Review of Brigitta Herman’s Physiognomy Of The Spirit
By Steve Antinoff
Performed by: AUSDRUCKSTANZ // Imprints in Motion
Choreographer: Brigitta Herrman
Venue: Meeting House Theater, Community Education Center, Philadelphia
Date: May 16-18, 2008
Cast: First dream figure: Brigitta Hermann; Second Dream Figure: Kristin Narcowich; Three Essence Holders: Rebecca Patek, Zornitsa Stoyanova, Emily Sweeney
In Brigitta Herman’s Physiognomy Of The Spirit death has two faces. One is called death. The other is called life.
The first face is Ms. Herrmann’s. My introduction to this face was decades ago, brought by a friend to a rehearsal of Group Motion. As I entered the studio a woman was moving with astonishing speed across the dance floor, every few steps convulsing maniacally. It was as if the protagonist in Edvard Munch’sThe Screamwas driven to dance. This woman was Brigitta Herrman. I was twenty and knew nothing about modern dance. She was the first “art-dancer,” and the first true artist, I had ever seen.
Published on May 16, 2008 - 3:33pm
This latest ‘07 entry for Write on Dance is about changes that two dancers have recently faced. One is told in the third person, the other in first person. Dancers changing cities; one with success, the other with disappointment. But both overcoming physical obstacles with emboldened spirit. The spirit that ultimately is their reservoir of strength may very well be the same that dance embodies in the first place.
Hunting For The Right Moves
By Lewis Whittington
Last spring, Pennsylvania Ballet soloist Phil Colucci danced in Val Caniparoli’s ‘Lambarena’ portraying one of the hunter-warriors. Few in the audience were aware that this was his symbolic company bow out- He had been pursuing fresh territory as a dancer for three years.
Published on December 1, 2007 - 1:00am
The Perils of Performing Works-In-Progress
By Lewis Whittington
You better Cut!
Playwright Terrence McNally was in Philly this summer ‘freezing’ his new play ‘Some Men’ by The Philadelphia Theater Company before it premiere’s this fall in New York. He had already dumped two whole scenes before the month long run here and he was mostly making line cuts noting audience responses (such as laughs) for pacing. McNally told me that the audience was ‘the ‘last creative collaborator’ in the process of finishing a work.
It used to be the out of town circuit that tested the viability of a performance, but those days are long gone. In these hard economic times in theater and dance artists have to be inventive about ways to create buzz and otherwise see what works on the public stage.
Published on November 1, 2007 - 12:00am
Dance In 2-D
edited by Lisa Kraus
For this edition of Write On Dance we wanted to tie in with PDP’s Motion Pictures series, the annual presentation of award-winning dance films and work by area videographers, and so invited the participation of makers and presenters of dance in 2D. Deirdre Towers, artistic director of the Dance Films Association, which partners with PDP in presenting Motion Pictures, is represented here in excerpts from a conversation with Lisa Kraus. Kim Arrow, on the Dance Faculty at Swarthmore College, weaves video with performance in his Quasimodo in the Outback. He offers a provocative essay examining the degrees of separation from live performance that video allows. And Tobin Rothlein, video artist, is co-artistic director of Miro Dance Theatre, along with Amanda Miller. Their mission involves creating “multi-media works which continually exhibit the integration of dance with video.” Tobin kept a web-log during a recent intensive period of work in Europe and graciously consented to let us reprint one “day in the life.”
Published on October 1, 2007 - 12:00am
Philly to Paris Opera Ballet and Back
By Lisa Kraus
A recent Inquirer article equated Philadelphia with Paris and the Ben Franklin Parkway with the Champs Elysées. A stretch, I thought. But then, standing at Logan Circle and looking up the stately Parkway toward the Art Museum is not so unlike standing at the foot of the Boulevard de l’Opéra and looking up toward Palais Garnier, architect Charles Garnier’s Opera building. You know immediately you’re staring at a venerable cultural institution, rich in tradition and artistic gems.
Published on September 10, 2007 - 12:00am
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