Choreographer Elise Long is renowned for her epic, zany, community-based productions mixing popular American culture and world folk traditions. Since founding Spoke the Hub Dancing in 1979, she has also promoted and produced the work of young dancers, especially those who labor in Brooklyn's cultural nooks and crannies.

Long entitled her latest performance series the “Gowanus Wildlife Preserve Showcase #1,” debuting on February 3 and 4 at the Gowanus Arts building, 295 Douglass Street.

Wearing an orange tie-dyed shirt, Jody Kruskal opened the evening by playing the antiquated, accordion-style Anglo concertina that sits in the lap like a dachshund on a respirator. Kruskal’s playing was as colorful and preposterous as the names of such songs as Boda Waltz, Buy Brown Besoms, Princess Pupule and Bargomask, ranging from a Morris dance accompaniment to a Hawaiian ditty; his own tunes added for spice. In his hands, the rhythmic drone of the concertina became music to the ears.

Erin Gottwald shifted gears with My Injury I, created from her interviews of a dozen people about the physical strains of New Year’s resolutions. Given the non-stop wind milling of her arms, legs, and torso in a fusion of modern dance and ballet, Gottwald wasted no time in turning resolutions into revolutions. To the driving folk guitars of Uncle Tupelo, she expressed the best intentions of her subjects.

good rid/dance performances provided Gowanus Wildlife with so low (plus eight), a burlesque interlude choreographed by Hilary Maia Grubb. Grubb set the tone for the family audience with a warning: No frontal nudity. Using her plumpness to comic advantage, she so lowed in de rigueur black vest, red pants and black leather belt, stripping to pink bra and panties for some fleshy jiggling. Instead of traditional honky tank band, with Meghan Ballog, Abby Bender, Hilary Maia Grubb, Kenneth Lang, Elizabeth Merida, Malina Rauschenfels and Luke Wiley acted as a silent chorus consisting of three mannequins, two corpses, and a lost soul. A drag queen named “alysseum" wrote and delivered a text dense with bodily allusions.

The next twist of fate was Paloma McGregor’s By Definition, subtitled “a solo figure confronts the wrinkled realities of race” to the electronic echoes of John Oswald and Gary Galbraith. In brownish, cobwebbed rags, McGregor’s anonymous prisoner of stereotypes labored for recognition with eloquent and forceful movements. Patricia McGregor’s voiceover questioned the category of race with increasing stridence. In a dramatic finale, McGregor tore off the stocking covering her head; ringlets of hair sprang forth like Medusa’s snakes.

RedWall Dance Theatre presented Mary Ann Wall’s Holiday Retreat to the music of Billie Holiday. Dressed in black cocktail dresses with shiny broaches pinpointing their hearts, Stacey Kaplan, Mindy Rebman, Adria Twine, and Jenn Weddel, regaled the audience with adaptations of period dances accompanying such classics as My Man Don’t Love Me, Take All of Me and Lady Sings the Blues. They celebrated Lady Day’s unparalleled talents as a blues and jazz singer. Alternately playful and sexy, the performers fit the spirit of Holiday’s songs like a glove.

Although all the performers proved superb, The Glass Contraption, a/k/a The Fighting Bobcats, especially pleased the crowd with their blazing hip hop stylings. Dressed in funky sweats with oversized medallions for their workout, Bob McClure, Cat Mueller and Justine Williams created acomical but loving spoof of hip hop in collaboration with Eminem and MC Punjabi. In fact, the Fighting Bobcats packed such a lightning punch that their curtain call lasted almost as long as their performance.

Finally Erin Gottwald concluded her survey of New Year’s resolutions in My Injury 2. Dressed in black leotard accented by a brown sash, she repeated her athletic style to the Bela Bartok-like chords of Gidon Kremer.Pausing for the signature movement of both Injuries, she held one thigh under one leg, perhaps signifying a groin injury. Or maybe her resolvers simply turned out to be pains in the butt.

In spite of such accidents, the dancers of the “Gowanus Wildlife Preserve Showcase” demonstrated they were alive and frolicking well in Brooklyn’s artistic rain forests.

Carl Blumenthal is a former arts reporter with the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and is the founder/publisher of: “Arts Alive: A Journal of Brooklyn Culture”.

The new Gowanus Wildlife Review supports the work
of all living artists working within spitting distance of the banks of the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, NY. If you would like your upcoming show considered for review, or you are interested in joining our roster of free-lance writers,please send letters of interest and support materials to: