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September 30, 2023
Meeting the Master, Rudy Perez 1929–2023 by David Hughes
A Portrait of Rudy Perez by David Hughes
May 20, 2020: A Portrait of Rudy Perez Part I
June 11, 2020: A Portrait of Rudy Perez Part II
August 23, 2020: A Portrait of Rudy Perez Part III
January 15, 2021: A Portrait of Rudy Perez Part IV
May 31, 2021: Portrait of Rudy Perez Part V
April 9, 2019
Reviving Rudy Perez's Dance Drama of an Everyman
by Siobhan Burke
April 11-13, 2019: New York, NY.
Stephen Petronio revives Rudy Perez' Coverage .
NYU Skirball.
Read NYT Burke.
Read NYT Kourlas.
Read ArtsJournal Jowitt.
April 11-13, 2019: New York, NY. Stephen Petronio premieres Rudy Perez' Coverage .
NYU Skirball. Read NYT Burke. Read NYT Kourlas. Read ArtsJournal Jowitt.
October 2018: San Pancrazio Salentino, Italy. Composer Alessandro Girasoli releases new CD,
Suite for Rudy Perez, available on Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Spotify, Girasoli writes:
"I had the chance to meet and know Rudy Perez, thanks to my wife Sarah Swenson,
who has been taking care of certain aspects of Rudy's artistic life for many years.
I felt that his way of thinking about art, with his clean and linear dance style, almost
minimal, and reduced to the essentiality of gesture and movement, was very close to
my own. When I was fortunate to meet Rudy in person, I was immediately fascinated
by the person and the artist because of his sensibility and passion, despite his age,
in transmitting his artistic experience. He had a manner of spontaneous delivery without
any kind of pretense - just a loyalty to himself, but at the same time with a clear and
absolute artistic rigor. Immediately, I wanted to pay homage to his artistic personality
through my music "Suite for Rudy Perez", thinking of his artistic and life journey
as a metaphor for an endless journey.” ~Alessandro Girasoli, October 2018
September 6, 2018:
Stephen Petronio Announces next Bloodlines Season, with Coverage by Rudy Perez
January 15, 2018
Interview With Rudy Perez
by Jeff Slayton
February 14, 2017
From the Archives - Post-Judson Dance
by Deborah Jowitt
May 2, 2016
Rudy Perez - No Cheap Imitation
by Debra Levine
November 9, 2015
Lifetime Achievement Award for Rudy Perez
by Jeff Slayton
November 6, 2015
At 85, choreographer Rudy Perez is still inspired by the rhythms of everyday life
by Deborah Vankin, Los Angeles Times
November 4, 2015
Essential Moves
by Victoria Looseleaf, fjordreview.com
2014
Decelerating Movement: The Identity Politics of Time and Space in Rudy Perez's Countdown
by Victoria Fortuna
Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies/Latin@t Dance Society of Dance History Scholars - 2014 Volume XXXIV
June 28, 2013
From The Bronx to Los Angeles
by Victoria Looseleaf
March 11, 2013
Dancing in the Library
by Nathan Masters
January 29, 2012
Rudy Perez: Powerful, Poignant, Provocative
by Victoria Looseleaf
October 20, 2009
A modern dance legend celebrates his 80th year with free performances
by Victoria Looseleaf
Oct. 21, 2009
Space and movement
by Victoria Looseleaf
October 11, 2007
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/fr/article/lemieux-lopez-jacqueline
Selections by Donna Perlmutter, from the LA Herald Examiner, Dance Magazine, and the LA Times:
"Rudy was, in the early 80s, unique. And his image remains that – a standout from the mindless practitioners of body mechanics who flood our stages today.~
"Rudy Perez stations himself on terra firma. It may be a dream-like place, where figures drift robot-like through society's restrictive channels. It may be a spiritually murderous place that challenges the notion of free will. But it is always an intricate tangle of a person and his environment --the finite mortal context of an
ongoing process."
"What he spends a lot of time telling us about is alienation -- the loneliness of the long-distance dancer. In his ensemble pieces separateness prevails; contact from one member to another is almost nonexistent. In his solos, he telegraphs a sense of struggle -- a laborious, never-ending journey to some unknown
destination."
"He composes spare essays in universe-groping. But the most personal of them is 'Countdown,' perhaps because of its contained passion and poignant imagery, also its deep and genuine melancholy."
"Who could forget? He straddles a chair motionlessly, an overhead spotlight bathes him in shadows and traces the curling smoke from his cigarette. A soprano voice on a scratchy old recording sings wistful ballads, Cantaloube's 'Songs of the Auvergne,' reaching back to long ago and far away. '
"Not much happens. Yet the very gradual, very minimal motion of this stage picture conveys an intensity of longing that few can match..."
January 4, 2006
When Your Television Screen is the Stage
by Lewis Segal, Los Angeles Times
"...Countdown: Reflections on a Life in Dance, an impressive hour-long documentary about postmodern pioneer Rudy Perez, a Los Angeles-based choreographer since 1978. In 2004, Perez taught his 40-year-old solo, Countdown, to Victor Quijada, a professional dancer and former student of his. Through footage taken of the rehearsals, we learn of the detailed emotional values that Perez prizes, how his aesthetic evolved and the innovations that Countdown reflected. Writer-director-editor Severo Perez (no relation) uses archival clips of varying image quality to supplement the newer material, though everything except Countdown has been so abbreviated that we gain little sense of how Rudy Perez's choreography develops over time - a key element in his artistry. Available from [email protected], the film will be shown on a number of PBS stations in the spring. Truth-in-reporting disclosure: This writer makes three brief appearances as one of about 20 unpaid interviewees."
December 2005
by Victoria Looseleaf, Dance Magazine
"...Postmodern choreographer Rudy Perez was also on the [Lula Washington Dance Theatre] bill with Shifts, a reworking from 2003, in which five dancers' gambits blossomed from pedestrian moves and arched-back poses into hops and extended balances, suggesting themes of isolation and the randomness of life."
November 2005
by Sara Wolf, Dance Magazine
"...On the other hand, it was difficult not to read the Rudy Perez Performance Ensemble as Gertrude Stein's fathers and sons in the author's story intoned at the top of DoublePlay revisited. Like [Simone] Forti, Perez is a pioneer of postmodernism, unafraid to expand in new directions - here by collaborating with protégé Stefan Fabry. Tethering Stein's verbal repetition to his rigorous architectronics proved to be an exciting marriage. Restrained movement sequences and text resounded with cumulative meaning. Though at times weighed down by ponderous pacing, this sprawling work for 15 dancers thrilled with an energy that embodied the mission of NOW. "
July 23, 2005
by Lewis Segal, Los Angeles Times
"Rudy Perez's abstract 2004 dance drama DoublePlay begins with a statement about bringing order out of chaos: four men (the elders in the cast) rearranging fallen chairs. However, some 40 minutes later, it warns us - in speech and motion - that our ordered lives and comfortable expectations are slated for demolition, that it's now anything but paranoid to look up at the sky and scream. Revived or, in Perez's term, "revisited" for the annual three-week multidisciplinary NOW (New Original Works) Festival at the REDCAT on Thursday, DoublePlay uses those non-dancing, task-oriented elders as one texture in its action plan. A group of improvisational guest dancers in bright play clothes adds a sense of imperiled innocence. And Perez's own company (formally dressed) contributes the feeling of growing unease and danger that he conjures from the simplest walking, watching and crawling activities. Jeff Boynton's score supplies a cornucopia of styles, and the text (drawn from early writings by Gertrude Stein) becomes a structural building block as well as another invitation to link the work to current events. You might argue that Perez trusts talk too much and movement too little - that it takes too long for significant dancing to begin. But DoublePlay remains genuinely original and accomplished, making it an anomaly on a program otherwise devoted to pieces that stay in the shadow of earlier creations..."
January 2005
Loving the Process
by Victoria Looseleaf, Dance Magazine
November 24, 2003
Fluidity of Form
by Victoria Looseleaf, Los Angeles Times
December 23, 2001
Where Grasp Equaled Reach
By Lewis Segal, Los Angeles Times
"Performance of the Year: Rudy Perez in his bleak yet courageous 'Feeling for Open Spaces, None for Crowded Areas' at the Luckman in September. A pioneer of postmodernism, dancer-choreographer Perez has long used wooden poles for spatial emphasis ever since 1964. But now, at age 72, he is visually impaired and in this unflinching, poignant self-portrait, all those sky-sweeping poles were replaced by a thick red cane—a cane that he tapped on the ground to feel his way through a dark world."
September 2, 2001
He's Not Content With A Pioneering Past
by Victoria Looseleaf
October 7, 2004
Perez Piece Premieres
By Lewis Segal, Los Angeles Times
"[Gertrude] Stein is most famous, perhaps, for the phrase 'A rose is a rose is a rose,' (from Sacred Emily). But clearly, after 40 years of creative and often groundbreaking choreography, a Perez is a Perez is a Perez."
November 4, 1985
The Dance: 'FALL-OUT' by Rudy Perez Ensemble
By Jennifer Dunning, New York Times
May 7, 1977
Dance: Rudy Perez "Coverage II'
by Don McDonagh
"When he decides to return to the outside world he dons the coveralls and the hat and tears up the tape enclosure. With feet firmly planted, he listens to a stirring patriotic song and carefully removes the cap to place it protectively over hits lap. Mr. Thompson infuses the various incidents with determined passion and keeps his emotions carefully bottled up. He exercises control, but lets one feel the weight of the internal pressure. It's a striking performance, especially when one thinks of how difficult it is to stand still and “bear it” instead of tearing around in conventional anguish."
Ailey: Mixed Results From a Mixed Bag
By Alan M. Kriegsman February 12, 1977
One has to give Alvin Ailey's American Dance Theater high marks for enterprise. In the company's current week-long engagement at the Kennedy Center Opera House, the programs are fairly inundated, with new material. Adventure, however, means risk, and risk means win some, lose some - nobody can expect to have a perfect track record in this respect. And sometimes, it's not easy to tote up the score. Wednesday night, for example, there was "Coverage," a solo created by Rudy Perez in 1970 and, as danced by Clive Thompson, presented here by the Ailey troupe for the first time ever. It's a challenging, spare, original opus, not quite a masterpiece, perhaps, but a very compelling choreographic vision. Thursday night came the world premiere of Jennifer Muller's "Crossword," a large, lengthy group work. Superficial and gimmicky, it's bubble gum choreography really, disposable candy that puffs itself up into a thin balloon and eventually splatters all over the place. The irony of the situation was the public reaction. Ailey hasn't prepared his audiences for anything like the Perez, and though Thompson got a good (and well-earned) hand, there was also much puzzlement, some titters, even a few tentative boos. "Crossword," on the other hand, was greeted like a smasheroo, with prolonged bravos and a renewed cheer for Muller when she came out on stage with the cast. No one ever said, of course, that artistic and popular success must always intersect, but it isn't often one runs into such stark polarities on adjacent nights. Perez made his start as a choreographer in the mid-'60s with the Judson Dance Theater, and his work has continued to retain some of the refractory bold spirit of that rebellious period. His dances have a notably unacademic look. Much of the movement is drawn from the pedestrian activity of daily life. But Perez, who is an exceptionally forceful presence on stage in his own erson, has a way of showing us these movements that digs below appearances. The tilt of a head, the sudden fall of a heel become sharply etched events, with all kinds of conceptual and emotional echoes. Perez has a marvelous feeling for the "personality" of movement. In "Coverage," for example, a man dressed in coveralls and a construction worker's hard-hat marks off a large square with red tape on the stage floor. Within it he moves about in sundry modes - walking, marching, robotic strutting. He totters along one edge of the tape as if it were a tightrope. He doffs the hat and coveralls, and goes into an athlete's jogging and balletic exercises. The piece contains some obvious literal satire, having to do with macho patriotism, for one thing. But the sphere of suggested meanings is much broader - the idea, for instance, that men only feel secure enough to be themselves within well-defined enclosures like a home, or an office, or a uniform, and that these borders influence our identities within them. The work is elusive, to be sure - a little too elusive for comfort - but the imagery is unfailingly intriguing. Thompson's performance was excellent. Though he lacked some of Perez' own rugged precision, he was admirably faithful to the spirit of the work. A giant crossword puzzle, as the title hints, is the setting (by Randy Barcelo) for the Muller, and it's the most attractive thing about it. The dancers, dressed in tied shirts and shorts, have letters on their backs, enabling them to line up into words now and then. Otherwise, the piece consists of nonstop, shapeless and irritatingly facetious horseplay, accompanied by a shrill, insane rock score by Burt Alcantara.
"What I really wanted to write about today was Rudy Perez, who gave a beautiful concert the same week off-off-Broadway at the Cubiculo. He is one of the quiet experimenters in whose hands I think the future of dance will rest." ~Marcia B. Siegal, New York Magazine, March 24, 1969
SCULPTURE & SCOOTING By Deborah Jowett
The Village Voice, January 18, 1968
"I was intrigued by a concert of Rudy Perez’s works presented by Judson Dance Theatre. He makes dances like primary structures. In fact, his whole approach to dance has sculptural, even painterly facets. His pieces are short, stark, pristine – conveyed in strong, clear strokes and unshaded colors. He appears preoccupied with the element of design in dance, more than in, say, rhythm.
There is not a great deal of movement in Perez’s works, but there is tremendous – sometimes oppressive – tension in the straight-lined poses and deliberate progressions. Often, there’s something almost block-like in the way he uses bodies. A movement, because of the slowness with which it unfolds out of no-movement, or because of the number of times it is done, seems being carefully nailed to your retina. While you’re seeing it, you’re convinced you’ll never forget it. Costumes, lights seem chosen for the same direct, bright visual effect, and the whole program – fittingly enough – began with a showing of some nice slides of New York and surrounding countryside by Allan Robertson. Nature immobilized for a split second.
Perez presents his dances as if they were some sort of very clean, controlled rites. The dancers are cool, but highly strung. Anthony LaGiglia’s wiry sternness is is a ncei contrast to Perez’s own more heavily muscled way of moving. Barbara Roan is a very good dancer; she controls her limber, stretchy body withour any ugly tensions or performance mannerisms. She also has one of those faces that would probably carry even in Madison Square Garden – sort of a pretty Barbara Streisand.
I’d also seen the solo, “Center Break,” before at Dance Theatre Workshop, but the rest of the program was new to me. Some of the dances, like “Center Break,” have an odd pathos about them. For instance, “Countdown,” in which Perez mostly sat, rose, smoked (with or without cigarettes), looked upward while one of the lovely Auvergne folk songs accents his stillness. Or “Fieldgoal” which ended with Perez – dressed like a gaudy scarecrow Harlequin – running wildly and awkwardly in place.
Some of his dances are funny. Take, for instance, Anthony LaGiglia striding about, hefting and displaying a large pole, to an accompaniment of the voice of Julia Child extolling the virtues of asparagus properly cooked. However, this dance, “Bang Bang,” didn’t seem fully realized (whatever that means). I really enjoyed watching Roan and LaGiglia in “Take Your Alligator With You” going through a life that considered of a series of magazine ad poses of incredible banality. When you see that many of these poses all together, you realize more than ever what phony aspects of the male-female relationship the ads play upon – may even have created, as a matter of fact. A photographer next to me had a ball clicking her little shutter; it must have seemed to good to be true – getting so many nice shots at a dance concert.
The other two dances on the program were “Offprint” – billed as a work-in- progress - and “Rerun Plus,” a solo for Miss Roan. “Offprint” made me interested in seeing the final work, and “Rerun Plus” showed a girl doing some tiring athletics, registering posed consternation, approval, etc. at what she had done, doing the whole thing a second time, and starting it a third. Nice, and beautifully performed.
I get all kinds of visions of my own from Perez’s work, because of the pent-up muscularity; people so tied up they can’t move, people who won’t move, rather than move dishonestly, people who tire themselves moving in a rat-race, people trapped into conventional patterns of movement. Dance is usuallyso actual; it’s odd and interesting to see a dance concert in which movement is mostly an agonizing potential."
