Five Fly 2.0

Claudia La Rocco

Performance Club | Feb 16, 2010

The performance world is jam-packed with powerful female elders (even if money and accolades still tilt unfairly toward men).

Last Spring, 651 Arts presented “Fly: Five First Ladies of Dance,” which celebrated choreographers Germaine Acogny, Carmen de Lavallade and Dianne McIntyre, Bebe Miller and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar; fabulous leading ladies, all.

Here’s Five Fly 2.0, all of them with current or upcoming New York City engagements:

Anna Halprin’s San Francisco workshops are the stuff of legend. Five decades after helping to break the art of dance wide open, she’s still at it. Saturday, March 13, the 89-year-old artist will lead a workshop at Judson Memorial Church, asking “Does dance make a difference?” Find out for yourself.

Karen Finley channels Jackie O, Saturdays through March 6 Would our actual First Lady be scandalized or mesmerized? Bet she wouldn’t agree with Jesse Helms…

Deborah Hay’s solos are bewitching, reflecting a life-long investment with movement, stillness, presence. They’re performed by celebrated dancers all over the world, but no one does it like the woman herself. Her new work, “No Time to Fly,” premieres March 25-27 at Danspace Project.

Meredith Monk has always seemed to inhabit her own artistic planet, offering up a surreal brew of film, music, dance, theater, the works. These days, it can be expensive to visit that planet—but no tickets are required Friday when she touches down at the New School’s Eugene Lang College.

And let’s not forget MoMA, which has a performance art grand-dame twofer this season. Marina Abramović’s upcoming retrospective is grabbing most of the attention, but Joan Jonas is there now with her captivating “Mirage,” a 1976 performance which Jonas has reimagined and repurposed throughout the years.