Dance can be hip. Can theater?

The Walker’s blogger Charles Campbell stated that the piece “surpasses or escapes our ability to articulate a message, subject or agenda”. For me, this suggests everything is excusable, regardless of the content.

Mais non, monsieur! To me this means NOTHING is excusable, not even the form. MG’s piece was alternately boring and interesting, which is not usual. But it did avoid sending a message, telling a story, “raising” my consciousness, or anything else of that ilk that seems to be the foundational form of so much institutionalized “avant-garde.” More on this line in my response to TEAM’s thing tonight. So when something I see at the Walker escapes this pit and manages to spark the imagination even in short glimpses, I feel like I’ve come out ahead.

“Gutierrez has an enviable arsenal of funding and laurels from NY press but his gaze, a NYC hipster yearning for connection / vitality feels tired.”

See, I think he truly is hip. I just think “hip” is tired. (But this could be my geezer status erupting here.) I don’t think he’s a faker riding on money and NY connections. And his arsenal of accolades is nothing unusual for this place — how else would be hear of him?

I agree about local artists. Hijack is just one of a unbelievable community of dance and movement excellence here in the cities (see 9×22 at the BLB for a completely different kind of “out there” series). Otto rocks, too, right, and is half of The BodyCartography Project who are into so many good things (Dance Film, for instance). But my perception is that the Walker for us hicks is part of the vital lifeline to truly cultured cities that only appear near oceans. And as such its value should not be underestimated.

Greenhouse, man, don’t get me started.

http://www.myspace.com/scottycruzmnrg