sobota 26. októbra 2013

The Bessies

we have a dance star! Jaro Vinarsky  won the best price for a dancer. - The Bessies. Very proud of him! Here you can have a read , and also about Pavol Zustiak  

Pavel Zuštiak/Palissimo Company’s new Endangered Pieces also features three men, but this is a work that defies easy interpretations and puts the audience somewhat on the spot. As with On the Road, the front curtain of the Abrons Arts Center’s stage is open when the audience enters. Our first glimpse of Zuštiak’s world is a grim one. Three long iron poles on round bases are tipped over on their sides; a ghost light with its bare bulb stands front and center; the back wall, with its smudged and chipped paint, is visible, along with the black metal door that pulls down to conceal an alcove that may be part of a loading dock. Horizontal pipes of the kind made to hold lights or a curtain hang low over the area. To one side of the stage and toward the back, a naked man is lying, face up, immobile.
The preparation is part of the performance. The metal door is pulled up to reveal the alcove, glowing in Joe Levasseur’s lighting. Against its rear wall, lengths of board (maybe 1 x 3s) are stacked vertically. The arrangement resembles a miniature mockup of a modern city. Zuštiak unplugs the ghost light, coils its wire, and wheels it offstage. Via gestures, Matthew Rogers has the backstage crew let down the red velvet teaser so he can check it; then it is flown back up. The poles are stood upright. As I remember, musicians Christian Frederickson and Bobby McElver have not yet introduced their sound accompaniment.
Matthew Rogers carries Jaro Vinarský, while Pavel Zuštiak watches. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu
Matthew Rogers carries Jaro Vinarský, while Pavel Zuštiak watches. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu
The first task of the evening involves the body on the floor. It belongs to that extraordinary actor-dancer Jaro Vinarský (he just won a Bessie for his outstanding performance in Zuštiak’s The Painted Bird Trilogy/Bastard). He is inert but not stiff. Gravely—even courteously— Zuštiak and Rogers stand him upright, tip him over, turn him upright again. Over the next few minutes they will try all manner of strategies. At first, you think you know what their intent is: they want Vinarský upright and on his own. Every time they almost manage it, he slips to the floor again. But what good does it do to roll over him, sling him across Rogers’s shoulders, press him up against the back wall? At the end of this sequence, Zuštiak squats with his back against the wall, and Vinarský slides down to lie across his lap—a pietà, but with the Christ figure’s butt turned to the viewers. Rogers then maneuvers Vinarský into a cruciform position.
Zuštiak (L) and Rogers hoist Vinarský. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu
Zuštiak (L) and Rogers hoist Vinarský. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu
After Rogers and Zuštiak leave the stage in a matter-of-fact way, Vinarský pulls on some clothes while an unseen voice (it is Paul Cooper’s) addresses us. “Imagine an empty space.” “Imagine a cliff next to an ocean.” “Imagine the last man.” And then, as Vinarský walks to the front of the stage and looks at us, “Here he is. He is the only one. The only him.” A few hands clap. This woebegone hero stands on a chair and hammers mechanically on the door at the back. Then, in a careful order, he removes items of clothing and puts them on again. A pipsqueak of a melody starts up. “Where is he going?” asks the voice. He is leaning against the proscenium arch, rubbing his crotch; he is pointing out a door. The house lights come on.
All the questions about Vinarský’s character might be ours. What is he doing? What does he want? Events in this world are out of synch with one another. After Vinarský leaves the stage, the boards in the alcove begin to topple until the “city” is rubble. The lights dim. The black metal door comes down. A high melody is heard. The red velvet front curtain descends.
Now it is Rogers’s turn to be the mystifying man alone in the world. He comes through the red curtains into a spotlight, and immediately there are queries. This time the unseen interrogator is a woman (Tara Frederickson). Rogers smile at us and touches one ear. “What does he mean by that?” asks the voice. Search me. He executes some big jumps, and says “The past, the present, and the future walked into a bar.” After a pause, he adds, “It was tense.” He also starts to recite the 23rd Psalm. Little beaded footlights come on. “Can he build a logic in this location?” asks the vexing voice. It’s amazing how Levasseur’s lights suddenly change the look of Rogers’s body, sculpting his chest muscles and abs even as he seems to be stooping under a burden.
Suspended (L to R): Pavel Zuštiak, Matthew Rogers, Jaro Vinarský. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu
Suspended (L to R): Pavel Zuštiak, Matthew Rogers, Jaro Vinarský in Endangered Pieces. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu
Recovering from a roar of sound, we contemplate the red curtain for a while. It opens on the most startling sight in Endangered Pieces. The three men, now naked, have climbed the poles and, backs to us, are gripping them with their legs and arms. Their necks are bent forward so that they appear to be headless. Anyone with a Christian upbringing or a degree in art history is liable to think of Jesus and the two thieves crucified along with him. A wash of chords swells and disappears as the three slowly, slowly, slowly slide down the poles and crouch in red light.
Endangered Pieces shows a world destroying itself. A sequence in which the men, now clothed, semaphore in different directions, suggests that they’re signaling numbly through the flames, or turning like weather vanes in a confused wind. In a solo, Zuštiak stares toward the audience as if we were his mirror; he strokes his head, knocks it with his fists. He flutters his hands so fast that they blur.
Picking up the pieces. Rogers (foreground). At back: Vinarský (L) and Zuštiak. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu
Picking up the pieces. Rogers (foreground). At back: Vinarský (L) and Zuštiak. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu
The men’s last act is to rebuild the city. They aren’t very successful. They lay neat tracks with the fallen boards—tracks to nowhere. They unmake what others of them have made. Vinarský creates an arch and stands on it, then tries to remove one crucial board without destroying the structure. Rogers, sitting, gradually incorporates himself into the structure he is making. Should he move, the whole thing will crumble.
The renovation strategies become increasingly pointless. What has Zuštiak achieved by balancing a board on the back of his neck? When Rogers flips one, and it flies through the air and crashes down, the end seems near. Vinarský is unable to make five boards align. One by one, the men leave the rubble. The curtain descends at an excruciatingly slow pace.

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