Vesna’s Fall at Judson Church

Vesna’s Fallby No Collective and Lindsey Drury Dancers:Laura Bartczak, Paige Fredlund, Kaia Gilje, Katelyn Hales, Molly Schaffner  Reapers in fall must first calibrate and celebrate their spring. In 1972, Vesna Vulovic fell from the height of 33,330 ft in an exploding airplane onto a frozen mountain side and lived to tell the story. This (mis)fortune, registered as the highest free fall a human being has survived, was brought by a nominal coincidence: Vesna was not scheduled to be on the flight, but had been mixed up with another flight attendant of the same name. Every Vesna shares her name with the springtime goddesses of Slavic mythology who lived in palaces atop mountains enwrapped in magic circles where they discussed the fate of crops and of human beings.  Objects and humans fall because of gravity’s pull. Free falling enclosed rooms, however, will preclude the local observer inside it from differentiating between gravitational pull and floating in non-gravity.  Singing and springing Vesnas, descending down each February from their palaces to the valley, could only be heard by certain people. Perception is absolutely local (like death). Rituals, names, or numbers may serve to secure the recurrence of common universal units–seasons and whatnot. In return they must obliterate particularities and forget the fact that they did so. No spring is devoid of sacrifices and the sacrificed must not survive (or return as ghosts). Gravity of numbers is only put to an end by the number of gravities. No Collective (You Nakai, Kay Festa, Earle Lipski, Jay Barnacle, Ai Chinen, et al.) makes various forms of temporal works that examine and (re)construct different modes of temporalities. Most often, these have resulted in music performances which explore and problematize both the conceptual and material infrastructures of music and performance. Other formats employed include playscripts, picture books, and haunted houses.  Lindsey Drury is a choreographer who builds works of performance as problems, providing the performers situations with which to contend. She looks for ways in which people navigate unsolvable embodiments. Her recent works include Run Little Girl (2012), presented at the Merce Cunningham Studio, which involved eight performers and 20 dance modules. Parallel to her choreographic activity, Drury is also a scholar who investigates the entangled mechanics of the body and mind through research in animal behavior, medical practices and bioethics. She is also the founding member of several projects including ‘The No Wave Performance Task Force’, an organization of performers and community members that investigates modes of feminist performance, and ‘The Woods Cooperative,’ a artist-run rehearsal space-share in Ridgewood, Queens. She has further curated the international artist-series Post-Dance as a part of the Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival, and has performed for choreographer Yvonne Meier and composer Ellen C. Covito, among others.  No reservations are needed and admission is free. For more information, click here.