Sparks from the Fire

Last night I sat transfixed and totally inspired at a performance of MOMIX’s Botanica.

Known internationally for its ability to conjure a world of surrealistic images using props, lights, shadow, humor and the human body, MOMIX is a Connecticut-based company of dancer/illusionists under the direction of the brilliant Moses Pendleton.  Mr. Pendleton’s illusionist dance company has unveiled a dazzling new show at the Joyce theatre in Manhattan entitled Botanica.

MOMIX Dancer

Botanica is billed as a ‘herbal remedy and natural aphrodisiac for our current universal blues’ and features fantastical costumes and mind-bending concepts of illusion and dance.

One of the founding members of the ground-breaking Pilobolus Dance Theater in 1971, he formed his own company, MOMIX in the early 80s and has been its artistic director since 1984.

I went because I have been working on a huge environmental Radio City Music Hall type musical extravaganza for a number of years now with producer and fellow conceptualist, William Spencer Reilly, called H2O.  Bill rightly thought I should see this production of Botanica to consider the work of Moses Pendleton.

This was one of those longed-for moments in creativity where all the ducks suddenly get in line, where all the pins drop in place.  I looked at Bill after the show was over and said, “Wow, this is exactly what we’re looking for.”

It was an evening of awe.  Beyond dance, it told stories, made you laugh out loud, made you think, all while entertaining you completely.  I couldn’t take my eyes off the stage and the elegant sensualism of some of the pieces was simply overwhelming.

It closes its run here in New York this coming weekend.  It will surely tour internationally.  Watch for it in your city.  Don’t miss it.

Many years ago, in another life with another wife, I decided to take a break from the growing tensions of marriage and give it a week’s rest.  So I gathered up a quick overnight bag and a couple of changes of clothes and went off to spend some time with a musician friend and his girlfriend at their house ostensibly to do some writing together, but really, just to get away.

Without knowing what I was getting into, I moved from the frying pan to the fire.  My piano playing friend and his girlfriend were on the verge of their own breakup and fought like cats and dogs day and night so much so that I started to go a little nuts.  Finally begging off, I left them and moved into another friend’s apartment for the rest of the week back in the city.  He lived in a 5th floor walkup in a railroad flat on 46th street just off the Broadway Theater District and adjacent to Hell’s Kitchen.  He was to be gone for the weekend and kindly left me the keys to his crash pad.

It was a hot August in New York City.  No air-conditioning, noisy and lonely.  I was miserable, feeling sorry for myself, upended, forced out of my own home and pretty low.  Saturday night came and I had nothing to do, nowhere to go.  I sat around this lonely apartment trying to figure out my life until I just couldn’t take it anymore.

So about midnight I headed out to Times Square, man on the loose, to where the action is on a hot August Saturday night in New York City.  I got what I asked for.  With a whore on every corner and the drunks in between, the pushers and the wide-eyes, the narcos and the queens, it was the wild and wacky 70s of Times Square.  The heat only increased the feeling of desperation in the city and the air was heavy with the funk of the street.

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Time to go home. Complete the circle. New York – Sao Paulo – Jo’burg – Cape Town – Jo’burg – Dakar – Home.

No matter what treasures the rest of the world offers, it’s always good to go home.

The ordeal of flying: Time spent in airplane/airports this leg – 24 hours! Cape Town to New York City. 24 hours to get home. Strangest part of the trip was that 23 of the 24 hours were in darkness. We followed the sun, but never caught up until the end, the last hour, and the sun rose over NYC – hidden by the rain.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to get home…

Four movies later and 20 hours fighting a cramped airplane seat, we landed and I was home. Or was I?  Grabbed a cab from Kennedy.  7:00 am to 9:00 am – NYC Monday morning traffic in the rain. Two more hours to get home.

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I took a long walk through Ibirapuera Park in Sao Paulo, Brazil yesterday. I’d compare its beauty and size to Central Park in Manhattan, the only two differences to me were that everybody was playing soccer instead of baseball and then, the trees.

There was one, especially, that was huge, whose roots went on above ground for 50 yards or more. The children stood fascinated and played under it and seemed drawn to its majesty, climbing its roots as if it were a favorite grandfather that they could maul and hang on to.

The tree struck me as simply patient with all these crawling little “bugs” and also a little proud to be admired so. I stood and gazed at the spectacle for several long moments and it reminded me of another old friend who was also a tree.

Many years ago, in my wild and ever-searching youth, I found myself walking alone in a dense forest in New Hampshire late one summer afternoon. The temperature was in the high 90s that day and so the shade of the woods was welcomed and perhaps about 10 degrees cooler. I came upon this tree. It wasn’t as big or famous as the Ibirapuera Park tree; it stood rather lonely perhaps among others.

Nothing in particular made it stand out except that it had several exposed roots that caught my attention. I stopped and stared for quite some time and as I was doing so, suddenly had the distinct impression that the tree might be as curious about me as I was of it.

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New York, New York: A place so big you have to say it twice.

New York New York is a wonderful town
The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down
The people ride in a hole in the ground
New York New York is a wonderful town

I live two blocks from Times Square, one block from the Broadway theater district and in an apartment on the 38th floor with a spectacular southern view of Manhattan – the Empire State Building to the left, Wall Street, NY Harbor and the Statue Of Liberty head on, and the Hudson River landing strip to the right. In between are buildings, buildings, buildings.

On Saturday mornings the QE2 and the S.S. United States sail up the Hudson and park in our side yard. Last month I watched people stand on the wing of a jet plane landed in the river and get saved from my dining room window. Standing on my terrace you could have watched the World Trade Center go down in my front yard and on New Year’s Eve if you lean out far enough, you can watch the ball drop and hear the roar of the people.

It’s a historic and inspirational view. We love it, live in it, look out at it and appreciate it every day. I open my living room door and walk out on my terrace and stand on the edge of the universe, its bright lights blazing before me, its millions of people scurrying below. It is a city of wonder.

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