MOUNT TREMPER ARTS
Attending summer dance festivals held in idyllic settings often feels like crashing another generation’s party. Happily, for younger people interested in dance and performance, there is a festival newcomer, Mount Tremper Arts, with a much fresher and far more experimental program than many of its older festival relations. Located in the Catskills and founded three years ago by choreographer Aynsley Vandenbroucke and photographer Mathew Pokoik, the festival composes a fairly ideal weekend trip for New Yorkers to watch a well-curated program of new dance and performance. A determined intimacy makes MTA seem in some ways more like a creative camp than a stuffy performance venue: Vandenbroucke and Pokoik prepare a beautiful dinner every Friday evening, and almost always host an after-performance campfire where everyone gets together to drink and talk amid the chatter of frogs and crickets (of whom, one attendee noted: “This isn’t the city. You can’t call 311 on crickets.”). Last weekend featured a Friday evening performance of a work-in-progress by Katie Workum Dance Theater. On Saturday, choreographer Karinne Keithley showcased a dance, film and text-based piece titled Montgomery Park, or Opulance, which reminded me a little of the visual artist Trisha Donnelly in its pile-up of unresolved evocations. Dancer Katy Pyle performed in both pieces, and was riveting each time. The festival opened this year with a performance by the extremely talented Rashaun Mitchell, and will continue into mid-August with performances by Foofwa d’Imobilité, and Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly. The well-designed post-and-beam performance space also hosts a group show of photography curated by Matthew Porter and featuring the work Hannah Whitaker, who is profiled in the current issue of The Last Magazine. Great taste in photography extends to Vandenbroucke and Poikok’s own collection, which includes a small print of Daido Moriyama’s Stray Dog hung in the kitchen, seemingly lurking for table scraps. And, if you hike to the summit of Mount Tremper you’ll find a view to rival Daido’s: climb its vertiginous fire tower and you will see your future, I promise you.
Photography by Mathew Pokoik
