It’s not always clear how the work’s multifarious images connect, or if they’re meant to. Yet Ms. Rosenblit’s own words seem wise here: “Being lost is a valid location.” When it’s over, the room strewn with green debris, there is a wholeness in the mess.
Press
“This marvelous space dedicated to dance and performance in Long Island City, Queens, has just purchased a permanent facility in the neighborhood, but for the time being its forward-thinking presentation will continue at its current home.” —Gia Kourlas, New York Times
Press & Reviews
Before the messy mound of fabric scraps, chairs, step stools, electric cords and other discards at center space gets picked through for eccentric props; before festively-colored lights blink on and draw attentions to unexpected places; before dancers, without a shred of self-consciousness. display more and more bare flesh and sexual inclinations, there is sound.
“I would like to understand what is happening,” Miguel Gutierrez said during his show at the Chocolate Factory Theater on Wednesday, looking comically lost and stressed out. He was speaking in rapid Spanish, with English translations projected on the walls beside him, as a baffled character in his own live, absurdist telenovela. At this particular moment, with dialogue flying among him and his fellow cast members, the audience might have wondered the same: What was happening?
A couple of years ago, the choreographer Miguel Gutierrez found himself in a strange situation that really shouldn’t have been so strange: He was at a reception with a group of dance and performance artists, and the conversation was flowing — from Spanish to English and back again.
Visiting the Chocolate Factory Theater, in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, feels like witnessing the end of an era these days. Amazon is poised to descend on the area, and the theater itself, a brick-walled room on a quiet block, is preparing to move to a larger location nearby. The change is bittersweet: Buying a home is a big deal for a small New York arts organization, but the idiosyncrasies of the current (rented) building, where artists have had freedom to experiment since 2005, will be hard to part with.
