The Brooklyn Rail

At a time when you can’t email without getting an annoying pop-up offering AI help, be it with writing or summarizing content, Jon Kinzel’s Hudson Terminus mercifully transports us back to a more analog time. In a combination of performance and exhibition, commissioned by Hudson Hall, artwork hangs within the grand venue’s vestibule and gallery spaces, and the dancing lightly occupies the gymnasium-style opera house. Chairs line three sides of the ballroom floor below the curtained-off proscenium stage above.

Kinzel is an artist for whom creativity manifests in myriad ways, be it visual art or movement. Many of the artworks on view are made with acrylic and pencil on paper, at times with collaged elements. Crosshatching or parallel lines form irregular shapes that abut or overlap one another, resembling drone shots of farmland, or a crazy quilt. The palette comprises harmonious yet differing colors; crosshatching in contrasting colors are drawn in two directions, creating a new textured hue. While the technique is meticulous, the marks retain the expression of being done by hand.

The finesse and precision of these artworks are juxtaposed with the performance taking place upstairs in the theater. As we’re seated, downtown dance fixture Fabio Tavares is already at work, wearing a rectangular assemblage around his shoulders, lunging and moving haltingly around the performance area’s edges. He manipulates the artwork as he goes, framing his head with it, experimenting by balancing it on an arm, mirroring its vertical pipes by doing a deep plié in second. Kinzel enters and they interact, making a dense mass together on the floor, or striking semi-heroic standing sculptural poses. A droning sound provides background noise, expanding with a pulsating rhythm.

The action alternates among everyday movement, yoga poses, and simple dance vocabulary such as chassées and a partnered phrase in which the two slide along holding arms, one facing forward and the other backward. There’s a distinctly unpolished approach, suggesting anyone can dance, given the motivation.

The proscenium stage curtain opens. Anne Iobst, of DANCENOISE, plies two sticks, sliding them like divining rods, and manipulates a third stick on the floor. Tavares enters, and they chat casually while moving through their routines, something about text messages that we’re not really meant to hear. He carries two rectangles of foamcore, playing by balancing them so they stand vertically, and then tossing one off the stage onto the lower stage.

Iobst scatters trash while walking into the lower ballroom stage and carries a sign that says “walk this way.” She eats an apple while talking about drinking a lot of IPA and throwing the empties into a corner of her house, and dreaming about a vehicle crashing into her house and scattering the cans willy-nilly. She emanates a more edgy aura than the other two, wearing a paper bag on her head, shuffling around, and sharing stories that give some insight into her life. Kinzel circles the perimeter, arms held high and gesturing with his hands, at times delicately and specific-feeling (evoking classical Indian dance for me), while in a voiceover, two people exchange phrases in Armenian and English, like practicing conversation for travel.

On stage, Tavares tosses handfuls of tinsel; Norah Jones’s “Come Away With Me” plays briefly; and Iobst places little ramp-like constructions on the lower stage. Kinzel flicks tinsel on a wand while wearing a headlamp, creating glints of light and snaking shadows on the backdrop (fodder for the ultimate cat toy). The other two hand out photocopied drawings to the audience, saying “We would like you to have this drawing, would you like to have this drawing?” eventually adding an F-bomb into the question and imbuing it with a simmering aggression.

The start of the performance felt puzzling and lightweight, but the accumulated actions, breadth of vocabulary, and delicate audience interactions combined to provide a more thoughtful, layered experience. And a second trip through Kinzel’s artworks offered more time to absorb the similarly accrued subtlety and richness of the many intricate marks and accretions. The juxtaposition of art and dance felt right at home in stately Hudson Hall.