*
Rudy Perez Offers Muscular Dances, Don McDonagh, NYT January 9, 1968. pdf
*
"Perez's pioneering work began in the '60's at New York's Judson Church, where a group of young choreographers — among them Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs and Yvonne Rainer — were rebelling against the codified technique of modern dance titans Cunningham and Martha Graham." - author?
"Where others — Merce Cunningham, for instance — pit stillness against bursts of virtuoso movement, Perez shades it into minimal movement and back again. His brand of stillness is not so much the temporary absence of movement as the charged potential of it." - author?
"Perez's ability to suspend time within his dances has become a trademark, just as his ability to inhabit the entire space around him, be that an indoor stage or an outdoor plaza." - author?
"His movement could justly be called minimal, but in no way is it casual or natural. Everything unnecessary is stripped from his work, and the bare bones are polished until they gleam." - author?
The Dance: Rudy Perez
SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES. NOV. 24, 1974
By DON MCDONAGH
The cunning childlike sensibility that fashions all of Rudy Perez's work enables him to make artful dances while appearing to play. His approach to space is like that of a child's to a game: His concentration is total, and he will use the stock tools of running, jumping and standing still at the appropriate moments to gain his goal. Glamour, as such, plays no part in his work, and he is currently presenting a series of programs at the Brooklyn Academy of Music displaying his concerns throughout the last decade. The final program will be given this afternoon.
Intense physical control is the sine qua non for performing Mr. Perez's dances, and he himself blazes the way in works like “Field Goal” and “Countdown.” In “Field Goal,” movement is extracted from him by the compelling music of Gounod's “Sanctus” and a Motown group, and in “Countdown” he expresses regret with a simple glance and an outward reach. These pieces, along with three others, were clustered under the umbrella title “Panorama,” but they work best on their own.
“Pedestrian Mall” was presented for the first time in New York. It is a collage drawn from other pieces with a new solo for Mr. Perez in fighter's sparring headgear. There is a variety of pleasing elements—David Varney and Laura McKirahan joust with chairs, the entire cast makes rapid‐fire changes of pose and expression at the end—but over‐all the work lacked cohesion.
One of Mr. Perez's more successful “people” pieces, in which hordes of amateurs and students join his core company, is “Monumental Exchange.” It is like an inspired classroom exercise, transforming simple movement into a delightful design including a huge chorus line. Sound is used to comment on the action and not to support it rhythmically, and often the accompaniment is sharply witty: The lecture on superstitious primitive man was played as a half‐dozen men wearing shorts paraded solemnly around, carrying serious‐looking women in bright‐colored bras.
It was fine to see Barbara Roan dancing again with the Perez company. She has dash and verve that are very special, and she has a particular feel for infusing just the right note of lyricism into the no‐nonsense movement. The programs showed that the last decade was a good one for Mr. Perez. We await the next. *
“For me, there is always something cleansing about his works, perhaps because they are devoid of rhetoric. The dances that Perez builds are open structures. . . The intensity of inner peeforming tension that he requires plus his use of music, fiolm and slides for their affective qualities invest his work with a strong but non-specific emotion. While you’re seeing it, you’re convinced you’ll never forget it.” Deborah Jowitt, Viallage Voice
“Rudy Perez is one of the quiet experimenters in whose hands I think the future of dance will rest.”
Marcia Siegel, New York Magazine
“. . . uncommonly imaginitive in conception and superbly realized in performance . . . Mr. Perez and his group make an excellent package for export to universities and major cities for spreading the word about the almost limitless possibilities for good dance.”
John O’Conor, Wall Street Journal
“Perez is a lot of nice things. He can be serious, he can be funny, but perhaps most appealing he is earnest.”
Jean Battey Lewis, Washington Post
“It is a marvel that this amazingly coherent art came out of the discontinutities of the 60’s.”
Marion Sawyer, Chelsea Clinton News
"The meaning is clear: Rudy Perez is the dancer, choreographer, and director to watch during the 70’s. Unlke many veterans of the 60’s dance revolution, his style is still evolving – he is still experimenting with space and time, with dancers and non-dancers, in his efforts to create a meaningful exchangw with his audience. The one constant is the way he feels about his movement: dance is dialogue. “The audience must bring as much to the performance as the artist,” he says, “and, more and more, I find audiences willing to do just that. “
The Rudy Perez energy has been felt by audiences all over the country, from California to Connecticut. Through his confident grasp of dance and theatre forms, Perez conveys a vision of our times that is intense, compelling, provocative. Perez has been called a “quiet experimenter”; reality not just aesthetics, is his goal. Like good theatre, his message often can not be verbalized, but it is felt in the heart and in the involvement of the audience. Perez reflects the pain, the desire, and the energy of the 70’s – from nostalgia to supertechnology and back again.
As a teacher and resident artist in dance, Perez combines this same sense of reality with new consciousness. As a university of California reviewer said: “The company put forth . . . a new vocabulary of movement and formal technique stuffed with expressive and humanistic potential. I felt a kind of pride in myself and my body leaving the theatre.”
Pride is the keynote of a Perez college residency, which culminates in a performance that involves his students entirely. Rudy Perez is not content to leave his pupils with only technique or body awareness – he instills in them a self-esteem and a new understanding of the expressiveness of movement."
