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| | Photo by Quinn Batson | | | L to R: Ethan Cowan, Lucinda Segar, Tatyana Tenenbaum
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Sound Dreams
Tatyana Tenenbaum takes us to church with the near(ness)
By QUINN BATSON
Offoffoff.com
Tatyana Tenenbaum's the near(ness) is more tone poem than dance, but combining both makes the piece stronger. The ambience of a musty church basement gives both a low-rent and an exploratory feel and may enhance the acoustical experience.
Ezra Tenenbaum loops snippets that Ethan Cowan, Lucinda Segar and sister Tatyana sing, and he adds effects and sounds from an array of electrnics lying around him on the floor to create a live, shifting soundtrack.
Nearness as a comcept is explored both physically and emotionally, though overall the emotional temperature is cool. The dancers begin as much in the "distance" as possible, on a raised stage with pillars and curtains to further separate them from us the audience. They run away, then together, and take turns being separate and clumped as they spend the bulk of the piece quite close to the audience.
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| TATYANA TENENBAUM: THE NEAR(NESS) | Choreography by: Tatyana Tenenbaum.
Dancers: Ethan Cowan, Lucinda Segar, Tatyana Tenenbaum.
Music by: performers with live electronics by Ezra Tenenbaum.
Lighting design by: David Roy.
| | SCHEDULE | St. Mary's Hall, Brooklyn
June 11 and 12, 2010
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Microphones are the only props, either on mic stands or lying unattended on the floor, and serve both as audio collectors and objects of conflict or competition.
Though the movement is secondary, the performers are capitivating enough to hold attention, and there is just enough frisson to keep things interesting. The suundtrack is almost completely abstract, but there is a definite phrase being repeated as the piece ends. Unfortunately, the key word is either abstract or undecipherable and leaves the ending with one more question.
As the program states, "Tatyana Tenenbaum began her creative journey as a composer and later found her way to dance as a student at Oberlin College." Her exploration of "voice chant" and rhythmic clapping in the near(ness) are intriguing and clearly show the precedence of sound in her creative process. "I wanted to construct the eerie familiarity found in our dream worlds, as this imagery seems to invoke both the loneliness and holiness of everyday life," she says.
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Ezra and Tatyana Tenenbaum
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Here are two small audio tastes. Voice. Claps.
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JULY 23, 2010
OFFOFFOFF.COM • THE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE NEW YORK
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