Plastic Fantastic

A few pictures of the show. I watched way more than I snapped though...

One of the things I was able to do this weekend was go and see a new show at MoMA with Jess. We met mid-morning and did a long private yoga class (90 min... my bad) before grabbing brunch on Franklin (mmmm...brunch pizza...) and then heading uptown to check out Maria Hassabi's Plastic. The show is expertly choreographed so that the performers are moving extremely slow. It's punctuated with bursts of what sounds like slowed down church bells, so that they can keep time, and often this soundscape precipitates a gorgeous simultaneous movement between the performers.

While we were there, about 2-2.5 hours, not only did the time fly by, but we were able to see about 8 or 9 of the 12-15 performers (usually only 6 or 7 are performing at a time and once their sequence ends, they come back to real time, walk off, and a new performer starts the same dance piece over again). I was shocked how exhausted I was when I left for the subway home. Slow movement is so mesmerizing and there were a few times where I noticed I was grabbing my coat so hard my knuckles were white while I was watching one of them move from one pose to another. So beautiful.

The performers were spread out along three locations: the main staircase up to the exhibits, the staircase between floors 4 and 5 (in the modern art section), and along the main floor. There were between 2 and 4 performers on the main floor, and 1 to 2 on each staircase. I didn't take many pictures because I didn't want to miss anything. And it was pretty amusing to watch the people who WERE taking pictures really almost get into the performer's way. People are so inconsiderate sometimes...

I love that Jess knows all these random performances around town and I get to accompany her... Lucky plus one!