Between the Ice Sheets: June in January

Laura Peterson rehearses "Interglacial" 

-- By Tom Phillips

"Interglacial" refers to the period between geological Ice Ages -- the current period, about eleven thousand years old, the age when humankind established its dominance over the earth. That age may well be extended by the effects of humankind and its technology, pumping an ever-increasing volume of carbon dioxide into the air, trapping heat and raising temperatures, melting ice.  

It was 69 degrees on  January 11 in New York --  a record high -- when huge icebergs cracked on Canal Street in New York before an small audience in a storefront.  The ice was simulated but the sights and sounds were familiar.  It was just like the videos from Greenland and Antarctica of ice sheets "calving"-- sending  mammoth chunks of melting ice roaring and plunging into the sea.  

Laura Peterson's choreography is always an interaction with space and materials -- wood, grass, plastic, etc. -- the stuff that makes up our world.  About two years ago she started experimenting with paper, and at some point it became clear that its properties have much in common with ice.  It's smooth and slippery, it lies flat, it crackles, under pressure it stands up and forms shapes, and under enough pressure it breaks up in unpredictable ways.  

"Interglacial" was conceived to bring home the global meltdown of ice. Peterson and her dancers performed the work-in-progress today, each hour from noon to eight, free for anyone curious enough to drop in to the storefront at 323 Canal.  

Inside, huge sheets and balls of white paper played the part of the world's natural ice, and three dancers played the role of global warming.  They smoothed out the paper and used it as a dancing surface -- displaying the cool mechanics of ballet steps, civilization at its most elegant and highly-developed. Then these lovely humans proceeded to sabotage the scenery, crawling under the paper floor, standing it up into crazy conical shapes, then sending it rolling and tumbling down in broken heaps. The sound track roared and crackled, with the keening of whales in the deep background.  

The humans -- advanced as they are -- seemed utterly unconcerned with the destruction they had wreaked.  Meanwhile on the street, the June-in-January revelers paraded in shorts and tank tops, snacked on hamburgers and ice cream, drank water from innumerable plastic bottles, and filled the trash cans to overflowing.

"Interglacial" isn't done. Watch for it near you.

-- Copyright 2020 by Tom Phillips

Failure: A Conversation with Laura Peterson, Part 2

-- By Tom Phillips

In Part One of this conversation, Laura Peterson talked about the sea-changes in her art over the years --- from satire, through abstraction, to a complex vehicle for personal, emotional expression.  

After years of being cast as microscopic bugs and atomic particles, Peterson and her dancers emerged as human beings in 2012, in a piece called “Failure.”  It addresses a universal human experience, but you’ve never seen the human condition rendered like this. The unique touch is the scenery -- a huge kite-like construction, designed to collapse during the performance.   

Laura Peterson is the daughter of an academic philosopher, but as an artist she is also the child of the Judson School – drawing on the ideas incubated at Judson Memorial Church in the 1960s – among them minimalism, repetition, unusual settings and collaborations with other arts, and chance combinations.  In “Failure,” it all comes together. We see choreography as philosophy – a working out of the paradoxical relationships of determinism, chance, and human will.  And in a particularly satisfying twist, we can see it this summer at Judson Memorial.   “Failure” will make its New York debut in that sacred space, June 29 through July 1. In March we talked about the work, and its new, post-election incarnation.  

LP:  “Failure” I did after “Wooden” in 2011.  Something happened there, in “Wooden,” when we’re running back and forth, over and over, but I didn’t think it went far enough.  I could see a possibility there, the possibility of exhaustion, and that it has an emotional quality to it.  And then I thought, when does the body fail?  What are your personal physical limits?  And can you go farther than that, can you ask more of your body than that?  The 2012 Olympics were happening then.  And I looked at people’s effort, and their limits, and then more effort and passing a limit you think you have.  And then watching somebody collapse, because their effort goes beyond their limit.  And then you become a person, which is excruciating.  I keep thinking, why do I have to have limits? 

TP:  For me, “Failure” is the most clearly realized piece you’ve done, because the concept is very simple.   It’s just that people tend to avoid it.  They don’t want to talk about it, everyone wants to be a success.  But even success has its limits.  And then what?

“Everything Has Changed": A Conversation with Laura Peterson

Laura Peterson in "Failure" 

-- By Tom Phillips 

“If your step has a name, keep working on it,” Laura Peterson tells her students. A dancer, teacher, and choreographer of the 21^st century, she has created a whole vocabulary of steps without names, drawing on modern dance, ballet, sports, physics, animal behavior and pure play. Endurance and resilience are job requirements for her company, usually three women and a man, always including herself. Their moves are physical, fast, often punishing. Knee pads are essential. Stamina becomes style. 

She begins with a setting – sometimes outdoors, sometimes in, sometimes a combination, as when her company danced “Wooden” on a live lawn at the Here Arts Center in New York, or under a huge kite-like structure designed to collapse during their performance of “Failure.” (Above.  All these constructions are made to order by her husband and long-time collaborator, Jon Pope.) Lately she has also been using her own abstract paintings, as a backdrop, a floor, or even a covering.

In the thirteen years I’ve followed her work, it has moved from satire, through abstraction, to an almost reluctant admission of the personal and political, brought to a head last year by a family tragedy and the shock of the election. At Judson Memorial Church in January, she wrestled with her own grief and anger in a ground-breaking “Solo.” With politics in mind, she’s now creating a new production of “Failure” for Judson this summer. But even with feelings rampant, her compositions always retain a strong formal structure -- and this is what sets them apart from mere bodily emoting.

Laura grew up in Syracuse, where her father Philip L. Peterson was Professor of Philosophy at Syracuse University. She learned about Epistemology at the dinner table, and she’s bold enough to say she plans to explore its fundamental questions – what do we know and how do we know it? -- in dance. 

Like most Syracusans she was also a rabid follower of the school’s basketball team, the Orange. Laura and I met recently at a café near Marymount College in Manhattan, where she had just taught a choreography class, and started by talking sports.  

TP: I see athletics in your choreography. How does dance relate to basketball? 

LP:  I feel like basketball is so much choreography and improvisation, and constant movement. You’re saying Yes and No, but within a highly structured score. So you have all the plans, all the intentions in the world, but you have to react to what’s going on. And you have to be positive, and say Yes, Yes, Yes all the way down the court, but when the ball changes over you have to back up and say No, No, No.  There’s a lot of choreography and traffic, quick starts, fast breaks, constantly shifting tempos. And there’s also a lot of arcs, the ball is arcing, your pathways are arcing, you’re spiraling, trying to reach something. I’m working on my transition game… 

OK then, what’s new with Laura Peterson Choreography?

Everything has changed since the election. Every single thing I see or do has a new content. I see content where I saw form only. I see content in relationships – not necessarily narrative – but politics, the power dynamics and negotiations between people.  And it’s directly related to the election and the current political climate.

I saw Lucinda Childs, who is among my favorite choreographers. And I thought, what a wonderful break from humanity, just to watch this form. But then I wondered, what are the relationships here, what are the dancers experiencing? I was watching one dancer breathe. So there’s that kinesthetic empathy. But now I thought about what she was thinking, whereas before I would just say – person, design, organization. So I wonder about what’s going to happen next.