Under a canopy of hanging vines swinging in a thick Miami air ready for downpour, art world transplants weaved around the opulent Pérez Art Museum Miami estate, looking eagerly for the highly anticipated performance collaboration between musician Dev Hynes and choreographer Ryan McNamara.The collaboration, titled Dimensions, was a year long study commissioned by PAMM between the two artists that was inspired by Miami's diverse cultural neighborhoods, in the works since last year's Art Basel when the performers first met. Most didn't know what to expect between the two artists, who have both pushed the boundaries of performance in their own fields. If you were looking for a concert blasting on a main stage, it might have been easy to pass by the solitary platforms that were placed around the terrace of the museum, each geometrical proscenium a primary color, holding one musician in white and one dancer wearing an outfit to match the stage color.
A video posted by Performa (@performanyc) on Dec 3, 2015 at 7:50pm PST
On one platform, a saxophonist played light, smooth jazz as the dancer moved in a modern improvisational form. Another, about 20' away, held an opera singer and a young woman crawling in disjointed rhythm, her purple leotard nearly camouflaging with their miniature stage. Hynes was in deep concentration on his white platform, dressed in his signature monochrome white jeans and shirt, playing his white bass deeply and intently, while McNamara was in red on the other side of the terrace, a high energy swirling of gestural choreography. The collaboration seemed oddly separate at first, each stage a lonely tableaus where the sounds and movements were anxiously out of sync, like turning the dial on the radio and getting stuck in between station. But as the night continued and the performers became more like moving sculptures than centerpieces, the subtilty of the collaboration came through, and the influences of real Miami, beyond the Art Basel parties and events that only take up the city for one week but seem to define the space for many visitors, started to shine.
A video posted by Alex (@sliceofalex) on Dec 3, 2015 at 7:29pm PST
Each platform was its own cultural element, not trying to scream it's presence but instead exist as a moving piece in the larger performance of a city, a background to a bigger story. The metaphor came together at the end of the night, as the platforms began to slowly move towards each other, their colorful shapes linking together in a puzzle we didn't realize had matching pieces. The primary colors and angular shapes were no longer lonely figures, and the crowd, too, was united to watch the finale on the multicolored combined structure. Finally, the dancers and musicians could meld, playing and moving together, not necessarily in sync, but in conversation. Even Hynes and McNamara performed as equals to the other movers and musicians, never soloing or taking the front position. It was a sudden moment of clarity in the project, and an unexpected space where collaboration was an action and not just a word.
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