Adrienne Truscott's 'genesis, no!'

Laura Diffenderfer | Mar 23, 2008 | 0

A section from Adrienne Truscott's 'genesis, no!'.  Enjoy!

So, I saw Adrienne Truscott's 'genesis, no!' at Dance Theater Workshop on Friday night.  Originally presented at PS122, the piece is part of a new initiative in which DTW will revive 2 - 4 contemporary works a year. A recent article from the Times goes into more detail about the new plan (link at end).

Anyway, back to 'genesis, no!'...  The dance, set inside a museum, was comprised of movement which looked like half Barney Rubble, half faux-Graham. For an hour, the performers led us through a series seemingly unrelated extended moments: a passage of slightly awkward stomps, a story told in gibberish, a naked drum section (yup).      

If I sound less than enthusiastic, I mislead.  The evening, in which almost nothing grand happened, was--and modern dance so rarely is--really, really funny.  It was not funny in an ironic way--you know that uncomfortable feeling that it's 'supposed' to be funny if you really 'get it' that results in smug chuckling? It was not that. It did not poke fun at itself or at art-making, which I have seen a lot of lately, and leaves me thinking that I could have started at my own navel for an hour if I wanted that kind of 'humor'.  

No, no, Truscott and her fine performers (yay, Neal Medlyn!), are on to something good here. The whole evening was like a series of jokes in which the punch-lines are so strange and unexpected and spot-on, they seem almost like revelations.              

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Modern, Performance (all tags)