posted September 26, 2001 09:57            

09.25.01
Quatuor Albrecht Knust [FRANCE]
Continuous Project/Altered Daily
Agora de la danse Studio
Festival International de Nouvelle Danse

Choreography: Yvonne Rainer

Rereading: Quatuor Albrecht Knust (Dominique Brun, Anne Collod, Simon Hecquet, Christophe Wavelet)

Performed by: Dominique Brun, Anne Collod, Simon Hecquet, Christophe Wavelet, Martha Moore, Alain Buffard, Matthieu Doze, Xavier Le Roy, Emmanuelle Huynh

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Yvonne Rainer has said that one of the frustrating things about her fame in the sixties was the knowledge that she was not so much being singled out because of something she did, but because she existed in a world that felt the need to single one person out of a group of peers as "star" or "genius."
--Dance Online, Inc.

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Rainer's employment of the post-structuralist theory that "we live in a linguistic universe and that language is a 'transparent' medium which hands over experience whole and unproblematically," is flawed, as demonstrated by the Q.A.K. cast. When Rainer's choreographic instructions were read aloud it was clear that language, as a device to impart choreographic instructions, does not work very well. It does provide comic relief but I'm not sure that was Rainer's original intention.

Cultural theories aside, Quator Albrecht Knust were very funny, using some of the following in their list of assigned tasks: yielding, pillow slide, steam roller, jerky group, text (a reading of a passage by Samuel Beckett), Esther William (a running dive into the arms of the other players), group hoist, paper cartons (piling and un-piling of cardboard appliance boxes). The performer who did not know the set choreographic phrase and was always a movement behind the group was hilarious. Watching him play catch-up had some of the audience in stitches. I felt like I was watching a show in someone's basement, it was very casual. The performers all wore running shoes, t-shirts and sweatpants. The DJ looked like someone's father. In fact, the records he played, which included a lot of Mowtown, sounded exactly like what someone's father would choose for a party.

Did the performance impart any of the cultural significance of Rainer's work? Did it provoke discussions about what dance is? No, but it was good for a laugh.

posted September 28, 2001 07:39            

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Lab experiments go kinetic

By happy coincidence, scheduling placed a French company, Quatuor Albrecht-Knust, and an American troupe, Trisha Brown Dance Company, on the same day.

If El Trilogy is Bloomingdales, Continuous Project/Altered Daily is Wal-Mart.

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