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It’s more than just another dance film born during the pandemic, because it’s more than a dance. It’s a celebration of a culture: New York’s underground scene.
“UnderScored,” by Ephrat Asherie, is also a rush, sliding across the screen like a wave of motion. The progression of the rhythm, the bodies, the momentum is fascinating. It doesn’t matter if the video, shot on the Lincoln Center campus, is short (it is just under three minutes); it contains layers of culture and club spirit.
Ms. Asherie has never done something so authentic herself. And his pure exuberance? Well this is Mrs. Asherie.
“When I think of that little video, I feel like we’ve been confined for so long, but here we are,” she said in an interview. “Here is the potential for growth and movement for us in our community.”
A choreographer with a passion for club life and social dance forms – house, break, vogue – Ms. Asherie, like many in the field, ended up with a dance and nowhere to show it. “UnderScored,” part of his multi-faceted project exploring the lineage of street and club dance, was originally due to be shown in October at Works & Process at the Guggenheim. Instead, it became a video project, one of four in a series directed by Nic Petry in collaboration with the artists and presented by the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and Works & Process. It will be available indefinitely starting at 7:30 p.m. EST Sunday. (When performance resumes, it will finally be shown in its full form.)
Of course, for a dancer like Ms. Asherie, the pandemic has affected more than just her work in the concert dance world. “The nightlife scene in New York has been hit hard,” she says. “It’s really amazing how DJs and promoters do their thing on Twitch or Instagram.”
The underground scene, says Ms. Asherie, allows you to access another part of yourself. “It’s like a spiritual thing,” she said. “It’s a feeling, it’s a bodily thing. It’s a soul thing, right? These are all lyrics that you hear over and over again in house songs, too, because it tries to achieve what’s intangible – that’s the reason we’re all together.
“UnderScored” is a tribute to both this world and its veterans, and features appearances from two of them: Michele Saunders, 77, and Archie Burnett, 61. Ms Asherie said the recent deaths of two great street dance innovators Don Campbell and Tyrone Proctor were on her mind. “I just felt like, let’s work with the alumni when they’re here,” she said. “Why are we waiting to celebrate them?”
She and the dancers worked on the choreography at a bubble residence at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park in Tivoli, New York, but being on location at Lincoln Center made her realize exactly what she wanted it to look like: shot, basically, in just one take. “It was exciting to have this feeling of wanting to be in conversation with space,” she says. “It was so clear to me when I got there: Oh, I want this to look like a big move, because a lot of what we did was interrupted by the pandemic.
Mr. Petry, a dancer who runs media company Dancing Camera, understands the relationship between choreography and the camera. “A lot of times the hardest part for me is that the dance is the dance and you want it to stay true to what it is,” he said. “What was so fun and awesome about Ephrat was how much she wanted to work together. She said, “Let me do something that would really work for this part. So it was actually something new, which is very exciting.
“UnderScored”, on Sam One’s thrilling track “Kitalé”, feels urgent and alive: a visceral response to the moment. “The reason I cycled like a maniac in the pandemic is that I need to move around in space,” Ms. Asherie said. “As dancers, I feel like our sense of time and space has changed so dramatically. When this opportunity arose, I thought to myself, how do we take up space? How do we show that we are here? “
Ms Asherie, known to the dance world as Bounce, spoke about her film, which takes actors from confined spaces to the outdoors, what it’s like to dance with trees (and other household items) and the importance of his club. elders.
The following are edited excerpts from that conversation.
What was the biggest challenge in filming “UnderScored”?
It’s a huge space to cover. You can plan in your head, but ultimately it’s also this dialogue with the videographer. It was so much a matter of timing and joy to create something so unexpected in a short time after being alone and overthinking everything. The thing about the feel on a take is that it’s the closest to a performance.
How did you choose the sites for your dance?
I immediately knew that I wanted to be in the slats on the side of the [Metropolitan Opera] home, because that’s also how much we’ve been confined and separated from each other – and then slowly we’re getting out of it.
What is the root of the choreography in this opening moment?
We called it the ‘rona phrase’, because I made it in my living room. I was like, we just need to dance. It is at the height of the pandemic; I’m like, we’re just going to do a really long sentence, and every time we repeat, I’m going to add four, five, six, seven, eight counts. And we’re going to do this every time we rehearse to keep our stamina. The slats really reflect our Zoom squares and our confinement within those squares. This sentence therefore represents the beginning of our experience at this time.
The film unfolds like chapters for me. How did the cutting in the trees happen?
We have to frolic. There are trees! You cannot not use them.
I also have a strange amount of street lights in my apartment. At one point, I put all three of them on the floor, and I was like, they’re my dance partners right now. I was moving through these lamps. And that was before Lincoln Center was on my mind, but then I saw the trees and I thought, oh my God – people don’t even know, but we were dancing alone with our lamps. Or whatever – with our brooms! I’m sure everyone did crazy stuff like that. we all did.
What do Michele Saunders and Archie Burnett represent here?
They are the ones who led the way. If you ever see any footage of the Paradise Garage, Michele was there. She was there all the time in full costume – hardcore, like going to the club with a suitcase and several outfits to change costumes. In Kaatsbaan we would rehearse all day, then go back and have big family dinners, then Archie and Michele would dance for hours in the living room. That kind of energy – this is the reason there is a club scene.
What does this mean to you?
It’s like celebrating why we do what we do. The energy they share with us is so generous and magnanimous. I am never going to leave a party sooner ever. Once back at the club, I stay until closing every night. So that’s why. Because we are because of them.
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