Michelle Dorrance with Nicholas Van Young in Works & Process Rotunda Project at the Guggenheim Museum. Photo Matthew Murphy.
Works & Process Rotunda Project
Michelle Dorrance with Nicholas Van Young
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Rotunda
October 31, 2018
Percussion in Space
A visit to the Guggenheim Museum usually involves walking up or down (I vote for top down) the winding ramp viewing art. Last night spectators lined the ramps to watch Michelle Dorrance and a group of black-clad performers push wooden platforms across the floor and make sounds by hitting the top of the ramp with sticks—sticks that made sounds but nonetheless sticks.
The forty-five minute performance, watched mostly by a standing audience, (attendees of the preceding gala sat at tables on the museum’s floor), was a binge of percussive creativity that included drumming, clapping, playing chimes, singing, bass playing, striking round objects in the drained pool, and “tapping” on specially- constructed platforms.
The iconic architectural space was a major player in the work as sound travels in strange and unexpected ways here. This was especially obvious when the affable Nicholas Van Young, “conducted” different parts of the room in a clap-fest, signaling rhythms and sound levels that included a little whistling and some finger snaps to which the audience enthusiastically responded. When the group ended the section with the “boomwhacker,” sticks that made sounds when struck against the balustrade, they ran off to the elevator, timed to close in the face of the last man, eliciting laughter.
At times the performance was reminiscent of sophisticated dodgeball as the performers shoved platforms at one another. Other instances, such the use of handheld red sticks had overtones of martial arts. MacArthur Fellow Michelle Dorrance and Nicholas Van Young are credited, with Ephrat Asherie and Matthew West, with the choreography together with “improvisation by the performers. “ I’d have to credit the Guggenheim rotunda itself as major player especially as this work was commissioned specifically for that space. The result is a multi-genre work that incorporates the architecture and acoustics of the museum’s rotunda in a way that engages performers with the audience in an unusual, engaging manner.
Dorrance Dance is an award-winning tap dance company based out of New York City. The company’s work aims to honor tap dance’s uniquely beautiful history in a new, dynamic, and compelling context; not by stripping the form of its tradition, but by pushing it – rhythmically, technically, and conceptually. Founded in 2011, the company has received countless accolades, rave reviews and performed for packed houses at venues including The Joyce Theater (New York, NY), Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival (Becket, MA), New York City Center (New York, NY), Carolina Performing Arts (Chapel Hill, NC), Vail International Dance Festival (Vail, CO), The Kennedy Center (Washington, DC), Lincoln Center Out of Doors (New York, NY), and many others, including colleges and universities across the United States and international venues in Canada, France, Germany, Spain, England, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
