What happens when one artist creates in response to another's work? Certainly in the case of Zvi Gotheiner’s recent dance piece at New York Live Arts, Escher/Bacon/Rothko, the manifestation of one brilliant mind inspired by, in this case, three brilliant minds is theatrical soul candy.
The evening starts with Escher, inspired by M.C. Escher’s work. The most widely known examples of Escher’s art are black and white drawings, such as Relativity (1953), depicting a labyrinth of stairs and people going in all different directions. Gotheiner thoughtfully responds to this period of Escher’s art by creating choreography that is geometrical, cyclical, calculating, interwoven. It consumes the entire stage canvas, leaving little negative space un-danced. Escher does not try to tell a deep, epic story. Instead, the piece -- originally titled Earth and Sky -- is a thing to behold for the fascinating pleasure of its intricacies. Costume designer Mary Jo Mecca ices the cake with her understated black and white costumes, an elegant tip of a hat to Escher’s oft-used medium.
Bacon, the next piece of dance theatre, is as opposite as can possibly be from Escher, proving Zvi Gotheiner to be a true artist, never to be locked into one aesthetic or style. His ‘style’ is to create from his curiosities and impulses, which is why his work is so damn good. In Bacon we are pulled into a very dark, very disturbing place -- the theatrical equivalent of Bacon’s famous self-portrait, perhaps. Only singular words strung together can express the profoundness of this piece: sinister, hidden, shame, guilt, carnal, rebel, wolves. I know I’ll never forget its last few moments and many haunting images.
Finally Gotheiner spends some time in a world inspired by Mark Rothko. Ah, it’s a nice place to be, full of nice, plump rectangles (think Rothko’s rectangles of color blocks) delicately brushed on the stage-canvas, thanks to artistically astute lighting designer, Mark London. The glorious bodies of ZviDance are like the broad brush strokes of Rothko as they engulf the entire stage; to use Gotheiner’s description, “Rothko’s use of broad, simplified areas of color...caused his style to be categorized as ‘Colorfeild Painting’…his large scale canvasses were intended to be seen at close range, so that the viewer would feel engulfed by them.” The dance is as elegant and satisfying as Rothko’s illuminating colors.
All of the ZviDance company members -- Chelsea Ainsworth, Todd Allen, Alex Biegelson, Alison Clancy, Kuan Hui Chew, Derek Ege, Samantha Harvey, David Norsworthy, Ying-Ying Shiau and Robert M. Valdez, JR. -- are not just dancers. They can't even be considered merely actor-dancers. These men and women are performance artists who offer you the deepest parts of their selves. The performances of each and every Zvi dancer was a work of art in itself, showing us what happens when masters-in-the-making respond to made masters.
