For Body And Light is so ethereal that to try and describe it flows beyond the bounds of a normal review. It’s almost as if what is expressed cannot be caught – or recreated … or defined with enough fluency to properly convey the experience of this breathtakingly beautiful production from TRAVAIL ROUGE now playing as part of the 2014 Frigid New York Festival.

For Body And Light is directed and choreographed by Stéphanie Morin-Robert in collaboration with spoken word and music artist Ian Ferrier.  Together they have created a work so mesmerizing, so hypnotic, so trance-inducing that one hour with this talented group of performers will not only bring you the type of peace and calm that one usually seeks out in, perhaps, a yoga studio or a church  – or in other places of meditation — but it will also have filled you with a longing to stop your own world for a little while and just … be.  With phrases like ”Rosary of thought”  this performance is filled with prayer – not to a god, however, but to a state of consciousness.

For Body And Light is not plot based, but there is no denying the story: the rich sound design, the dulcet spoken words and the echoing movement all take you to a place that is drenched in waves, fog, and other forms of sea and tide and tide-pool and ocean.

Have you ever sat by the sea in silent contemplation?  The water – at once blank and vast – suddenly takes on subtleties and shadings which speak to you, inviting you to simply stay present in the moment.  And suddenly the repetition is no longer endless and monotonous but rather lively and versatile and filled with possibility, even as it repeats its ancient progression as it always has and always will.  This is what it is like to watch For Body And Light.

As Ferrier describes a world of stars, of torchlight, of “beauty and strangeness” with wondrous creatures and the water climbing over the edge we watch as incredibly graceful, lithe and limber bodies mimic the water, riding the waves, being the waves.  They are twisting and churning in a beautiful, tortuous undulating symmetry.

There is a moment in For Body And Light when the dancers move together on the ground like creatures who are bonded by something timeless and ancient and unspoken.   Saturated in both bright light as well as shadow, bodies roil and sway in an echo of the sounds of the surf which are played gently underneath the softly intoned words of Ferrier.  As he speaks of imaginative worlds which dwell in tide pools and the shapes that move within them, of the life that is both ancient and pristine, our own corporeal frames seem to become lighter, less “mine” more universal. Watching this show, you feel both at one with the performance as well as completely alone in your own solitude.

So much light your mind is almost purged of darkness …

We’re not meant to live without shadows

The source of light is a type of pail which swings from a long rope and is raised and lowered as the movement dictates.  Often it swings forcefully casting unpredictable, unexpected layers of shadow-play.  Sometimes it is beamed on the swaying bodies carefully, the way a silent midnight searcher would move their flashlight on the beach in the hopes of discovering something wonderful without disturbing it.   Choreographer Morin-Robert works this light expertly, part Kuroko, part ensemble performer.  She moves the light (as do other dancers) and so the beam becomes another character – moving, engaging with the swaying bodies, leaving some in shadow and burning others in a stark high beam.

The words are both philosophical as well as straight-forward: take this speech at face value or let the journey of light and movement and atmosphere allow the words to become a metaphor for your life.  However you take it, it remains breathtakingly beautiful.

Movement performed by: Alexia Martel, Linnea Gwiazda, Allison Burns, Marie-Pier Gilbert and Marie-France Jacques

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For Body And Light
Company: TRAVAIL ROUGE

Directed and choreographed by: Stéphanie Morin-Robert
Spoken word and music: Ian Ferrier

Remaining Performances:

Mar 05, 5:30PM
Mar 06, 10:15PM
Mar 07, 7:05PM

Click HERE for tickets

Running time: 1 h 0 min
Price: $10.00 – $15.00
Seating: General Admission

The Kraine Theater
85 E. 4th Street
New York , New York 10003
2nd and 3rd Ave

Horse Trade Theater Group will present the 8th Annual FRIGID New York Festival at The Kraine Theater (85 East 4^th Street between 2^nd Avenue and Bowery) and UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place between 1^st Avenue and Avenue A) February 19-March 9. Tickets are available for purchase in advance at www.FRIGIDnewyork.info or by calling 212-868-4444. 

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• Sheherizade: Why Ten Dancing Heads Are Better Than One (Fringe Festival 2012)
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Ten Questions. Ten Answers. And One Big Decision: Rock, Paper, Or Scissors?

