A quick Hallelujah for the Heidi Latsky Dance performance at the Baruch Performing Arts Center last week. Latsky started integrating people with disabilities into her company in 2006, and it is a real joy to see them now. This particular show D.I.S.P.L.A.Y.E.D. started with the audience moving and the performers still. The living statues were not given names, only body types. For example: “Female, late 40’s, brown hair with gray, Latina, 5 feet 4 inches, tiny brown eyes, circular face, high cheekbones, small forehead, skinny physique, exceedingly strong arms and hands, toned right leg, missing entire left leg at hip, slow but steady gait, moves with ease.” You could study them, ogle them, gawk at them, but they did not look back at you, or otherwise acknowledge your presence. On stage, the stillness exploded into movement, a festival of gyrating, leaping, rising, falling, wheeling, rolling, straddling, tussling, embracing. The dancers had all sorts of bodies, and their stiffness or looseness, wheeled-ness or legged-ness, oldness or youngness complemented each other and made their interactions, or lack thereof, all the more riveting. The effect was of a pulsing urban madness undergirded by solid form. Check out the clip . It was dazzling. Afterwards the audience was invited on stage to keep ogling and documenting, resulting in one of my favorite pictures (I know it’s blurry. I don’t care):
And here are some beautiful living statues:
