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IMPRESSIONS: Kinesis Project dance theatre in “Capacity, or: The Work of Crackling” (Excerpt) at Snug Harbor Cultural Center
By Deirdre Towers/Follow @deirdre.towers on Instagram
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Published on September 28, 2023
Photo by Sparkographs/Anna Martin
WHERE: Snug Harbor Cultural Center
WHEN: September 23, 2023
WHO: Choreographer: Melissa Riker
Dancers: Sabrina Canas, Madeline Hoak, Abigail Linnemeyer, Yolette Yellow-Duke
Composer: Anti-Social Music (Diana Woolner, David Friend, Eyal Moaz and Brian McCorkle), Opera on Tap | Costume design: Rebecca Kanach
Upcoming Performance Details:
WHERE: Manhattan’s Riverside Park, West 62nd Street, New York, NY
WHEN: September 30 and October 1, 2023 from 6pm onwards
MORE INFO
A young woman bends backwards over the rail of the second floor in Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden’s Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art. She seems vulnerable in the 1833-built Sailor’s Home, a grand dame of a hall with its stained glass and an insignia, “Port after Stormy Seas,” written on the wall. Will the rail hold up? Another dancer risks all by joining the first, stretching her back over the rail. An operatic voice soars.
This scene above, an excerpt from Kinesis Project dance theatre’s Capacity, or: The Work of Crackling, lingers as a metaphor — both for the dance and the Snug Harbor Dance Festival, now in its second year. How far can we bend, before we break? The rain poured, driving the four site-specific dancers indoors, and a fashion exhibit, “Denizens - Staten Island Mode,” was temporarily pulled out of the great hall to accommodate the dance company, which has been operating since 2005.
After performing and responding to the wild, the dancers effortlessly rose to the challenge of adapting to the man-made environment. Their alert presence inspired a similar awareness in the viewer of the spirit evoked by the Sailor’s Home. Their spontaneity, such as when two dancers nestle together in an oval recession in one wall, is appreciated.
Capacity was one of many performances held in six spaces at the Newhouse Center from September 23 and 24. ln 2014, the Snug Harbor Cultural Center began its dance curation under the guidance of Gabri Christa, and is still exploring its potential via its 83 acres and cottages that are currently housing six artists-in-residence, chosen through an open call.
According to Melissa West, Snug Harbor’s Vice President of Curation, Visual and Performing Arts, the residency program received 100 dance applications, and the chosen ones now receive a $1500 stipend, work space, and living accommodations; given the expense of making art in NYC at this time, this translates as gold.
But to return to the dance, the four young women, all delicate and taut, operated in pairs. At first spread out over two floors, they merged on the second floor, before moving back to the first floor. Then, with the audience in tow, they floated through a windowed, benched passageway, only to descend and come to rest in a third space. With a charming naturalness, the dancers invited each audience member to learn on their shoulders while walking, and then to stretch back with an arm held by one dancer. Suddenly everyone was linking arms, swaying in a moment of trust and peace.
Before the performance, Melissa Riker, the company’s amiable choreographer cum founder, led a workshop on “creating site-specific dance” in the passageway. She asked us to consider what came to mind with the words ‘crackling’ and ‘cracking,’ and then to move with those mental images, using the space to our best advantage.
Riker also shared elements of her collaboration with geologist Dr. Missy Eppes, who will speak before the upcoming performances of Capacity with four live instrumentalists and four singers, at Manhattan’s Riverside Park at West 62nd Street on September 30 and October 1 from 6pm onwards. Save the date.
View the digital program HERE.
