In Yvonne Rainer’s voluminous body of work, the term “permanent recovering racist” she verbally identifies goes back at least to the 1990 experimental film Privilege. In this rumination on intersecting injustices, “Who speaks? In one of them he wrote: Most “permanently recovered racist” we can you be
italicized “we” is white in the United States, and in her latest dance (which, as she said, was also her last one), Rainer, now 87, urges us to take another good look at ourselves. urge. Prompt — but stop short of the actual call to action.
In a joint presentation with Performa on “Hellzapoppin’: What About the Bees?,” which premiered Wednesday at Live Arts in New York, Rainer commented on racism. Apollo Musagetes. A recurring figure in her recent work, the Sun God descends from Mount Olympus to investigate the “rampant racial injustice” endemic to the United States.
“Hellzapoppin”’ is danced by an excellent multi-generational cast (who have been credited for their contribution to “research and input”) and is the result of the 2000 collaboration with Mikhail, the film After Many a Summer Dies the Swan: Hybrid” (2002). Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project. The entrenched theme of social and economic inequalities across time and place runs through both.
I’d like to report in another way, but having long admired Rainer (and even danced exuberantly in her production with great ease), ‘Hellzapoppin’ was more heady than the grand finale. is bothering me. It treats its deepest concerns as thorns, almost as curiosity, and lacks a clear purpose beyond aesthetic exploration — is that enough? — Lindy Hop, historically a form of black dance Arguably, it is important to recognize the system of oppression and its complicity. What next? “Hellzapoppin'” hits the wall of that question.
The title, Hellzapoppin, comes from the 1941 film of the same name, whose most enduring scene is its riveting. Lindy Hop Intermezzo,Danced Lindy Hoppers of Whitey Choreographed by Lindy Hop Pioneers Frankie Manningto Count Basie’s “Jumping at the Woodside”. Rainer’s dance begins with that sequence projected in silence alongside a scene from Jean Vigo’s film Zero for Conduct (1933). pillow throw. (A pillow fight erupts onstage later.) The dancer’s explosive flips and lifts — done in uniform as the servants of the film’s white characters — create something with the buoyancy of the dorm-room chaos. I am sharing.
When Rainer’s dancers enter, there are two groups of four on opposite sides of the stage, distilling Lindy’s steps into more controlled maneuvers and measuring the energy familiar in much of Rainer’s work. What used to be bouncing, swinging, and sliding becomes slower, more stable acrobatics. Backwalkover supported. A flip that locks the landing instead of diving into the next move. Material from Rainer’s 1966 classic “Trio A” with Brittany Bailey dancing lucidly and Michelle Fokine’s 1905 “Dying Swan” channeled by the quiet drama of David Thomson and Brittany Engel Adams etc., other references are sewn in.
Thomson, the only black male in the cast, also provides the voice of Apollo, whose recorded monologue is played out throughout this entire time. God has shown racism in America through his encounters with various humans, white and black, including a self-identified “permanently recovering racist” named Jane (probably Rayner’s version). tells of his investigation into For Rainer, would it be more powerful, perhaps less burdensome, to simply talk about oneself in terms of race, without filtering through mythical figures and symbols of classic whiteness?
Rainer’s inner conflict is also asserted in the sudden intervention of actress Kathleen Chalfant. She buzzes about many other pressing issues, including climate change, war, and abortion rights, and wants to know where these fit in. Says longtime Rainer dancer Emmanuel Phuong, gesturing to the choreographer in the front row.
Chalfant later returns to provide the show’s final words. This is a more personal and introspective moment borrowed from the end of James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” But the most striking part of the night for me was the way Rainer directs our focus in his two directions. In ‘Hellzapoppin’, between two movie scenes and his two his groups of four, and in the movie before that, between a dense aisle. Text and footage of dancers during rehearsals or on stage. This split vision proved to be a poignant metaphor for the work’s shortcomings.
“Hellzapoppin’: What About the Bees?”
at New York Live Arts until Saturday, newyorklivearts.org.