Sublime is Us
26 Oct
I am not a dance guy. I am not against dance. I am not indifferent to dance. I am simply dance blind.
Then I saw this dance review in the Times [subscription required]. The show is called “Sublime is Us” and the picture alone was enough to get me all worked up:
Admittedly, I haven’t seen the show, but the core ideas behind the piece are nevertheless inspiring.
I love how simple the idea is (in short: you + dancers + mirrors), but also how suggestive it is. One look at that picture and you can immediately imagine what it’s like to be there.
I love how Luciana Achugar, the show’s creator, has radically rethought the performance space.
I love how the audience is at once an active and a passive participant.
I love how the show invites you into an aspect of the dance world (i.e. the practice space) that is traditionally kept off limits.
Tack this one up on your wall, people. If you can even approach this one in terms of conceptual awesomeness, you’ll be doing very, very well.
Tags: dance
There’s always this tension between breaking out of the constraints of whatever art form you’re working in, on the one hand, and knowing that few people upon whom you rely for success — critics, editors, audience — really want those constraints challenged.
Sounds like Luciana Achugar has walked that tightrope and remained upright. Good for her.
(One thing I like about this idea in particular is that it overturns all cliches about the “fourth wall,” including the relatively recent one of breaking the fourth wall to address the audience. I’m not even sure how many walls you could say are involved here.