Temporary Dream

I caught this show on its second and final night at Gallery 164. (Ah, if only it had had a longer run!) Given how impressed I was by the last event I'd seen in this space by the same folks, Story of a Girl back in April, there was no way I was going to miss this one.

If you ask me, choreographer Beth Elkins and designer/architect Brad Wales of Nimbus Dance have done more for movement/performance in WNY than just about anyone else I can name. Granted, I don't follow local dance that much, mainly because I haven't cared for most of what I've seen--until these folks came along. Their combination of movement, media, live music, and other material feels fresh and exciting. I've seen other artists using many of the same tools in other cities--primary in the East Village in the mid80s and early 90s--but this doesn't seem like a retread, more like a reinvention for a new place and time. Watching Thursday night's show I had the strongest sense yet that Buffalo's live performance scene is in a kind of golden age right now.

This was a perfect coming-together of artists from several media whose individual work I've long admired: media artists Brian Milbrand, Meg Knowles, and Vince Mistrettra, musician/video artist Dave Gracon and his band (they're really the ones called "Temporary Dream," I believe), architect Wales, dancer/choreographer Elkins, and her small but amazing company of performers.

While the evening had a looser structure and theme than Story, it held together beautifully, since all the elements were so strong. I enjoyed it all, but Brian Milbrand's 3-screen projection The Film Robert Longo Should've Made was a particular favorite. Think of it as a remix, in the DJ sense, of Longo's horribly disappointing feature film debut, Johnny Mnemonic. By eliminating the (silly) plot and all the dialogue (thus rendering Keanu Reeves blissfully mute), replacing the original's color with breathtakingly crisp black-and-white, and presenting the whole thing as a triptych with live accompaniment by Gracon and company (sounding very much like early Longo buddy Glenn Branca's group), Milbrand created something that totally lived up to its title:



The final piece of the evening brought everything together: the band played while the dancers did lots of aerial work (on straps hanging from the ceiling, as rigged by Wales); meanwhile Milbrand and Mistretta were hand-manipulating 16mm film (live!) and projecting results on the dancers' bodies:




FYI, the male dancer in these photos is Aaron Piepszny, and I saw his solo piece at the Albright-Knox Friday. If you read this in time, you may still be able to catch his show at College Street Gallery on Sunday night at 7.

Like everyone else in Thursday's show, he's evidence of a wonderful moment in Buffalo's cultural history.