~author unknown
Meeting the Master, Rudy Perez 1929–2023 by David Hughes
A Portrait of Rudy Perez by David Hughes
May 20, 2020: A Portrait of Rudy Perez Part I
June 11, 2020: A Portrait of Rudy Perez Part II
August 23, 2020: A Portrait of Rudy Perez Part III
January 15, 2021: A Portrait of Rudy Perez Part IV
May 31, 2021: Portrait of Rudy Perez Part V
April 9, 2019
Reviving Rudy Perez's Dance Drama of an Everyman
by Siobhan Burke
April 11-13, 2019: New York, NY.
Stephen Petronio revives Rudy Perez' Coverage .
NYU Skirball.
Read NYT Burke.
Read NYT Kourlas.
Read ArtsJournal Jowitt.
April 11-13, 2019: New York, NY. Stephen Petronio premieres Rudy Perez' Coverage .
NYU Skirball. Read NYT Burke. Read NYT Kourlas. Read ArtsJournal Jowitt.
October 2018: San Pancrazio Salentino, Italy. Composer Alessandro Girasoli releases new CD,
Suite for Rudy Perez, available on Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Spotify, Girasoli writes:
"I had the chance to meet and know Rudy Perez, thanks to my wife Sarah Swenson,
who has been taking care of certain aspects of Rudy's artistic life for many years.
I felt that his way of thinking about art, with his clean and linear dance style, almost
minimal, and reduced to the essentiality of gesture and movement, was very close to
my own. When I was fortunate to meet Rudy in person, I was immediately fascinated
by the person and the artist because of his sensibility and passion, despite his age,
in transmitting his artistic experience. He had a manner of spontaneous delivery without
any kind of pretense - just a loyalty to himself, but at the same time with a clear and
absolute artistic rigor. Immediately, I wanted to pay homage to his artistic personality
through my music "Suite for Rudy Perez", thinking of his artistic and life journey
as a metaphor for an endless journey.” ~Alessandro Girasoli, October 2018
September 6, 2018:
Stephen Petronio Announces next Bloodlines Season, with Coverage by Rudy Perez
January 15, 2018
Interview With Rudy Perez
by Jeff Slayton
February 14, 2017
From the Archives - Post-Judson Dance
by Deborah Jowitt
May 2, 2016
Rudy Perez - No Cheap Imitation
by Debra Levine
November 9, 2015
Lifetime Achievement Award for Rudy Perez
by Jeff Slayton
November 6, 2015
At 85, choreographer Rudy Perez is still inspired by the rhythms of everyday life
by Deborah Vankin, Los Angeles Times
November 4, 2015
Essential Moves
by Victoria Looseleaf, fjordreview.com
2014
Decelerating Movement: The Identity Politics of Time and Space in Rudy Perez's Countdown
by Victoria Fortuna
Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies/Latin@t Dance Society of Dance History Scholars - 2014 Volume XXXIV
June 28, 2013
From The Bronx to Los Angeles
by Victoria Looseleaf
March 11, 2013
Dancing in the Library
by Nathan Masters
January 29, 2012
Rudy Perez: Powerful, Poignant, Provocative
by Victoria Looseleaf
October 20, 2009
A modern dance legend celebrates his 80th year with free performances
by Victoria Looseleaf
Oct. 21, 2009
Space and movement
by Victoria Looseleaf
October 11, 2007
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/fr/article/lemieux-lopez-jacqueline
Selections by Donna Perlmutter, from the LA Herald Examiner, Dance Magazine, and the LA Times:
"Rudy was, in the early 80s, unique. And his image remains that – a standout from the mindless practitioners of body mechanics who flood our stages today.~
"Rudy Perez stations himself on terra firma. It may be a dream-like place, where figures drift robot-like through society's restrictive channels. It may be a spiritually murderous place that challenges the notion of free will. But it is always an intricate tangle of a person and his environment --the finite mortal context of an
ongoing process."
"What he spends a lot of time telling us about is alienation -- the loneliness of the long-distance dancer. In his ensemble pieces separateness prevails; contact from one member to another is almost nonexistent. In his solos, he telegraphs a sense of struggle -- a laborious, never-ending journey to some unknown
destination."
"He composes spare essays in universe-groping. But the most personal of them is 'Countdown,' perhaps because of its contained passion and poignant imagery, also its deep and genuine melancholy."
"Who could forget? He straddles a chair motionlessly, an overhead spotlight bathes him in shadows and traces the curling smoke from his cigarette. A soprano voice on a scratchy old recording sings wistful ballads, Cantaloube's 'Songs of the Auvergne,' reaching back to long ago and far away. '
"Not much happens. Yet the very gradual, very minimal motion of this stage picture conveys an intensity of longing that few can match..."
January 4, 2006
When Your Television Screen is the Stage
by Lewis Segal, Los Angeles Times
"...Countdown: Reflections on a Life in Dance, an impressive hour-long documentary about postmodern pioneer Rudy Perez, a Los Angeles-based choreographer since 1978. In 2004, Perez taught his 40-year-old solo, Countdown, to Victor Quijada, a professional dancer and former student of his. Through footage taken of the rehearsals, we learn of the detailed emotional values that Perez prizes, how his aesthetic evolved and the innovations that Countdown reflected. Writer-director-editor Severo Perez (no relation) uses archival clips of varying image quality to supplement the newer material, though everything except Countdown has been so abbreviated that we gain little sense of how Rudy Perez's choreography develops over time - a key element in his artistry. Available from [email protected], the film will be shown on a number of PBS stations in the spring. Truth-in-reporting disclosure: This writer makes three brief appearances as one of about 20 unpaid interviewees."
