As the first decade of the new century was getting underway, Spalding Gray worried that the joy he’d finally found with his wife, stepdaughter, and two sons would fail to fuel his work as a theatrical monologist the way anxiety, conflict, doubt, and various crises once had. Before he got the chance to find out, however, an automobile accident in Ireland left him with the lasting wounds of body and spirit that ultimately led him to take his own life.
As was always his method, Gray began to fashion a new monologue in various workshop settings that would tell the story of the accident and its aftermath. Originally titled Black Spot—for what the locals called the section of highway where Gray’s accident occurred—it began as a series of workshops at P.S. 122 in New York City and eventually became Life Interrupted.Gray died in early 2004, and though never completed, Life Interrupted is rich with brave self-revelation, masterfully acute observations of wonderfully peculiar people, penetrating wit and genuine humor, an irresolvable fascination with life and death, and all the other attributes of Gray’s singular and unmistakable voice.
Category: Performance
To My Chagrin
To My Chagrin matches Shaw with drummer Vivian Stoll to create a tender rock n’ roll lullaby from a cross-dressing grandma to her mixed-race grandson. An old run down pick up truck, R & B soul classics, and video projects of her beloved grandson make for a piece of rowdy humor and social criticism. Written by Peggy Shaw in collaboration with Vivien Stoll and directed by Lois Weaver and performed by Peggy Shaw and Vivien Stoll
What Ever: An American Odyssey In Eight Acts
WHAT EVER is a 100-character epic serial performance performed by one actor, in 8 installments. It follows 10 main characters across America as they intersect with over 90 others and their lives and stories converge. “WHAT EVER” is the result of a dare. A friend challenged Heather to write and perform a new show every week for a year. She modified the length to a pregnant nine months and took up the challenge in September of 1994. For thirty-seven consecutive weeks she wrote and performed a new half-hour of “THE HEATHER WOODBURY REPORT” in the back of an East Village bar. As characters and plot line developed, audience became mid-wife and the “performance novel” was born.
The New Stuff
“New Stuff” (P.S.122, May) offered an intriguing mix of younger choreographers—this batch coincidentally all female. In memory collections, Tania Isaac skillfully harnessed the maximum power of each of the dance’s elements: the controlled slo-mo strength of her African-based style, well-edited video and slide segments, and the embodiment of female strength and dignity. InParadise?, as a moderately convincing Charlie’s Angel, Kari Hoaas (the program’s curator) invoked snippets of saucy gestures—pouty lips, tousled hair, an Elvis pelvis—in an incisively subversive flirtation. A tango medley performed live on strings and piano by Las Señoritas spiced up Kate Gyllenhaal/MoCo’s frustratingly flaccid dancing and choppy phrasing in MeMyself&You.Karinne Keithley’s Tenderenda resembled, in form, Big Dance Theater’s peculiar goulash of text, movement, and music. The excerpt didn’t explain the presence of a bear and three anthropomorphic devils with tails, but their Swiss-movement-timed Three Stooges campfire routine hit a funny bone. —Susan Yung, The Village Voice
Poon
Before Tom and I formed POON Productions, we created an evening of dance aptly titled POON for PS122′s Mark Russell with 10 dancers and an 8 musician world orchestra. My third evening length Dance Theatre piece, POON riffs on the elements depicting Ether, Air, Water, Fire, and Earth. We combined folk dances from all over the world with my version of jazzy contemporary technique to create a mega hybrid I now call erotic modern dance. First performed at Club Luxx in Williamsburg Brooklyn, we took that club feel and converted it into a revolutionary kind of dance performance.
Music by Tom Rossi
Costumes by: Liz Collins, Elisa Jimenez, Peter Soronen and the infamous Zaldy
Photos by Rachel Elkind