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RETTOCAMME: “work with no progress” in review
In this dance/paint collaboration RETTOCAMME fuses live painting by Emma Cotter with dance improvisation by Marcia Brooks, Aaron Graham, Elisa LaBelle and Kimberly Lantz.
I know it sounds like a publicity stunt to get people to come out to some gallery during the slow part of the summer, and it may be, but it’s worth it. The premise is simple. Three dancers improv in the front window and take turns improving with a painter using the window as a canvas. The result is amazing.
The dancers appear in plain white smocks and brilliant neon spiky haired wigs. At first they perform either a carefully crafted improvisation or a set dance in unison in the midsection of the gallery. Then they take turns rotating into the front window to improv with Emma while the other two continue a subtler dance on the floor. There is a fourth dancer on the second floor of the gallery who is blocked from view for most people, also without being able to improv with the painter, her performance is flat by comparison.
In their improvisations with Emma the dancers pose and create small dancers that she either mimics in paint or expands in scope. Unlike some collaborations between visual and performing artists, this one is mutual. Emma uses the dancer’s movement as an input but also creates her own art which the dancers use as input in turn.
After each of them has been painted, the dancers explore each other’s painted selves using the painted figures as partners and improvisational inspirations. Finally the installation comes to a climax in which Emma sprays the painted figures with Windex and begins to squeegee it away. The live dancers warp as their painted selves begin melt and disappear along with their avatars.
It runs about 30 minutes. It’s playing again Saturday, Aug 25, 2007 ~ 7 pm., 8 p.m., 9 p.m at Jonathan Shorr Gallery. Check it out.