December 2005
by Victoria Looseleaf, Dance Magazine
"...Postmodern choreographer Rudy Perez was also on the [Lula Washington Dance Theatre] bill with Shifts, a reworking from 2003, in which five dancers' gambits blossomed from pedestrian moves and arched-back poses into hops and extended balances, suggesting themes of isolation and the randomness of life."
November 2005
by Sara Wolf, Dance Magazine
"...On the other hand, it was difficult not to read the Rudy Perez Performance Ensemble as Gertrude Stein's fathers and sons in the author's story intoned at the top of DoublePlay revisited. Like [Simone] Forti, Perez is a pioneer of postmodernism, unafraid to expand in new directions - here by collaborating with protégé Stefan Fabry. Tethering Stein's verbal repetition to his rigorous architectronics proved to be an exciting marriage. Restrained movement sequences and text resounded with cumulative meaning. Though at times weighed down by ponderous pacing, this sprawling work for 15 dancers thrilled with an energy that embodied the mission of NOW. "
July 23, 2005
by Lewis Segal, Los Angeles Times
"Rudy Perez's abstract 2004 dance drama DoublePlay begins with a statement about bringing order out of chaos: four men (the elders in the cast) rearranging fallen chairs. However, some 40 minutes later, it warns us - in speech and motion - that our ordered lives and comfortable expectations are slated for demolition, that it's now anything but paranoid to look up at the sky and scream. Revived or, in Perez's term, "revisited" for the annual three-week multidisciplinary NOW (New Original Works) Festival at the REDCAT on Thursday, DoublePlay uses those non-dancing, task-oriented elders as one texture in its action plan. A group of improvisational guest dancers in bright play clothes adds a sense of imperiled innocence. And Perez's own company (formally dressed) contributes the feeling of growing unease and danger that he conjures from the simplest walking, watching and crawling activities. Jeff Boynton's score supplies a cornucopia of styles, and the text (drawn from early writings by Gertrude Stein) becomes a structural building block as well as another invitation to link the work to current events. You might argue that Perez trusts talk too much and movement too little - that it takes too long for significant dancing to begin. But DoublePlay remains genuinely original and accomplished, making it an anomaly on a program otherwise devoted to pieces that stay in the shadow of earlier creations..."
January 2005
Loving the Process
by Victoria Looseleaf, Dance Magazine
November 24, 2003
Fluidity of Form
by Victoria Looseleaf, Los Angeles Times
December 23, 2001
Where Grasp Equaled Reach
By Lewis Segal, Los Angeles Times
"Performance of the Year: Rudy Perez in his bleak yet courageous 'Feeling for Open Spaces, None for Crowded Areas' at the Luckman in September. A pioneer of postmodernism, dancer-choreographer Perez has long used wooden poles for spatial emphasis ever since 1964. But now, at age 72, he is visually impaired and in this unflinching, poignant self-portrait, all those sky-sweeping poles were replaced by a thick red cane—a cane that he tapped on the ground to feel his way through a dark world."
September 2, 2001
He's Not Content With A Pioneering Past
by Victoria Looseleaf
October 7, 2004
Perez Piece Premieres
By Lewis Segal, Los Angeles Times
"[Gertrude] Stein is most famous, perhaps, for the phrase 'A rose is a rose is a rose,' (from Sacred Emily). But clearly, after 40 years of creative and often groundbreaking choreography, a Perez is a Perez is a Perez."
November 4, 1985
The Dance: 'FALL-OUT' by Rudy Perez Ensemble
By Jennifer Dunning, New York Times
May 7, 1977
Dance: Rudy Perez "Coverage II'
by Don McDonagh
"When he decides to return to the outside world he dons the coveralls and the hat and tears up the tape enclosure. With feet firmly planted, he listens to a stirring patriotic song and carefully removes the cap to place it protectively over hits lap. Mr. Thompson infuses the various incidents with determined passion and keeps his emotions carefully bottled up. He exercises control, but lets one feel the weight of the internal pressure. It's a striking performance, especially when one thinks of how difficult it is to stand still and “bear it” instead of tearing around in conventional anguish."
