“Trickle” by Joerg Piringer, et. al.
This performance of Piringer’s video poem “Broe Sell” extends the Lettrist dynamics occurring on screen onto the stage and the dancers. There are two significant props: a white sheet on the ground that may represent a page or screen surface, and a constant trickle of little crumpled pieces of paper falling on a spotlit space in the front of the stage. The dancers act like letters— or better said, letters placed in Piringer’s hand, which leads them to behave much differently from what we’re used to seeing on page or screen. In synch with the music and displayed video poem, the letter-dancers cluster and disperse, articulate their joints, collapse, rise again, and gaze time and again at the paper trickle.
Are they concerned about the contents of that cascade, evocative of strips of ticker tape used to distribute information in the stock market? Are they afraid of being treated like ordinary texts in print: lined up, fixed, read, and disposed of? Think about these questions as you see their final action in this performance.
“Trickle”
Choreography: Kristina Merrill
Poetry: Joerg Piringer (“Broe Sell”)
Dancers: Jenny Alperin, Andrea Fitzpatrick, Kara Hodges, Stephanie Ohman, Lexi Julian