Not Like The Old Days

The regional heat+humidity wave has finally ended, and the weather reminds me of many past summers, rehearsing and performing - at Wave Hill,  Jacob's Pillow, Orchard Beach, Central Park SummerStage, PS 1, Avignon ...

At the moment, those days seem very far away, as I recover from bi-lateral total knee replacement.  But I do have a New York show coming up - on screen, which is how I roll, for almost 2 decades now! 

Death & Other Disguises was selected at the Mobile Dance Film Festival, and will screen at the Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center at Gibney downtown. So far, it's been screened only in dance film festivals, from Puerto Rico to Idaho. It may not make it out of that sphere because it is pretty dance-centric, honoring the lineage of post-modernists Yvonne Rainer and Valda Setterfield, and their "descendants" David Thomson and Arthur Aviles, and me. So I'm submitting it mostly to dance film fests, with a few experimental ones thrown in. The Mobile Festival coincides with a Renzi family reunion so it will be fun to watch it on a big screen and then hear from my relatives just how impenetrable it is. However I've heard from a non-dance friend that it's also "strangely calming" so maybe it's more accessible than I think.

This is the 4th time my work has been screened at MDFF - every year but the first, I think, which is a pretty good record.  I'm always pleased by repeat selections - InShadow in Portugal, Short Waves in Poland, Screendance Festival in Sweden, DV Danza in Cuba. There's a certain satisfaction in knowing that the artistic directors there "get" me, and still swing with whatever new direction my work takes. On the other hand, the jury is different every year at MDFF, so there's another satisfaction in knowing that the work stands out, stands on its own.

Because I can't attend all of these distant international fests, I usually have to derive my satisfaction from a distance,  Not this time, however! This time I'm going to fill the place with Renzis and enjoy the next best thing to an actual live show. Join me.