
CHOPS employs classic formulas in dance: acrobatics, line dances, repetitive, rhythmic movement and sequences, energetic partnering, leaps, flips, etc. The dance is wedged between moveable props and Bernard Herrmann’s symphonic pieces.
Commissioned by Dance Theater Workshop and the Jerome Foundation.
PERFORMERS: JANET PANETTA, FREY FAUST, NANCY ALFARO, JANE SETTEDUCATO, KIM FLOWERS, PETER CRAMER, JACK WATERS
SET BY ARCHITECT ROBERT PANUNICIALMAN
photos: Jacques Perron
A WOMAN HEARD A BULLET HIT THE TARGET
DTW / NYC
A WOMAN HEARD THE BULLET HIT THE TARGET, is a sparse, stylized duet with text written by Salinger and spoken by radio artist and performer Helen Thorington. The text juxtaposes simple algebraic and logic problems against questions of rule and oppression.
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PERFORMERS: NANCY ALFARO, SUSAN SALINGER
photos: Jacques Perron