Friday April 16, 2010 - Kokyat and I had been planning a rehearsal-visit to Jennifer Muller's studio for weeks but one thing after another kept the event postponed - until today, when we finally connected with Jennifer and her beautiful Company of dancers. Top photo: Josiah Guitian and Rosie Lani Fiedelman.
Jennifer Muller/The Works have been celebrating thirty-five years of dancing, though I didn't make their acquaintance until last Summer when they appeared at The Joyce. Then we had a wonderful experience when Kokyat photographed their demonstration/performance of BENCH at the Chelsea Art Museum last Fall where we got to take a closer look at the individual dancers. Last month we had the dancers literally within reach as they presented an exploration of Jennifer's FLOWERS at their studio. On today's visit we finally met some of these intriguing artists and got to watch them at work on Jennifer's newest creation, a full-evening work entitled THE WHITE ROOM.
Using a compiled score which revolves around that most emotional of all musical instruments - the cello - THE WHITE ROOM evokes the theme of innocence and its loss in a panoramic scenario of violence, tenderness, control, eroticism, compassion and solitude.The dancers appear in the context of both personal relationships and as a community where rituals and hierarchies set up dramatic situations which give the work an unsettling edge. Above: Seiko Fujita and Susanna Bozzetti.
The evolving drama of the work is laced with passages of pure dance, as in these solos by Rosie...
...and Susanna. Click on the image to enhance.
In an erotically charged duet, Rosie and Josiah were breathtaking to watch. They were dancing literally inches away from me yet so deeply involved in what they were doing that they seemed unaware of my proximity.
Gen Hashimoto in a long black coat, above watched by Ms. Muller. Gen's 'character' is sort of a pimp, and a rather nasty one at that. The black coat gave him an ominous, almost vampire-like feeling. Gen, who I've seen as both a lyrical and a virtuosic dancer, surprised me with this excursion to the dark side. Click on the image for a closer look.
Josiah with Pascal Rekoert . Pascal (seated, right) in the kingpin; this very tall dancer is ideally cast in the role of a boss-man who can control and intimidate with a mere glance.
Duane Gosa plays a new inductee to the "men's club" and follows in the footsteps of Abdul Latif who's already an insider.
In a section called The New Girl, dancer Hsing-Hua Wang (an Apprentice with Jennifer's Company) is the embodiment of innocence about to be instructed in the ways of the world and absorbed into the collective...
...beginning with a stark encounter with Susanna, who soon has the girl in her thrall.
Katherine Hozler and Jen Peters, above. The scenes that we saw today were not danced in performance sequence; Jennifer told me a bit about some of themes that will eventually become part of the work. The rehearsal flew by so quickly; what made it especially memorable was the all-out commitment and emotional involvement of the dancers. Even though for them it was probably a routine rehearsal, in terms of facial and gestural expressiveness they seemed to be in full-performance mode. The power and beauty of THE WHITE ROOM are already compelling and we look forward to returning to watch the development of Jennifer's vision over the coming months.
All photos by Kokyat. An additional gallery of his images from this rehearsal appears here.
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