Dance Review: Avant-Garde-Arama Goes Askew

Remembering the Future of Art in NYC

P.S. 122 is one of my favorite venues. Located in the East Village since 1980, it continues to carry that era's attitude of daring disregard for the mainstream. As the venue's longest running series (spanning 25 years), Avant-Garde-Arama is a thread between the then and the now, and the next now. This year they join forces with Theatre Askew, giving the show a LGBT twist.

Eccentric hosts Bianca Leigh and Everett Quinton comically over exaggerate their dependency on note cards to introduce the first piece, a film "Black & White Study" by Peter Cramer. Both comical and sincere, this silent film on 16mm depicts a relationship between a black man and a white man, switching the image back and forth between the two in the nude, black and then white, until they finally connect and join in acrobatic kamasutra cleverly obscured by the split of the split screen.

Professional cabaret performer, Daniel Isengart, gives a performance that is almost too good. A stunningly beautiful man, he opens with a European style cabaret song, then sits at his dressing room table and gives an autobiographical account of growing up as a man who identifies more with doing the things that women do. His calculated captivating performance reveals that he has had plenty of practice manipulating audiences. I question if it's genuine while falling for it at the same time.

I would expect for the only dance company of the evening to bust out some serious "dance", and I'm actually glad that they didn't. Irene Ruiz-Riveros builds her choreography for BLISS Dance-Theatre Company out of theatrical facial expressions and gestures, rather than jetés and fouettés, and within the context of the evening, it works.

Following intermission is an audience participation performance. In "Forty Second Street" each volunteer gets forty seconds of fame, a chance to get up on stage and do whatever they want for forty seconds. I briefly consider volunteering, then giving myself a rave review, but decide against it.

Both Bianca Leigh, and Theatre Askew, show excerpts from upcoming shows; comical and absurd, they show good things to come. The final performance of the evening is a brilliantly written and performed one-woman skit "The Last Artist in New York City". Karen Grenke tells an NYC artist's story, teaching art, working so hard to maintain life in the city that she hasn't made any art in four years. The piece is packed with clever comments about how NY has changed since the 80's, hitting home with the long time New Yorkers in the audience.

The evening leaves me with thoughts about NY and where this city is going. I think of venues like P.S. 122 as survivors of the corporate epidemic, an endangered species, the last of its kind. But as I consider the situation longer, I'm filled with new hope. Perhaps the "recession" will allow real art to seep back into the city, and it will be the underground, counterculture of the 2010's that people are reminiscing about in the future. Or perhaps I'm crazy. I thank P.S. 122 and Avant-Garde-Arama for reminding us where we're going.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Julie Fotheringham
Performance: Avant-Garde-Arama Goes Askew
Venue: P.S. 122, New York City
Date: May 15, 2009
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