Dance
Animating Sculpture: Cary Bakers Mimesis at Triskelion Arts

Cary Baker, one of the five choreographers in the all-female choreography collective, Kick|Stand|Dance, presented a new work combining dance and sculpture in December at Triskelion Arts. Fittingly titled Mimesis, the piece explores the relationship between the two arts with the dance passages extending and mimicking the sculpture.
My viewing of Mimesis began by entering the rear entrance of the performance space proceeded by a dramatic ride up a freight elevator lined with candles. As I reached the top, somewhat breathlessly, I received a program and ticket and was then ushered across a threshold— a curtain behind which lay the first part of Baker’s dancescape. Here, in a gallery-like setting, several waist-high, freestanding plaster-cast figurines, as silent and expectant as Easter Island monuments, were dispersed across the room. Two miniature boxes lined with grass held smaller figurines that resembled the larger sculptures. Here, among the sculpture, the audience congregated and was offered a foreshadowing of the dance to come.
As Mimesis opens, three women, elongated by lengthy skirts, enter concealing three other women who eventually emerge from under the folds of fabric. Now six figures take up the space— each resembling the sculptures in the foyer. And, similar to the small boxes, the stage is also lined with grass. As expected, and hence the title, the movement here mirrors or mimics the sculpture in the foyer. The dancers’ gestures are contained rather than free and flowing. It’s as if the sculptures had just sprung to life. Yet, the contained movement is punctuated by moments of release. In a repeated movement that becomes a kind of motif, a dancer will suddenly push her chest forward, neck and arms thrust back as if she had just been shot. There are also moments of flight in Mimesis, with dancers in harnesses soaring through the air in sweeping arcs.
In Mimesis, Baker works with a form she calls "kinetic sculpture" and she achieves stunning visual effects which, with the help of Gamble Staepfli, make it possible to transform the performance space into an otherworldly environment.
Next up for Kick|Stand|Dance is Layla Childs and Sonya Robbins’ BROQUE at Triskelion Arts, March 5-7th and 12-14th. For more information call 718-599-3577.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES

Judson Dance Theater: The Work is Never Done
By Nicole MeilyFEB 2019 | Art Books
From 1962 to 1964, Judson Memorial Church hosted a series of performances that challenged the conventions of dance. These “Concerts of Dance,” performed by a group of artists collectively known as Judson Dance Theater, centered on choreography that involved quotidian movements and simple prompts. Incorporating everyday objects and music, these interdisciplinary performances were imbued with a spirit of experimentation and collaboration.

Continuation and the Break: Notes on Black Lives and Tap Dance
By Orlando HernándezFEB 2021 | Dance
In a layered essay, Orlando Hernández weaves together the history and practice of tap dance with insights into pandemic, US anti-blackness, native theology, and Western time. An intimate look at the syncopated art form offers countering modes of arranging our experience.
Tales of Hopper: The Additive Adaptation from Painting to Dance
By Hannah FosterAPRIL 2020 | Dance
Hopper unknowingly painted for the novel coronavirus era. Thus, a new danced adaptation, luckily coming weeks before bans on in-person performances, has significant resonance. In Tales of Hopper, a repertory dance work that Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance premiered at New Yorks DiMenna Center for Classical Music in late February, Lavagnino and composer Martin Bresnick take on Rothensteins interpretation of incident and of character for Hoppers oeuvre.
The Grand Union: Accidental Anarchists of Downtown Dance
By Aileen DowlingSEPT 2020 | Dance
In what is held to be Baness definitive text on postmodern dance, Grand Union serves as almost a coda to a story in which Judson is the protagonist. However, in Wendy Perrons new book The Grand Union: Accidental Anarchists of Downtown Dance, 1970-1976, the group gets their moment after nearly 50 years.