I’ve touched on the importance of public art in a previous post, and the summer onslaught continues with the New York City Parks’ Dance Out! initiative, a series of site specific dance performances around the city (site specific dance around America will soon be finding it’s way to SundayArts in Great Performance’s Dance in America: Wolf Trap). This one combines two cool things: Free art that reaches people in their (common) backyard and site-specific performance. The parks’ series, copresented with the Joyce Theater, focuses on three dances, which will travel to the boroughs—and not just to flagships like Central Park or Prospect Park, but to less obvious spaces like St. Mary’s Park in the Bronx or Staten Island’s South Beach boardwalk. Of the three, Michael Schumacher’s Dans le jardin (in the garden) seems to make the most use of its environment, so the work should change slightly depending on where it’s performed.

And like every summer, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Sitelines series offers free site-specific dance and dance-theater in the financial district. I’m particularly looking forward to Hostile Takeover by Richard Move’s MoveOpolis in August (Move made his name with someone else’s when he recreated Martha Graham dances in full Martha drag realness). The program is described thus: “Feminine beauty is placed upon a pedestal (literally) in the midst of the male-dominated world of high finance, with stunningly costumed, Butoh-inspired female dancers occupying six different locations.” Yowsa! I’m sure I’ll get back to it next month. read more