"Coming Together/Attica" Photo: Paula Lobo In choreographic notes for Rebecca Lazier’s Coming Together/Attica Lazier speaks of connections to the famous prison of the same name—Attica, and the 1971 prison riots in upstate New York. Coming Together/Attica was presented at the malleable Brooklyn space, The Invisible Dog Art Center and was based on a letter by Sam Melville, a leader of the uprising. The third floor of The Invisible Dog is broken into three performance areas: chairs for the audience surround the first space (a padded floor for the dancers); the dancers spread across two long benches atop a table and the audience goes wherever they can see, for the second; and an open space is the final area. Set off to one corner is a full band and vocalist who fill the space with a sound score composed by Frederic Rzewski in response to the riots. David T. Little of Newspeak was the conductor and Mellissa Hughes was the vocal
soloist. There were two performances each evening. In what seemed and equal objective in sharping the
experience, the audience is choreographed, and we move from area to area: First, seated around the padded floor, we are very close to the dancers when they tangle and untangle through a series of structured improvisations; for the second, we stand, lean or sit as voyeurs keenly observing the dancers seated on benches move from gesture to gesture in silence; and for the third we change to our own benches to watch the dancers in all white, traverse the space with sequence after sequence that show their skill in the dance. Without doubt, the stars of the evening were the dancers, Rashaun Mitchell, Silas Riener, Asli Bulbul, Jennifer Lafferty, Pierre Guilbault and Christopher Ralph who are exquisite dancers no matter the context.
soloist. There were two performances each evening. In what seemed and equal objective in sharping the
experience, the audience is choreographed, and we move from area to area: First, seated around the padded floor, we are very close to the dancers when they tangle and untangle through a series of structured improvisations; for the second, we stand, lean or sit as voyeurs keenly observing the dancers seated on benches move from gesture to gesture in silence; and for the third we change to our own benches to watch the dancers in all white, traverse the space with sequence after sequence that show their skill in the dance. Without doubt, the stars of the evening were the dancers, Rashaun Mitchell, Silas Riener, Asli Bulbul, Jennifer Lafferty, Pierre Guilbault and Christopher Ralph who are exquisite dancers no matter the context.
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