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The Dance Enthusiast Hits the Streets: 60x60

By Erin Bomboy
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Published on November 2, 2015
Pictured: Jamila Holman

Dance and Music Come Together in a New York Minute

Presented by Arts Brookfield

Conceived of by Vox Novus

Friday, October 23 at 12:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.

For a complete list of choreographers and composers click here.

Photo above by Darial Sneed, courtesy of Arts Brookfield

One hour.

It’s such a trivial amount of time that one can slip away unnoticed. It’s lunch with a friend or a spin class. It’s a well-deserved nap or an episode of your favorite television drama. In the concert dance world, it’s the de facto length for a single-bill piece. 

60x60 upends this notion of devoting one hour to any one thing. It presents 60 one-minute dances set to 60 one-minute music pieces, all created by contemporary choreographers and composers. The brainchild of Rob Voisey, Executive Director of Vox Novus, 60x60 was born of a mad, creative desire to present as much new music and dance in as short a time as possible.

It sounds crazy. It is a little crazy. But gung-ho choreographers and dancers show that a little crazy makes for a vivid and varied hour. At Brookfield Place, 60x60 captures the attention of everyone from worker bees in suits and scowls to moms pushing strollers. Some sit entranced for the entire hour; others only watch a piece or two.

Photo by Darial Sneed, courtesy of Arts Brookfield

Co-curators Andrea Skurr and Fran Sperling assemble a smorgasbord of movement styles that stretch from modern to ballet and from musical theater to circus arts. The show opens with a bang: To Allen Strange’s chugging, lashing composition, tapper Gwen Potter’s golden shoes beat a funky cadence as her white-blonde hair thrashes like a heavy metal singer.

Circus arts are particularly well represented. Brian Konash starts prone and then leisurely stands, thrusting Fran Sperling aloft in a gasp-worthy move to Angela McGary’s compositions that saunters with spunk and soul. To chimerical music by Greg Bartholomew, Randy Kato frames his body inside a cyr wheel and rolls in indolent curlicues. 

Buggé Ballet; Photo by Darial Sneed, courtesy of Arts Brookfield

Some minutes captivate with a single, striking motif. In Jamila Holman’s piece, a woman unspools from a bolt of aubergine fabric during a sequence of spins and back bends to Laurie Spiegel’s twinkly score. Both with and against John Bilotta’s skittery composition, Buggé Ballet's Jessica McCarthy engraves a delicate signature across the diagonal, her arms yearning toward and away from the heavens. Jen Roit and three friends, clad in suit jackets and crayon-colored pants, gesture with geometric precision as Jane Wang’s music clinks like a possessed chime.

Solid dancing is always appreciated, and 60x60 shows plenty of it. Jonathan Alsberry and Derek Crescenti from Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company bound with joyous physicality — crisp kicks and whip-fast turns — through several different scores. Performers from Emily Bufferd’s BEings flaunt inversions and sinuous balances in a display of versatility across the electronic musical spectrum. Charly Wenzel, sporting an architectural blonde ‘do, strides and then crouches to composer Pauline Oliveros’ scary, weird screeches.

For the finale, Voisey tramps onstage, holding aloft a gigantic donut prop (the music by David Hahn is called “Big Donut”). The cast strolls on with arms outstretched. More, they seem to be saying. We want more: more music, more dance. Perhaps sixty minutes isn’t enough to showcase all the diverse voices in contemporary music and dance.