TOE THE LINE

Rachel McKinstry and Liz Riga are dancing at the edge

Liz Riga talks with her hands. Rachel McKinstry as well. There is some satisfaction to this discovery. Constant motion; up and down and round and round as they verbally detail the intellectual fabric of their work. Their faces too are always moving. Smiling, nodding, laughing, they excitedly confer with one another. We are sitting across a kitchen table on the third floor of a partially converted warehouse. The dancers are preparing to entertain company; a party is nearly underway in their Bushwick, Brooklyn loft. And I am learning a new language.

         Since 2005 Riga and McKinstry have been partners in and founding members of Launch Movement Experiment, a New York dance company that seeks to breakdown traditional barriers to physical expression and create a more participatory environment for the viewer and performer. No small undertaking as it turns out, and not a common purpose in their medium. They attribute the roots of their structured improvisation to the Judson Church Movement of the 1960s; Yvonne Rainer and Steve Paxton founding members of the work of that period, and deeply influential choreographers and performers.

No surprise that the Judson Memorial Church at Washington Square Park has remained a hub for this type of avant-garde creativity over the years. Apropos that Launch’s most recent “experiment,” The Mnemosyne Project, debuted there February 1^st. In Greek mythology Mnemosyne is the personification of memory, and with Zeus conceived the nine muses. Launch’s piece explores the relationship of identity and behavior through sound and dance, seeking to draw memory, and thus self, forth from the body through the felicity of their movement. The artists create a test lab in the Church; their exhilarating performance becoming the experiment and survey itself.

          With a firm understanding that their means are their end, Launch proceeds much like a free jazz ensemble. Performances employ one to four dance artists and one musician, and the company establishes a framework on stage that is identifiable and available to the viewer: in their case motion, dance and sound. From this place, one deeply considered, to some degree choreographed and exhaustively rehearsed, they begin to expand, moving into territory unknown to the audience, indeed, unknown to the artists themselves. The crux of the challenge for the team is to go to a place they haven’t been: to truly improvise. This is an intense physical, emotional and intellectual effort, evident in every way. Up and out, they eschew a traditional codified form of dance and series of movements, common and comfortable, in favor of the freedom of using any physical expression that occurs to them. The same is true for their musical collaborator, Fade Kainer. He too only roughly understands where the piece is headed, the musician and dancers pushing each other along as things deepen. This liberation is an effort to make every performance, and actually every rehearsal as well, a uniquely joyful experience and augmentation of the form.

         So as well wishing partygoers gently pass our perch, greeting the dancers and moving on, the passion and dedication behind their collaboration become quite clear. It is no small matter challenging the boundaries of one’s medium. Actually, in the 21^st century it is no simple task to even identify those limits. In a world so crowded and in a community so prolific to reach the edge is itself a noteworthy achievement. For Launch Movement Experiment this is the beginning. They dutifully stretch, physically and mentally, creating the architecture for the performance and the engine for communication with their viewers and each other.

For Riga and McKinstry form and function are the same, a tricky thing to contemplate in the arena of dance. From a history of typically rigid memorization and regurgitation of choreography come the barriers they rail against. Finding these conventions conservative and constraining they urge themselves and their co-conspirators to engage in movement and sound atypical within the community and challenging to both the audience and performer. This evolution is not a revolution; certainly modern improvisational dance is well understood. Where they transcend is the spontaneous origin of their moving vocabulary during their performances and the nontraditional atmospheres they prefer to engage. Launch relishes breaking the formal barrier between artist and audience. They regularly gig outside of expected dance venues, performing on rooftops, at parties and frequently in their own space. Although a stiff backed chair in a dark and quiet room is what typically comes to mind when one considers a dance performance, this is not where Riga and McKinstry want you sitting. They want people involved and engaged. They want their audience audible and also moving with them whenever possible in an effort to maximize the emotional dialog between the performers and their public.

We’re now standing in twelve hundred square feet of smoothly finished wood flooring punctuated by a few rough columns. Red wine is poured; there is a bowl of oranges on a sideboard. There is a fully functioning bath. Not bad for a Bushwick rehearsal space. It’s early yet as a gentleman starts walking on his hands. The partygoers, the audience, applaud; the viewers aptly participating in his expression as an impromptu act unfolds. LaunchMovementExperiment.com MICHAEL STALIOS

Photographed By CLAY PATRICK McBRIDE