Linnea and Heather in For Body and Light. CREDIT: Michael Kovacs

For Body and Light

Production Company: Travail Rouge

Explores the interface between darkness and light, form and imagination; meditative stillness, then moving shapes, whispered words and the light catching only the ghost of a body as it flashes past. In darkness, spoken word creates and projects directly onto your imagination. Dancers are colour, beauty, touch, intimacy and solitude…

Show Times:

• Sat 3/01 @ 12:30PM
• Mon 3/03 @ 8:40PM
• Wed 3/05 @ 5:30PM
• Thur 3/06 @ 10:15PM
• Fri 3/07 @ 7:05PM

Answers by Yan Ferrer
(writer/musician/performer)

1. Your tag line is out there on postcards and press releases so we know the PR version of what this play is about.  But when you talk to your family and friends, how do you explain the show to them?

YF: You’re lying back at night after a full day. You close your eyes and images of the day are still flashing through your mind. You start to drift and you hear a voice whispering to you, just at the edge of consciousness. It’s describing a place you’ve imagined before, where you wanted to be. It’s just details at first, but then all of a sudden you’re in it.

2. Here’s a scenario: After the show some audience members go have a drink.  What’s the part of the show you hope they’re discussing?

YF:  How they forgot where they were, and now wonder where they went.

3. What drives your show – character, theme or plot?

YF:  Beauty.

4. In rehearsals, read-thrus, or prior incarnations, what’s the one thing someone said about the show so far that made you (or the team) the most proud?

YF:  “For Body and Light has created an impressive repertoire of dance performance that does precisely what their name promises: Creative use of lamps as hand-held props, sharp lighting effects, minimal yet evocative onstage environments, and the beauty and power of a poet’s words give the company an exciting and vast field of dance performance possibility to work within.”

5. Let’s fantasize for a moment. Let’s take the “off-off” off. Imagine this show is on Broadway. Would that change the production itself?

YF: There are a couple of moments at the height of a hurricane where overwhelming water and sound would work well. Otherwise no, we’re fine as we are.

6. Taking that one step further – after paying everyone what they’re worth of course, what is the most lavish, luxurious, pointless thing you would spend money on if there was no constraints?

YF: Flood the stage in six inches of water and have the dancers move in that for the last act.

7. Is there a scene, a moment, a gesture … anything at all in the show that you anticipate may get a completely different reaction depending on the audience that night?

YF: I don’t know what changes from night to night as I live really deep inside it. I do know that each time it happens different things come to the fore. On one night a really intuitive performance from one dancer can color the whole show. They are all artists and while a unison piece may make them resemble each other, each brings a total vocabulary to what she does.

On another night what seems most important is the beauty of relationships, how one dancer moves with another.

Some nights I am blown away by light and how it colors a body in motion. On those nights the show seems really contemporary. At other times, when they gather around a light, they almost seem like participants in an ancient religious ritual.

8. What’s your favorite line from the show?

YF:This is the beach where you
Took off for an afternoon sail
And the wind kicked up and the rudder snapped
Now you’re 400 miles off course
Out in the tanker lanes scrambling for your life

9. Is the world of this play sustainable outside a theatre? In other words … do you think people live the way the characters do? Would you want a world where they do?

YF: People dream the way this show is made. It takes place in the interface between sleep and waking, fantasy and imagination and life. In the best part of the dream you are surrounded by five dancers so beautiful you can’t take your eyes off them; in the worst, they are all taken away from you.

10. You scan the audience and you see a face that stops you dead in your tracks – who is it? And why are you shocked?

YF: Wim Wenders and he’s scouting us for his sequel to Pina.

Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament of DEAAAAATH

In the THM virtual Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament of DEAAAAATH which FRIGID Show do you take on? And what do you throw?

CHALLENGES:  We take on Eating My Garbage.

THROWS:  We wait and see what they throw then throw something to top it.

Well, EATING MY GARBAGE threw scissors, so that leaves you with ROCK! So, yes, technically you win THIS round but there may be more rounds to come — and let me just tell you, FOR BODY AND LIGHT you folks are beautiful, thoughtful, and SNEAKY!!! But your devious practices got you the win. THIS TIME.

Thanks For Body and Light for participating in The Happiest Medium’s FRIGID New York Festival 2014 Q&A. And for playing our game! You’re officially ROCK in any and all challenges.  You may win, you may lose – who knows! This is how it works in the crazy world of the Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament of DEAAAAATH!

For the rest of you don’t forget to check out For Body and Light !

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  ~~~

Horse Trade Theater Group will present the 8th Annual FRIGID New York Festival at The Kraine Theater (85 East 4^th Street between 2^nd Avenue and Bowery) and UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place between 1^st Avenue and Avenue A) February 19-March 9. Tickets are available for purchase in advance at www.FRIGIDnewyork.info or by calling 212-868-4444. 

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• Confessions Of A Redheaded Coffeeshop Girl: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2014 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• Questions Of The Heart: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2014 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• Almost A Genius: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2014 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
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