Ailey: Mixed Results From a Mixed Bag
By Alan M. Kriegsman February 12, 1977
One has to give Alvin Ailey's American Dance Theater high marks for enterprise. In the company's current week-long engagement at the Kennedy Center Opera House, the programs are fairly inundated, with new material. Adventure, however, means risk, and risk means win some, lose some - nobody can expect to have a perfect track record in this respect. And sometimes, it's not easy to tote up the score. Wednesday night, for example, there was "Coverage," a solo created by Rudy Perez in 1970 and, as danced by Clive Thompson, presented here by the Ailey troupe for the first time ever. It's a challenging, spare, original opus, not quite a masterpiece, perhaps, but a very compelling choreographic vision. Thursday night came the world premiere of Jennifer Muller's "Crossword," a large, lengthy group work. Superficial and gimmicky, it's bubble gum choreography really, disposable candy that puffs itself up into a thin balloon and eventually splatters all over the place. The irony of the situation was the public reaction. Ailey hasn't prepared his audiences for anything like the Perez, and though Thompson got a good (and well-earned) hand, there was also much puzzlement, some titters, even a few tentative boos. "Crossword," on the other hand, was greeted like a smasheroo, with prolonged bravos and a renewed cheer for Muller when she came out on stage with the cast. No one ever said, of course, that artistic and popular success must always intersect, but it isn't often one runs into such stark polarities on adjacent nights. Perez made his start as a choreographer in the mid-'60s with the Judson Dance Theater, and his work has continued to retain some of the refractory bold spirit of that rebellious period. His dances have a notably unacademic look. Much of the movement is drawn from the pedestrian activity of daily life. But Perez, who is an exceptionally forceful presence on stage in his own erson, has a way of showing us these movements that digs below appearances. The tilt of a head, the sudden fall of a heel become sharply etched events, with all kinds of conceptual and emotional echoes. Perez has a marvelous feeling for the "personality" of movement. In "Coverage," for example, a man dressed in coveralls and a construction worker's hard-hat marks off a large square with red tape on the stage floor. Within it he moves about in sundry modes - walking, marching, robotic strutting. He totters along one edge of the tape as if it were a tightrope. He doffs the hat and coveralls, and goes into an athlete's jogging and balletic exercises. The piece contains some obvious literal satire, having to do with macho patriotism, for one thing. But the sphere of suggested meanings is much broader - the idea, for instance, that men only feel secure enough to be themselves within well-defined enclosures like a home, or an office, or a uniform, and that these borders influence our identities within them. The work is elusive, to be sure - a little too elusive for comfort - but the imagery is unfailingly intriguing. Thompson's performance was excellent. Though he lacked some of Perez' own rugged precision, he was admirably faithful to the spirit of the work. A giant crossword puzzle, as the title hints, is the setting (by Randy Barcelo) for the Muller, and it's the most attractive thing about it. The dancers, dressed in tied shirts and shorts, have letters on their backs, enabling them to line up into words now and then. Otherwise, the piece consists of nonstop, shapeless and irritatingly facetious horseplay, accompanied by a shrill, insane rock score by Burt Alcantara.
"What I really wanted to write about today was Rudy Perez, who gave a beautiful concert the same week off-off-Broadway at the Cubiculo. He is one of the quiet experimenters in whose hands I think the future of dance will rest." ~Marcia B. Siegal, New York Magazine, March 24, 1969
SCULPTURE & SCOOTING By Deborah Jowett
The Village Voice, January 18, 1968
"I was intrigued by a concert of Rudy Perez’s works presented by Judson Dance Theatre. He makes dances like primary structures. In fact, his whole approach to dance has sculptural, even painterly facets. His pieces are short, stark, pristine – conveyed in strong, clear strokes and unshaded colors. He appears preoccupied with the element of design in dance, more than in, say, rhythm.
There is not a great deal of movement in Perez’s works, but there is tremendous – sometimes oppressive – tension in the straight-lined poses and deliberate progressions. Often, there’s something almost block-like in the way he uses bodies. A movement, because of the slowness with which it unfolds out of no-movement, or because of the number of times it is done, seems being carefully nailed to your retina. While you’re seeing it, you’re convinced you’ll never forget it. Costumes, lights seem chosen for the same direct, bright visual effect, and the whole program – fittingly enough – began with a showing of some nice slides of New York and surrounding countryside by Allan Robertson. Nature immobilized for a split second.
Perez presents his dances as if they were some sort of very clean, controlled rites. The dancers are cool, but highly strung. Anthony LaGiglia’s wiry sternness is is a ncei contrast to Perez’s own more heavily muscled way of moving. Barbara Roan is a very good dancer; she controls her limber, stretchy body withour any ugly tensions or performance mannerisms. She also has one of those faces that would probably carry even in Madison Square Garden – sort of a pretty Barbara Streisand.
I’d also seen the solo, “Center Break,” before at Dance Theatre Workshop, but the rest of the program was new to me. Some of the dances, like “Center Break,” have an odd pathos about them. For instance, “Countdown,” in which Perez mostly sat, rose, smoked (with or without cigarettes), looked upward while one of the lovely Auvergne folk songs accents his stillness. Or “Fieldgoal” which ended with Perez – dressed like a gaudy scarecrow Harlequin – running wildly and awkwardly in place.
Some of his dances are funny. Take, for instance, Anthony LaGiglia striding about, hefting and displaying a large pole, to an accompaniment of the voice of Julia Child extolling the virtues of asparagus properly cooked. However, this dance, “Bang Bang,” didn’t seem fully realized (whatever that means). I really enjoyed watching Roan and LaGiglia in “Take Your Alligator With You” going through a life that considered of a series of magazine ad poses of incredible banality. When you see that many of these poses all together, you realize more than ever what phony aspects of the male-female relationship the ads play upon – may even have created, as a matter of fact. A photographer next to me had a ball clicking her little shutter; it must have seemed to good to be true – getting so many nice shots at a dance concert.
The other two dances on the program were “Offprint” – billed as a work-in- progress - and “Rerun Plus,” a solo for Miss Roan. “Offprint” made me interested in seeing the final work, and “Rerun Plus” showed a girl doing some tiring athletics, registering posed consternation, approval, etc. at what she had done, doing the whole thing a second time, and starting it a third. Nice, and beautifully performed.
I get all kinds of visions of my own from Perez’s work, because of the pent-up muscularity; people so tied up they can’t move, people who won’t move, rather than move dishonestly, people who tire themselves moving in a rat-race, people trapped into conventional patterns of movement. Dance is usuallyso actual; it’s odd and interesting to see a dance concert in which movement is mostly an agonizing potential."
