Above: Ian Spencer Bell in Duet, photo by Kyle Froman
~ Author: Oberon
Wednesday May 9th, 2018 - Poet/dancer/choreographer Ian Spencer Bell in an evening of words and movement at the Martha Graham Studio Theater down in the venerable Westbeth Building.
The space was hung with black drapes, the east-facing windows exposed with a view of the skyline in the fading light of a beautiful Spring evening; subtle lighting by Nicholas Houfek blended well with this natural light.
The program opened with Duet which - ironically - is a trio. Set to Temptation by New Order, it's performed by Ian along with Joshua Tuason and Gary Champi. The dancing is airy and stylized, with two bluejean-clad dancers moving together while the third circles the space; as the piece progresses, they switch places. The couple speak in a gestural dialect whilst the circling dancer varies his speed and gait.
Joshua and Gary take a break while Ian begins to speak. The poem, Duet, is a reflection on the start and development of a relationship between two men; in telling it, the presence of the third dancer is explained. As with so much of Ian's poetry, it conjures up visions from my own past; in the case of Duet, I began thinking of that first summer on the Cape with TJ, having sex in the ballet studio after everyone else had gone home. It's that sort of thing that makes me feel a real connection to Ian's work.
Finishing, Ian moves to the window and stands looking out on the City and the sky. The other boys soon join him there: the three of them look so beautiful - calm and pensive - creating one of the most moving images of the evening.
This leads directly to Marrow, an Ian Spencer Bell classic. As the voice of Bobbie Gentry sings the still-enigmatic lyrics of Ode to Billie Joe, the dancers - first one, then two, and then all three - re-claim the dance-space. The space is then cleared for Ian's solo rendering of his poem, Marrow. In movement by turns animated and languid, he recounts episodes from his life - from idle reveries to imminent dangers - as a small boy growing up in the South among people who did not understand him. This could of course be the story of any gay kid facing the realities of a life of being different, but it's Ian's personal way with putting memories words, and the shaping of his expressive body, that make it compelling.
Above, from Goldwater; photo by Kyle Froman
For the concluding work, Goldwater, two additional dancers - Vanessa Knouse and Lexie Thrash - joined Joshua and Gary, along with four young poets: Nadra Mabrouk, Francisco Márquez, Vanessa Moody, and Angelo Nikolopoulos.
Goldwater in this instance refers to the NYU Goldwater Fellows Writing Workshop, a program at the Coler-Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island wherein these teaching Fellows work with the Hospital's severely physically-challenged patients in creative writing workshops for a group of twelve to twenty residents, meet with them in individual tutorials, and assist in transcribing their work. The Fellows also help publish the Golden Writers’ Anthology at the end of each semester. All four of the poets who read tonight are (or have been) NYU Goldwater Fellows, as was Ian Spencer Bell in the past. Ian adapted the poems for tonight's performance, and dedicated the dancework to the Goldwater Writing Workshop.
Moving in almost ritualized stylization, the four dancers fill the space with movement as the poets read parts of the works that were created in their workshops with the patients; fleeting partnering motifs in the dance spoke of the connection between poets and patients. This layered creative concept gave Goldwater a poignant expressive depth. The poets, incidentally, were each attractive in their own particular way, and - though probably not otherwise connected with dance - they joined the movement group in the end, again emphasizing connectedness.
Among the words spoken, these touched me deeply:
"I dream I’m a saint, beard long and gray, hiding the crucifix I wear. Then I wake, take my medications, remember the stories of youth — the paramours, the enemies, the ghosts — and know, This is the only life I could wish for." ~ Frank
The sound of the late Nick Drake singing From The Morning then seeped into the space as one by one the dancers and poets walked away. Drake was an English singer and song-writer who was born the same year I was; he committed suicide in 1974, which was the year that I stopped feeling suicidal and began living.
~ Oberon