Baryshnikov Arts, New York, NY.
April 25, 2025.
Celia Rowlson-Corridor offered SISSY, a dance theater journey of wrestle and whimsy at Baryshnikov Arts for 3 quick days in late April. Rowlson-Corridor has a protracted profession as a choreographer, principally for tv and movie. SISSY relies on the traditional story of Sisyphus and the perpetual job of pushing a boulder up a hill. With Ida Saki as lead dancer Sissy, Zoë Winters because the director (the fictional model of Rowlson-Corridor), Marisa Tomeï and Lucas Hedges the primary appearing leads, and Jesse Kovarsky, Nando Morland, Aliza Russell, Jacob Thoman and Jacob Warren as the remainder of the forged, the present is stacked with expertise. On the eve of my attendance, the home was full and the viewers engaged.
SISSY breaks the fourth wall time and again, reconstructing it every time – becoming into the theme of demolition and rebuilding. Or, pushing a rock up a hill time and again. Or…life. Particularly, life by the eyes, thoughts and coronary heart of a 40s-something lady making an attempt to pursue artwork whereas different (art-distracting) realities regularly knock her off target. Or on to a brand new one, as artwork is wont to do.
Heavy themes dominate the work: sickness and demise of 1’s dad and mom, being pregnant and start, destruction of the setting, and actuality that what one needs out of life may simply not be within the playing cards, regardless of desperately searching for it. Nevertheless, these concepts unfold on the buoyant, but removed from clean waters of magnetic surrealism: you’re not fearful of falling overboard, however you positive are paying consideration to verify the boat stays upright because it navigates the inevitable magnificence that comes from overcoming wrestle and angst.
The setting, an artist residency someplace in upstate NY, is an outdated Elks lodge scheduled for demolition, apparently earlier than the residency is full. Winters, because the director, continually offers with the literal partitions falling down whereas making an attempt to complete the work. The viewers will get pushed and pulled between “actual life” and the interior surprise of an dancer/choreographer’s thoughts. The interior surprise of Rowlson-Corridor’s thoughts is wealthy and different; we see the fashionable dance we count on but additionally Irish step dancing, five-gallon bucket percussion taking part in, odd plateaus of traditional sculpture, rave-style sections with air visitors management lights and, after all, the required outsized seaside ball because the boulder. It’s chaotic at occasions, however so is life.
Final summer season, I noticed Twyla Tharp’s How Lengthy Blues at Little Island, her personal dance theater piece. It, too, had many threads of caprice, unbelievable expertise and surprising components. I left pondering, “If that is what comes out of a girl whose total life has been dedicated to the relentless pursuit of artwork, who’s in her 80s, I’m glad I signed as much as be an artist as a child as a result of it’s pleasant.” Rowlson-Corridor, half the age of Tharp, made me really feel the identical. It additionally made me proud to be a girl, and glad to be a girl within the arts as a result of for all of the struggles we face, the rewards of perseverance are so delightfully curious, ethereal and esoteric, typically indescribable by phrases, however deeply poignant in feeling. As artwork is wont to do.
By Emily of Sarkissian of Dance Informa.
