the DANCE insider

Flash Review 1, 2-15: A Smorgasbord of Sex
Investigating the Erotic at Judson

By Chris Dohse
Copyright 2000 Chris Dohse

When is dance erotic? When is eroticism sexy; when is it sensual? Monday night Diane Torr, a.k.a. Danny Drag King, presented four artists whose work she finds erotic at a Movement Research Studies Project event at the Judson Church. This is a space whose walls have witnessed thirty years of dance experiments, many of which have been more salacious, at first glance, than these divergent projects. The first two soloists, Daria Fain and Paul Langland, channeled sacred shapes and energies. Langland's performance dug deeper into violent or ecstatic realms, as he used breath and presence to enter what looked like the "kriyas"sometimes sought by certain meditation practices, moments when the body is moved spontaneously by awakening kundalini. His excerpt from "Almost Rapture," a collaboration with Brendan McCall, alternated from gluey bonelessness to a defiant possession of territory. Torr, like many sex-positive, gender-nudging artists, seeks a presentation of the erotic as "a source of energy and power that needs to be celebrated." Her Valentine's Day smorgasbord presented an appropriate multiplicity of contemporary investigations, without consensus.