The Brooklyn-based artist and choreographer Barnett Cohen sits cross-legged within the folding chair: tall and tattooed, dressed of their signature all-white road garments. Regardless of their virtually intimidatingly cool seems, they’ve an unassuming, light presence. Once they lean again and say, “Okay, let’s go from the highest of motion 4,” it’s an invite, not a command. Six hip but humble dancers nod and rearrange themselves within the massive studio area, take a collective breath and begin shifting in silence.
At first, the gestures have been minimal and recognizable: arms raised in a V, ft tucked behind ankles in coupé. Their sneakers squeaked on the ground as they stepped out and in of unpolluted formations paying homage to cheerleading routines, fowl migrations or each–Cohen’s work isn’t only one factor. Then somebody began talking, “Excessive octane octaves / intrusive ideas out of hand / we cohabitate with the nasty / we dwell with the worst,” and the piece jolted awake.
Cohen and his dancers have been rehearsing the 4th-Ninth sections of their newest evening-length efficiency, anyyywayyy no matter, a tightly woven work of textual content and motion that may premiere in Brooklyn at Amant on September 26. A couple of minutes into the run-through, the dancers dropped to the bottom and unfold their legs. “We!” they shouted on the area in entrance of them. “Are! Queer!” They slapped the bottom with every syllable, then spun round and repeated the identical phrase. “We! Are! Queer!” Then they paused and, in a sing-song voice, teasingly added, “It’s true.”
“So this,” I assumed as I watched, “is what it’s about.” I used to be proper but in addition incorrect. Cohen just isn’t serious about ‘abouts’ or narrative legibility. They’re many unpindownable issues, and so are their performances.
“It was a really sluggish construct into such a work,” Cohen informed me, which means the mixture of motion and spoken textual content which they name ‘motion artwork.’ (They’re cautious to name themself a choreographer, as they weren’t skilled in dance; I’ll bestow that well-deserved title on them). “Once I was a baby, I wished to be a poet and an actor, and people two issues kind of converged within the creation of the work that I’m making now.” They adopted that dream, studied theater and wrote poetry—they usually seem at poetry readings round city and revealed a set of poems with dancer/artist/author Simone Forti, started a prolific portray apply and based the Mutual Help Immigration Community, a trilingual free help hotline for folks detained in immigration detention facilities throughout america. Whereas dwelling in Los Angeles, they experimented with what they name performances of the thoughts: studying aloud lengthy lists they’d written of their studio to audiences requested to shut their eyes. Then, slowly, they began to introduce motion into their work, which has since appeared at Canal Tasks as a part of Performa 2023, Judson Memorial Church as a part of Motion Analysis and The Middle for Efficiency Analysis, amongst different venues.
The primary iteration of anyyywayyy no matter was a two-person present (carried out by Maddie Hopfield and Ray Tsung-Jui Tsou) commissioned by Caterina Zevola for the inaugural Performissima on the Centre Wallonie Bruxelles in Paris in October 2024. This new fee premiering at Amant extends the piece to an hour and consists of 4 extra performers (Laurel Atwell, Sally Butin, Deja Rion and Fiona Smith).
When requested in regards to the work’s title, Cohen stated it refers back to the frustration and despair they really feel in regards to the present state of the world; each a private failing and cultural lack of ability to “absolutely take in the a number of crises that we’re all experiencing.” A typical response to crises, they’ve observed, is to look away, to maintain scrolling, to maintain strolling by. “For lots of people it’s like ‘anyway, no matter.’”
Cohen began engaged on the piece’s text-based rating in the beginning of 2024. “I have a tendency to think about myself as a channeler or a type of conduit. Not solely am I writing what’s on my thoughts, however I’m additionally accumulating language that then leads to the writing itself.” Cohen reads voraciously and broadly, and glimpses of these influences—starting from science fiction writers to queer theorists to philosophers and poets—make their means into the footnotes of the rating, which might be printed as a chapbook created by artist and poet Leslie Rosario-Olivo and distributed to the viewers. Metallica lyrics and features from Star Wars make their means in, too, as do excerpts of conversations and textual content exchanges with associates. “There’s brilliance there at occasions,” Cohen stated, “in our conversations with folks.”
The result’s multilayered. “There’s writing in regards to the genocide, but it surely’s not about that. There’s writing about my intercourse life, but it surely’s not about that. There’s writing about intercourse and queerness typically. It’s not about that. It’s this sort of mosaic of concepts that overlap and intersect.”
Cohen then introduced the finished rating into the rehearsals, although it was additional edited as all of them constructed the piece collectively. The performers’ slips of tongue, Cohen defined, usually charged the writing with extra vitality and which means.
The following step was creating the motion, which, for Cohen, is all the time a really collaborative course of. They may supply a suggestion (like “What if we did some energetic ballet-like actions?” or “Do one thing slightly like Graham.”), and the dancers will transfer round and say, “Like this?” This dialog continues till Cohen has formed the motion right into a phrase. “It’s like throwing issues towards the wall and seeing what sticks,” they stated. “I’ve to undergo a whole lot of unhealthy concepts to get to what is smart stylistically.” The motion vocabulary, as wide-ranging because the textual content, attracts from hip-hop, ballet, stage fight, fashionable dance and post-modern dance.
Alongside the way in which, Cohen merges the spoken textual content with the choreography in a means that isn’t redundant or interpretive. “We’re attempting to plot actions that not solely push again towards the writing, but in addition amplify it another way…There are what I might name materials juxtapositions of motion and sound.”
A method the performers obtain this juxtaposition is thru particular tones of voice. They usually make use of sure registers that they’ve given labels to, like “web voice,” “yoga mother voice” and “bro voice.” Universally recognizable tones that evince narrative however, on this case, are disconnected from any particular story. Generally the tone matches the textual content; typically not. Generally the tone matches the motion; typically not. There are frequent vernaculars–each sonically and bodily–that seem and disappear inside the work, portholes via which the viewers can comfortably enter earlier than realizing they really do not know the place they’re.
For instance, the road “my roommate might be again quickly so” feels, for many people, acquainted. We’ve all requested somebody to go away with out asking them to go away, or been awkwardly requested to go away ourselves. Initially, Butin stated this with an “fboy” tone whereas embodying an “fboy,” which was overkill. Cohen determined to have Butin maintain the tone however embody a fierce runway mannequin whereas wanting an viewers member straight within the eye when saying it. At one other level, Butin and Hopfield do a “ballet-adjacent phrase” whereas Tsung-Jui Tsou and Atwell attempt to convey everybody collectively. Butin punches Atwell within the abdomen whereas crossing the stage, to emphasise the road “with out suicide / with out WHAT.” The class of ballet is layered with the extreme textual content and random bodily violence in a means that doesn’t additional any particular narrative, however gives, however, a robust assertion.
The guts of the piece may be discovered within the textual content and motion, however design takes the efficiency to the following stage. The forged will put on elevated streetwear created by New York-based designer Melitta Baumeister. And the lighting design, impressed by raves and queer nightlife areas, is by Bessie-nominated Sarai Frazier.
It seems anyyywayyy no matter isn’t one factor however all of the issues: poignant, political, humorous, horny, of-the-moment, mental, critical. It’s a wakeup name to our apathetic tradition and likewise a reminder that we’re not alone. That we’re all on this collectively, for higher or worse.
Barnett Cohen’s anyyywayyy no matter is at 306 Maujer Avenue, Brooklyn, on Friday, September 26 at 7:00 pm, and Saturday, September 27 at 4:00 pm and seven:00 pm.
Extra in performing arts
