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Nimbus Dance Spring Season: Sum of Parts
May 15–16 at 8:00pm
at Nimbus Arts Center, 329 Warren Street, Jersey City
Tickets: $27-$42
Tickets available at https://app.arts-people.
*Also performed at Judson Memorial Church, New York City, May 17, as part of the West Village
Chorale's This Land is Your Land.
Is the whole different than the sum of its parts?
In the 1920s Surrealist artists in Paris stoked their creativity to stir insights into the subconscious mind and non-habitual ways of seeing and depicting their subjects through the “Exquisite Corpse” game. In this method of group creation, artists like André Breton, Yves Tanguy, Joan Miró, Man Ray and others contributed parts of a figure, continuations of each other's drawings, not knowing what the whole was to which they were contributing parts.
Heady with Freudian and Jungian psychological insights, for Surrealists this approach in the 1920s was seen as a way to see and uncover aspects of our inner world that would not be revealed through conventional communication or intentional approaches to creativity.
Choreographer Merce Cunningham employed chance in developing choreography - rolling dice, flipping a coin to configure steps and sequences. For Cunningham the idea was to de-center hierarchies based on artist-driven narratives and traditional western theater presentation. Randomly assembled parts became a whole that revealed itself in Cunningham’s dances independent from willful choice.
At the Nimbus Arts Center this weekend, we harken this tradition: summoning chance and unlocking the unknowns of creativity in both artists and audiences. Curator Tina Maneca assembles the work of 55 artists into fantastic exquisite corpses - figures of spectacle, fantasy, and the unpremeditated - which occupy the galleries of the Nimbus Arts Center.
On our stage, Nimbus Dance presents a confluence: the world premiere of A Land, A Promise - the riveting voices of choreographer Houston Thomas and composer Saunder Choi are joined by the West Village Chorale, costume designer Erica Johnston, and our exquisite corps (!) of dancers. We also bring back inspired works by Pedro Ruiz, and by Yoshito Sakuraba: Heart and Flesh and Avenoir. Last, we present the reprise of Through the Golden Door, an experiment in hyperlocal dancemaking comprising a medley of dances by Nimbus artists set to recorded oral history interviews with eight longtime fixtures in the Jersey City culture and community, each interviewed by Helene Stapinski, famous for her memoir about growing up in Jersey City, Five Finger Discount.
If there are two streams of premeditation in my work at Nimbus Dance over the last 21 years - ways that I have tried to be intentional - they have related to 1) the natural creativity that emerges when parts are placed next to each other, the order that is formed, the sense that is made, the possibilities that materialize; and 2) the way that a group of individuals is able to manifest extraordinary creative work, projects, and results when aligned within a framework of collective group goals and values.
I like to think that this idea, originally coined by Aristotle, that the whole is different, maybe even greater, than the sum of its parts, might accurately describe the circumstances we all inevitably find ourselves in. Is this what Cunningham and the Surrealists were on to?
We can’t control what life puts in our path. But with the right framework: a trust in our abilities to bring order and meaning, an openness to insights and unexpected ways of seeing, and a groundedness in common values with our teammates, our neighbors and our fellow citizens, we can together elevate beyond the mere circumstances, the “parts” of our lives, and accomplish so much.
