Charmaine Warren
  • Home
    • About Me
  • Up Next
  • Dance
    • Dance/Education
    • Dance/Performances
  • Yoga
    • Yoga/Classes
    • Yoga/Workshops
  • Consulting
  • Writing
  • Blogspot
  • Suggested Links
  • Contact Me

​Hofesh Shechter Company @ BAM 2017

11/21/2017

0 Comments

 
For Hofesh Shechter Company’s recent trip to BAM/Opera House (November 9 – 11), if you are familiar, you’d know it would be really loud, really dark and there’d be really good dancing in Shechter’s newest work, Grand Finale.  He brought Political Mother in 2012 and Sun in 2013, both were part of BAM’s Next Wave Festival.  Like Political Mother and Sun, in two sections, Grand Finale, came at us like an ocean of illimitable and commingling emotions.  Grand Finale is propulsive and not one-minute passes without a nod to tradition or to today’s unrelenting and disturbing political climate.  At first the stage is dark with just the musicians on strings, and after a while the dancers entered, bodies hunkered, weighted and reeking with depression and disdain. “I was trying to make poetry with atrocities around me,” Shechter noted in an interview for Dance Magazine.  In oversized shirts and pants, moving mostly in large groups as one, rife with Shechter’s raw and military-infused moves, they work up a well-deserved sweat pounding out repeating sequences while moving large walls that direct our focus. Repetition is indeed Shechter’s friend, and these bodies awaken all the senses. In one scene, tightly packed between very close walls, they jump, arms flail or pound chests as they ride percussive and repeating rhythms. In another, they stand perfectly still on one leg, the other foot resting on the inner thigh of the standing leg for what seems an eternity. And in yet another, they dance a duet of dead—one dancer manipulates a “lifeless” partner. To close the first half, in front of the curtain, a dancer is flopped over a chair with the word “INTERVAL” on a placard.  The second half begins with another placard—“KARMA.”  When they are back, they are happy, they clap and sing with the musicians, they kiss, they resuscitate those who have fallen—life seems good—there is merriment, it is time to forget the bad stuff, but we wonder where the onus of “karma” lies.  
The dancers are: Chien-Ming Chang, Frédéric Despierre, Rachel Fallon, Mickael Frappat, Yeji Kim, Kim Kohlmann, Erion Kruja, Merel Lammers, Attila Ronai, and Diogo Sousa.  The musicians are: James Adams, Chris Allan, Rebekah Allan, Mehdi Ganjvar, Sabio Janiak and Desmond Neysmith.  The original score is by Shechter, with percussion on soundtrack also by Shechter with Yaron Engler.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Never miss a post
    Your email address:*
    Please enter all required fields
    Correct invalid entries
    Please choose a color:

    Categories

    All
    Articles
    Audition
    Grants
    Intensives
    Interviews
    Lecture
    News
    Opportunities
    Performance Calendars
    Positions
    Previews
    Video-clips
    What I Saw
    Workshops

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012

    RSS Feed

    My LinkedIn Profile

    Author

    I am a performer, historian, consultant and dance writer. I am a Empire State College's online program Center for Distance Learning.  I am also a former faculty member at The Ailey School and the Alvin Ailey/Fordham University dance major program, Hunter College, Sarah Lawrence College (Guest), Kean University and The Joffrey Ballet School's Jazz and Contemporary Trainee Program.  I write on dance for The Amsterdam News, Dance Magazine and various publications.  Click below to read more about me at my home page - "About Me."

    "About Me"
Proudly powered by Weebly