{"id":5593,"date":"2025-05-08T18:25:04","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T18:25:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/05\/08\/theater-and-movement-take-over-the-nypl-in-lunch-dances\/"},"modified":"2025-05-08T18:25:04","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T18:25:04","slug":"theater-and-movement-take-over-the-nypl-in-lunch-dances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/05\/08\/theater-and-movement-take-over-the-nypl-in-lunch-dances\/","title":{"rendered":"Theater and Movement Take Over the NYPL in \u2018Lunch Dances\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"An<\/a>
The site-specific performance leads small audiences through the Schwarzman Building, guided by music and live storytelling via headphones. NYPL\/ Jonathan Blanc<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lunchtime at the New York Public Library\u2019s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building has gotten a little wild. Dance troupe Monica Bill Barnes<\/a> & Company, whose motto is \u201cbringing dance where it doesn\u2019t belong,\u201d is presenting a new site-specific dance-theater work, Lunch Dances<\/i>, that travels throughout the library and was inspired by its vast collection.<\/p>\n

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The company\u2019s acclaimed artistic directors, choreographer and performer Monica Bill Barnes and writer and performer Robbie Saenz de Viteri<\/a>, have presented site-specific work in many unusual places\u2014the Metropolitan Museum of Art, shopping malls, conference rooms and interactive websites, but creating a work for the Schwarzman Building has been their most interesting challenge yet. \u201cThe library is not built for us to do something like this,\u201d Saenz de Viteri told Observer. \u201cWe\u2019re rubbing up against the library culture in every way possible. You\u2019re not supposed to play music, you\u2019re not supposed to dance, you\u2019re not supposed to do all the things that doing a show requires.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barnes and Saenz de Viteri were invited to create the new work by Brent Reidy<\/a>, the New York Public Library\u2019s director of research libraries and a longtime fan of their work. He envisioned the performance as an unexpected way to tell the story of the library and encouraged them to use the collection as a source of inspiration. \u201cWhich is a daunting task,\u201d Barnes said, pointing out that there are over fifty-four million items in NYPL\u2019s research and circulating collections. \u201cThat\u2019s sort of like saying \u2018let everything in the world be your inspiration.\u2019 But Robbie found an incredible way in.\u201d<\/p>\n

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SEE ALSO: Henri Matisse\u2019s Daughter Marguerite Takes Center Stage at MAM Paris <\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Saenz de Viteri\u2019s way in came via the poet Frank O\u2019Hara. \u201cHe\u2019s been an accidental, not intentional, influence on me all the time, in all the things that I write for our performances,\u201d he explained. He decided to start his research there, by looking at the items the library had of O\u2019Hara\u2019s, which included personal letters, postcards and playbills from dance performances the poet had seen. Saenz de Viteri found a lot of communication between O\u2019Hara and his circle of friends and fellow experimental writers and artists, known as the New York School of poets and painters. Soon, the group\u2019s location (downtown Manhattan) and period (1950s and \u201860s) became the seeds for the show\u2019s written narrative. The title, Lunch Dances<\/i>, is an homage to O\u2019Hara\u2019s famous book, Lunch Poems<\/i>. \u201cBut you don\u2019t need to know Frank O\u2019Hara<\/a> or anything about that time period to understand what\u2019s happening in the show,\u201d Saenz de Viteri assured us.<\/p>\n

Barnes\u2019s way in was very different. \u201cMy \u2018research\u2019 was to find my way into every room at the library,\u201d she said. \u201cI really needed and wanted to understand how every room physically felt.\u201d She described the process as akin to going on a fishing expedition, finding things that interested and surprised her in all the available spaces.<\/p>\n

After internalizing the library\u2019s physical form, Barnes turned to the collections. Also a fan of poetry, she requested the poet Donald Hall<\/a>\u2019s \u201cephemera\u201d folder, which contained artifacts like canceled checks, personal letters and Christmas cards. She was inspired by the juxtaposition of being in a quiet space and looking through someone\u2019s very personal and occasionally mundane items while having an amazing internal experience of discovery. To mimic this experience, she created \u201cemotionally explosive dances that are also self-contained in a certain way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two creators generated a lot of material \u201csimultaneously, in parallel,\u201d she said. The movement and text all relate to the years-long conversations they\u2019ve had about the library, the New York School and the 1950s and \u201860s in Manhattan, but while Saenz de Viteri\u2019s text is grounded and concrete, Barnes\u2019s choreography is more abstract.<\/p>\n

When I asked Barnes how she went about transforming the collection\u2019s items into movement, she said, \u201cI\u2019m definitely not doing that at all.\u201d One dance piece is anchored around a map of New York City from 1961. \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly important, but the dance doesn\u2019t reference the map or the time period,\u201d yet the feeling and experience of the map remain. \u201cWhat is so rewarding, but also slightly confusing even to us about our collaboration, is that there\u2019s a way that dancing is such an abstract form and writing is, by its nature, more anchored in real things.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Each performance of Lunch Dances<\/em> is shaped by the architecture and atmosphere of the library itself. NYPL\/ Jonathan Blanc<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Eventually, Barnes and Saenz de Viteri brought their movement and text inspired by these objects and characters in the collection together, and it became clear that the \u201cstories,\u201d whether told physically or verbally, shared a similar emotional sensibility. \u201cThe language and the movement are sort of tag-teaming at times,\u201d Barnes said. \u201cThe writing gets you to a certain point and then the dancing brings you a little farther, and then the writing picks up and we\u2019re cumulatively\u2014we hope\u2014creating this deeply emotional experience based on the collection and the experience of being in the library.\u201d<\/p>\n

As to how the hour-long show is performed in a public space where it doesn\u2019t belong, both the audience and performers wear headphones (connecting them in a separate, intimate world) through which they hear music as well as Saenz de Viteri\u2019s live narration. The audience, which is capped at fifteen people per show, follows the sixteen performers through the building, experiencing the selected items in the collection that relate back to O\u2019Hara and his friends. Sometimes the audience watches, sometimes they listen and sometimes they do both.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re trying to educate the audience on how to take in language and movement and have them both be meaningful,\u201d Barnes said. \u201cTo understand that they live side by side, and that they\u2019re not representing each other but are building on and relating to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shows invite a kind of thrilling disruption, Barnes believes\u2014not only for the patrons of the library but for the performers, too. \u201cThis project requires that. And this moment in the arts requires that. A generosity and openness to working differently. A certain grit and heartiness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company will perform at the library twenty-four times in two weeks. \u201cBut it\u2019s not going to feel like we\u2019re doing the same show that many times,\u201d Barnes said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019ll be going on twenty-four adventures and things are going to be different every single time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lunch Dances<\/i><\/b><\/a> is at the NYPL\u2019s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (476 Fifth Avenue) Monday through Saturday at 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. through May 17, 2025. <\/b><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Poetry<\/p><\/div>\n