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By Christine Jowers/Follow @cmmjowers on Instagram
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Published on May 28, 2025
Parker, Schulkind and Oberfelder. Photos by Julie Lemberger
"Under the Skin" at Boston's Dance Complex and a World of Fairy Tales at Manhattan's Center at West Park
Boston, MA
The Bang Group in association with The Dance Complex
DanceNOW Boston: Under the Skin
Choreographers: David Parker + Marcus Schulkind
Dancers: Listed below
Lighting designer: Paul Marr
Sound designer: Circe Rowan
May 10 - 11, 2025
It’s been 10 years since David Parker and Jeff Kazin’s The Bang Group began collaborating with Peter DiMuro’s The Dance Complex in Cambridge. Tonight, the community they’ve fostered over the decade comes together to celebrate Boston dance icon, Marcus Schulkind, performer, world-renowned choreographer, and master ballet teacher for over 50 years. The house is packed.
The exquisite group of solos, duets, and trios presented by Parker and Schulkind acknowledges Schulkind’s influence on Parker’s dance history as well as the artistic values both artists share. At the start of the evening, Parker cites some of the commonalities as he sees them: musicality, emotional availability, generosity, complexity, and showmanship.
What one also immediately recognizes is the deep regard both artists have for humanity. Parker emphasizes humor — gentle to hilarious — affection, and panache, using endlessly inventive rhythmic play. Schulkind, a master craftsman, poignantly comments on society, highlighting individual longings and dreams with a striking architecture that combines gesture, lyricism, speed, and stillness. In the spirit of mutual respect, both choreographers create dances not only for their respective companies but also for one another’s dancers. And, as only the greats can, everyone involved makes it look as effortless as breathing out and breathing in.
The excellent dancers this evening are: Jeffrey Kazin, David Parker, Clarence Brooks, Lorraine Chapman, Margaret Falcone, Louise Benkelman, Emily Jarrent-Hendrickson, and Tommy Seibold.
The Dance Complex in Cambridge continually offers the Boston area intimate dance performances of exceptional quality, featuring the finest local and out-of-town artists. Boston is fortunate indeed to have this treasure in its midst.
New York, New York
Jody Oberfelder Projects presents STORY TIME at The Center at West Park
Dancers: Mariah Anton Arters, Andrea Farley Shimota, Caleb Patterson, Michael Greenberg, Nyah Malone
Live musicians: Tine Kindermann (also creator of dioramas) and Grace Bergere
Costume designer: Katrin Schnabl | Lighting designer: Connor Sale | Stage manager: Lou Sydel | Wallpaper artist: Nick Cassway | Dramaturg: Rebekah Morin
Musicians: Žibuokle Martinaityte, Ellen Reid, Sir Frank London
May 17 & 18, 2025
In a world of limited resources for the arts (even before the threat of dismantling the NEA), Jody Oberfelder, an endless font of creativity, perseveres with her ideas and ideals. No matter what, she shares infectious curiosity and a sense of wonder with her audiences, and we are richer for it. Her latest dance work, Story Time, explores the fairytale realm of sprites, witches, sorcerers, and selkies.
Venturing into Manhattan’s Center at West Park, a regal yet worn structure that has served as a home for worship, theater, dance, and activism since 1899, we immediately sense the weight of 126 years of stories. Through the door on our left, a table displays wooden birdhouse-like boxes (designed by the marvelous collaborating performer Tine Kindermann), each featuring an inviting little keyhole or door. If you peer in, you’ll discover miniature mysteries: children wandering into a forest, a bare-breasted mother holding a baby as a curious deer looks on, and Beauty lying in bed with The Beast, exhausted, recovering from their latest tryst. Meanwhile, as we wander to our seats, the cast cavorts among the pews and aisles, popping up and down like gremlins casting spells.
It’s easy to fall in love with the enticing atmosphere, the musical and visual collaborations, the dancers, and the inventive choreography and imagery in much of this grand undertaking. Who doesn’t appreciate a boy (Michael Greenberg) who loves stories so much that he dives into a book, or a dark ‘Nightmare’ startlingly expressed as a trio of gigantic doll heads floating eerily atop three sets of legs?
On the dais, Kindermann tempts the frolicking Hansel/Caleb Patterson and Gretel/Andrea Farely Shimota with bewitching song and a platter holding a diminutive house and cookies. Later, the three travel down to the pews, where Kindermann offers us treats just before shoving the unsuspecting, pesky siblings through the doors alongside the church’s altar.
Mariah Anton Arters with the Heads. Photo: Julie Lemberger
In one of the captivating entr’actes, Oberfelder, as a witch, wields an old-fashioned twig broom as if it were a samurai sword, hopping with it between her legs to mimic flying and holding it to her bottom as if she’s grown a tail. All the while, her shadow mirrors her on the wall behind, making her petite figure appear all the more alarming.
A particularly intriguing tale finds Farley Shimota, a mythical selkie, shedding her shimmering, electric blue "seal skin” to emerge as human. Rejoicing in her fledgling legs, she jigs with a group of her pals until Light Slasher/Nyah Malone casts an evil spell and steals the miraculous skin away. The chase that follows cleverly takes the dancers from the altar stage area to the pews and up to the gallery above for a tug of war that ends as the selkie, skin in hand, swims away through the side door, forever shutting out any human who dare pursue her.
Andrea Farley Shimota as The Selkie. Photo: Julie Lemberger
And there is more, much more. Story Time is filled with riches, indeed overflowing. If I were granted one wish, it would be for the choreographer to abbreviate her tales. There’s only so much enchantment we mortals can take.
Mariah Anton Arters, Caleb Patterson, Andrea Farley Shimota, Michael Greenberg in Story Time. Photo: Julie Lemberger
