By Marcina Zaccaria . . .
On May 10, Restart Stages began at Lincoln Center. Entering and exiting the Plaza, I got the unwavering sense that we can finally tell everyone to show up again to witness great dance.
On June 1, after about a half hour in the standby line, located near The Metropolitan Opera, I passed through what looked like a full body scanner until crossing to my pod at Damrosch Park at 62nd Street. Unafraid, I sat for about 40 minutes to see Unveiling, a 40 minute modern dance piece that included goth-rock sounds from singer/ songwriter Moses Sumney. Finding our way in a desperate world is daunting and I believe that Choreographer Sonya Tayeh (Broadway’s Moulin Rouge!) really captured an incomparable sense of longing, exquisitely wrapped with the necessity of continuing.
Unveiling, developed for six dancers at a residency in the Catskill Mountains, has an insistent type of beauty. The choreography includes a great sense of extension, with the body floating up through the arms in space. Through this space, leaning weight on one another, as is similar with contact improv, men can hold men and women could hold women. Lia Cirio, Robbie Fairchild, Lorenzo Pagano, Ida Saki, Gabe Stone Shayer, and Cassie Trenary captured the necessity of reliance. Quick, robotic gestures create moments of levity. Almost ignoring helicopters flying overhead, the dancers never lost sense of the quality of movement between them, and when the dancers made a strong, diagonal move across the stage, it was more triumphant than defiant. The sound of a heartbeat triggered the last series of movements, leading us all to contemplate the mechanism of breath.
After the show, I walked through THE GREEN, Mimi Lien’s participatory art installation with curved walls, chairs without arms, and a spongy bottom with a type of AstroTurf-like surface. Though I didn’t take a moment to get an iced coffee on my quick stroll before getting a taxi, I left with the affirming sense everything is going to work out this Summer in New York City, after all.
Performances for ReStart Stages are listed on Today’s Tix. Feel free to download the App, or get additional details at www.ReStartStages.Org.
