On Sunday June 9th, I made my way to Socrates Sculpture Park in Astoria for Insitu Dance Festival – a site-specific dance festival that NYC Ferry was proud to help sponsor. In its first year, Insitu was ambitiously offering 75 performances by 24 dance companies in 4 different parks along the LIC waterfront over the course of 2 days. Inspired by natural and urban landscapes, these dancers maneuvered through playgrounds, partnered with benches, appeared in hidden corners and danced on piers, staircases and shorelines.While there’s no easy way to see every performance, each company performed in their designated location 3 times a day over the course of the festival. I was lucky enough to catch a few of the acts in 3 of the 4 parks by quickly biking between each spot.
First up at Socrates Sculpture Park was Valerie Green/Dance Entropy with their performance Immeasurable. Playing off of the current exhibition on display at Socrates – Nari Ward: G.O.A.T., again, which features a series of six newly commissioned outdoor artworks that were created on site, and are, yes, of goats – dancers wound their way over and up one sculpture while reciting facts about goats. Did you know goats have been domesticated for over 9,000 years? Or that their jaws are different sizes, so they have to chew on one side or the other? The second part of the performance involved a few of the trees within the park and getting audience members to dance on a stone “stage”.
Next was Only Child Aerial Theatre performing Framework, a creative and fun reimagining of a construction site during Depression-era NYC. With live music and storytelling by Ben Lieberman and Laura Sisskin-Fernandez, these high-energy, high-flying performers comedically portrayed an era when immigrant workers risked their lives on a daily basis to build the city’s iconic skyscrapers.
I hopped on my bike hoping I would be able to catch the next performances at Queensbridge Park. Thankfully, I made it in time to see Kinematik Dance Theater’s performance of From The Inside Out, an exploration of togetherness, separation and the essence of community in the rapidly changing urban environment. In the shadow of the Queensborough Bridge, the dancers beautifully swayed in the breeze from the East River, waving peace flags which featured hand drawn messages from area residents. They led the audience to a group of trees where the next performance was taking place. There, a group of dancers from the community presented a performance which they developed during the 3-month dance workshop series provided through the festival and Kinematik Dance Theater.
The final performance I caught at this park was put on by Parcon NYC. Beyond Playing Chicken, had eight performers traversing the children’s playground using contact improvisation, Parkour, and hip-hop styles of movement. As one man watching said to me, he could see the athletic similarities between the dancers and the softball players on the field behind us. It was also really amazing to see the children using the playground interact with this performance as it went on.
My last stop was Gantry Plaza State Park to see the group Grounded View perform Bench Talk. Using the curved benches along the waterfront, these performers expanded perceptions of public space through a unique movement style, a blend of breaking house, capoeira, and contemporary floor work. With the backdrop of the NYC skyline and the cranes building our future LIC stop for the NYC Ferry, it was the perfect end to a beautiful day.
Congrats to all involved in Insitu Dance Festival 2017. Looking forward to next year!