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 premiered at The Kitchen in New York City
28 minutes, five dancers
Music: Ray Charles & Betty Carter, Tchaikovsky, Sister Sledge
Music Remixes: Zeena Parkins
Lighting: Michael Stiller
Costumes: Liz Prince
Originally Performed by: Caitlin Cook, Ori Flomin, Neil Greenberg, Paige Martin, Antonio Ramos

  1. “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 (source)
  2. “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 (source)
© Tom Brazil
© Tom Brazil
© Tom Brazil

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.