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Rudy Perez Offers Muscular Dances, Don McDonagh, NYT January 9, 1968. pdf
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"Perez's pioneering work began in the '60's at New York's Judson Church, where a group of young choreographers — among them Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs and Yvonne Rainer — were rebelling against the codified technique of modern dance titans Cunningham and Martha Graham." - author?
"Where others — Merce Cunningham, for instance — pit stillness against bursts of virtuoso movement, Perez shades it into minimal movement and back again. His brand of stillness is not so much the temporary absence of movement as the charged potential of it." - author?
"Perez's ability to suspend time within his dances has become a trademark, just as his ability to inhabit the entire space around him, be that an indoor stage or an outdoor plaza." - author?
"His movement could justly be called minimal, but in no way is it casual or natural. Everything unnecessary is stripped from his work, and the bare bones are polished until they gleam." - author?
The Dance: Rudy Perez
SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES. NOV. 24, 1974
By DON MCDONAGH
The cunning childlike sensibility that fashions all of Rudy Perez's work enables him to make artful dances while appearing to play. His approach to space is like that of a child's to a game: His concentration is total, and he will use the stock tools of running, jumping and standing still at the appropriate moments to gain his goal. Glamour, as such, plays no part in his work, and he is currently presenting a series of programs at the Brooklyn Academy of Music displaying his concerns throughout the last decade. The final program will be given this afternoon.
Intense physical control is the sine qua non for performing Mr. Perez's dances, and he himself blazes the way in works like “Field Goal” and “Countdown.” In “Field Goal,” movement is extracted from him by the compelling music of Gounod's “Sanctus” and a Motown group, and in “Countdown” he expresses regret with a simple glance and an outward reach. These pieces, along with three others, were clustered under the umbrella title “Panorama,” but they work best on their own.
“Pedestrian Mall” was presented for the first time in New York. It is a collage drawn from other pieces with a new solo for Mr. Perez in fighter's sparring headgear. There is a variety of pleasing elements—David Varney and Laura McKirahan joust with chairs, the entire cast makes rapid‐fire changes of pose and expression at the end—but over‐all the work lacked cohesion.
One of Mr. Perez's more successful “people” pieces, in which hordes of amateurs and students join his core company, is “Monumental Exchange.” It is like an inspired classroom exercise, transforming simple movement into a delightful design including a huge chorus line. Sound is used to comment on the action and not to support it rhythmically, and often the accompaniment is sharply witty: The lecture on superstitious primitive man was played as a half‐dozen men wearing shorts paraded solemnly around, carrying serious‐looking women in bright‐colored bras.
It was fine to see Barbara Roan dancing again with the Perez company. She has dash and verve that are very special, and she has a particular feel for infusing just the right note of lyricism into the no‐nonsense movement. The programs showed that the last decade was a good one for Mr. Perez. We await the next. *
“For me, there is always something cleansing about his works, perhaps because they are devoid of rhetoric. The dances that Perez builds are open structures. . . The intensity of inner peeforming tension that he requires plus his use of music, fiolm and slides for their affective qualities invest his work with a strong but non-specific emotion. While you’re seeing it, you’re convinced you’ll never forget it.” Deborah Jowitt, Viallage Voice
“Rudy Perez is one of the quiet experimenters in whose hands I think the future of dance will rest.”
Marcia Siegel, New York Magazine
“. . . uncommonly imaginitive in conception and superbly realized in performance . . . Mr. Perez and his group make an excellent package for export to universities and major cities for spreading the word about the almost limitless possibilities for good dance.”
John O’Conor, Wall Street Journal
“Perez is a lot of nice things. He can be serious, he can be funny, but perhaps most appealing he is earnest.”
Jean Battey Lewis, Washington Post
“It is a marvel that this amazingly coherent art came out of the discontinutities of the 60’s.”
Marion Sawyer, Chelsea Clinton News
"The meaning is clear: Rudy Perez is the dancer, choreographer, and director to watch during the 70’s. Unlke many veterans of the 60’s dance revolution, his style is still evolving – he is still experimenting with space and time, with dancers and non-dancers, in his efforts to create a meaningful exchangw with his audience. The one constant is the way he feels about his movement: dance is dialogue. “The audience must bring as much to the performance as the artist,” he says, “and, more and more, I find audiences willing to do just that. “
The Rudy Perez energy has been felt by audiences all over the country, from California to Connecticut. Through his confident grasp of dance and theatre forms, Perez conveys a vision of our times that is intense, compelling, provocative. Perez has been called a “quiet experimenter”; reality not just aesthetics, is his goal. Like good theatre, his message often can not be verbalized, but it is felt in the heart and in the involvement of the audience. Perez reflects the pain, the desire, and the energy of the 70’s – from nostalgia to supertechnology and back again.
As a teacher and resident artist in dance, Perez combines this same sense of reality with new consciousness. As a university of California reviewer said: “The company put forth . . . a new vocabulary of movement and formal technique stuffed with expressive and humanistic potential. I felt a kind of pride in myself and my body leaving the theatre.”
Pride is the keynote of a Perez college residency, which culminates in a performance that involves his students entirely. Rudy Perez is not content to leave his pupils with only technique or body awareness – he instills in them a self-esteem and a new understanding of the expressiveness of movement."
~author unknown