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Construction
With Varied Materials (2001)
In Construction With Varied Materials Greenberg continues
his investigation into the nature of perception, exploring how
a potpourri of dance materials butt up against each other, creating
new meanings where they meet at the seams. The “materials”
include a solo Greenberg originally choreographed for Mikhail
Baryshnikov to a Tchaikovsky string quartet, improvisations
to duets by Ray Charles and Betty Carter, and revisited material
from his 1995 The Disco Project. Greenberg also employs
his signature use of projected text, showing both his sly humor
and his strategy to create intimacy through unexpected disclosure.
He masterfully combines this panoply of elements into an “exhilarating”
(The New York Times) and “lavish” (Village
Voice) dance experience.
Construction With Varied Materials premiered at The
Kitchen
in New York City.
(28 minutes, five dancers)
Music:
Ray Charles & Betty Carter, Tchaikovsky, Sister Sledge
Lighting:
Michael Stiller
Music Remixes:
Zeena Parkins
Costumes:
Liz Prince
“The
‘materials’ in Greenberg’s 2001 Construction
With Varied Materials are primarily dancers, although a
few projected words divert us to thoughts of provenance; ‘wrist
material’ and ‘hopscotch material’ appear
as Ramos solos (the wrist we can identify; hopscotch is utterly
transformed). The lavish dancing of Flomin, Greenberg, Ramos,
Caitlin Cook and Paige Martin (with the help of lighting designer
Michael Stiller) makes the space open up and shrink around them,
divide into islands, form a fertile garden plot.”
(Deborah Jowitt, Village
Voice)
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“…what
makes Construction With Varied Materials so exhilarating
is that the stage space is even more alive than the dancers
who inhabit it. Space becomes an almost tactile, lightly viscous
property here, unpredictably shaped and reshaped as if the dancers
were points in a shifting, sprawling polygon whose permutations
are endlessly fascinating…"
(Jennifer
Dunning, The New York Times) |
Construction With Varied Materials
was made possible by support provided by the New York State
Council on the Arts, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, and
the Purchase College Faculty Support Fund.
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