Sitelines 06
May 8 – August 30, 2006
photo: Richard Termine
LMCC's annual site-specific performance series
When is a fire escape a stage? When is the marble adorned lobby of a corporate headquarters an intimate playhouse? When is a ballerina’s tutu a sound studio? Only during the Council’s annual Sitelines series.
Benoit Maubrey and Die Audio Gruppe: Audio Ballerinas
May 8–13 at 12:30PM
Elevated Acre at 55 Water Street
This Berlin-based art group performs with electro-acoustic tutus equipped with amplifiers and loudspeakers that respond to their environment. The Audio Ballerinas use a variety of other electronic instruments (mini-computers, samplers, contact microphones, cassette and CD players, and radio receivers) that allow them to work with the sounds, surfaces, and topographies of the space around them.
Keely Garfield paired with Zach Morris: Hope & Anchor
May 25, 26, 27, 31 & June 1 and 3 at 7PM
Various places at the South Street Seaport – culminating at the cobblestone street at Front and Fulton
Set against the nautical backdrop of the South Street Seaport - at once a reminder of New York's maritime past and its overwhelmingly mercantile present – Hope & Anchor dredges up ghosts and modern-day denizens then sends them crashing together in a gruff display of bad temper, dashed hopes and delayed deliverance. Fleeting images and tarnished sea shanties conjure semblances of sailors, sirens and impending storms. Garfield and Morris remind us of our potent connection to the sea, and our reliance on its good faith.
Douglas Dunn paired with Elke Rindfleisch: Multiple Undo & Other Distortions
June 19-24, 26-29 at 12:30PM
Elevated Acre at 55 Water Street
Disjointed movements of twists, torques, and overextended limbs. Bodily distortions that simulate dizzying and disorienting effects. If dancing is a tying together of moves, what is it to undo them? If dancing is a merging of body & space, can we disconnect them? If dancing is identity of flesh and fantasy, what will we suffer to sever them?
New York Classical Theatre: Mary Stuart by Fredrich Schiller
July 2-3, 5, and 7–12 at 7PM
Castle Clinton, Battery Park
Staged in historic Castle Clinton and the majestic surrounding gardens, Mary Queen of Scots awaits her execution by Elizabeth I. Both decendents of the famous Henry VIII, these cousins never exchanged more than letters in real life, but Schiller helps us imagine a confrontation between two of Europe's mightiest female monarchs while overlooking the Statue of Liberty!
Co-presented by New York Classical Theatre.
Aaron Rosenblum: New York Is Here!
July 6–8 & 13–15 at 7:30PM, July 14–15 at 9:30PM
32 Avenue of the Americas
New York Is Here! is a performance installation that honors the mythology of our great metropolis. Part funhouse, historical narrative and performance art, New York Is Here! goes inside the city’s chaos to explore how individual tales form the legends of the masses. This site-specific journey leads audiences through the 5,000 square foot raw space on the ground floor of AT&T’s old Long Distance Building, an art deco historical landmark. Task-oriented dances mix with voiced-over text, giving life to a series of vignettes portraying legends like the Chinese food deliveryman stuck in a Bronx elevator, McGurk’s Suicide Hall (a notorious Bowery saloon made famous for its singing waiters and prostitutes’ suicides), the Fulton Fish Market, number-running lotteries, baseball, politics and more.
Co-presented by Aaron Rosenblum.
Heidi Duckler’s Collage Dance Theater: Laundromatinee
July 21–23 at 8:30PM
The laundromat at 168 Elizabeth Street
Heidi Duckler, known as Los Angeles' "queen of site-specific performance," and her unstoppable Collage Dance Theatre reprise Laundromatinee — their first site-specific work — for their first ever appearance in New York. The dance looks at the plight of the housewife within the context of the Laundromat, a commodity disappearing from gentrified neighborhoods. Dancers spin in dryers, climb in and out of washing machines and hang from clothes baskets, gradually removing three layers of clothing to perform to Stand By Your Man.
bluemouth inc.: What the Thunder Said
July 25–29 & August 1–5 at 8PM
32 Avenue of the Americas
The sky is clouding over and there’s a crazy wind rising up against the summer heat. Canadian inter-disciplinary company bluemouth inc. along with guest artists from New York and Las Vegas bring their Dora Award-winning performance installation, evoking the struggle for acceptance in the calm before the family storm.
H.T. Chen paired with Sharon Estacio: Oasis & Eat, Sleep, Swim… Fly… Crawl
August 9, 10 at 7 PM; August 11 at 12:30 PM; August 16, 17 at 7 PM; & August 18 at 12:30 PM
Pavilion Columbus Park (Baxter, Mulberry, Bayard & Worth Sts.)
Parks serve as public gathering spaces for thousands of individuals to relax and socialize. Despite a seeming complexity, this work seeks to expose the universal themes of relaxation, rest and ”downtime” that are experienced within the context of the park.
Ellis Wood Dance: Fire on Wall Street
August 21–23, 28–30 at 12PM and 12:30PM
Exterior balconies at Cipriani’s 55 Wall Street
Fire on Wall Street exposes the passion and power of twenty women in an environment where these qualities are not usually celebrated. In an arresting, raw exploration of the element fire, the women of Ellis Wood Dance manipulate their bodies and command the grandiose architecture of 55 Wall Street with sensual abandon. Sheathed in endless mesh fabric and little else, the dancers writhe and pull its limits, as their embers intensify into a reckless blaze.
