Oberon's Glade

Tag: The Village

  • Golden Rabbit

    Golden rabbit

    June 18th, 2020 – In late February 1998, I made my last visit to New York City prior to moving here. One of my tasks on that trip was to arrange for a private mailbox down in The Village, where I would be living. I chose The Golden Rabbit, a small shop which is part of the White Horse Tavern building. The little store sells cards, souvenirs, lottery tickets; they have fax and copy service, and private mailboxes for $15 a month, which includes package service. The couple who’ve run Golden Rabbit for some 25 years are so nice.

    After meeting Wei, two weeks after I moved here, I added his name to the mailbox. He became friendly with the owners of the store. When, after five years of living on Perry Street, we moved up to Inwood, we always kept the mailbox; Wei or I would stop in every three or four days to pick up the mail.

    When the White Horse Tavern (a designated historic landmark) was bought recently by a new landlord, he wanted to drastically increase the rent for the Golden Rabbit. The owner and tenant were trying to iron things out when the pandemic struck and everything shut down.

    The Golden Rabbit re-opened in late May with reduced hours, and it soon became apparent that they could not sustain the business in the current atmosphere. And so they are closing as of June 30th, 2020.

    Having a West Village address was a big deal for me: I’d waited so long to move to New York City, and at the time the Village was still wonderfully Bohemian, relatively inexpensive, and an oasis of drugs, sex, and rock n’ roll. But today, when I went down to say goodbye to the couple, I realized how drastically things have changed. Restaurants and shops (mostly boarded up now) are for the most part unaffordable to mere mortals. Manatus closed years ago, as did the Chinese restaurant where we celebrated my 50th birthday. The piers where I used to sunbathe and misbehave have turned into a promenade for Latte-slurping, cellphone-addicted mothers wheeling double-wide baby strollers, whilst at the same time walking the dog.

    So with the closing of the Golden Rabbit, it feels like a chapter of my life is coming to an end. I love it here in Inwood with its vastly diverse population, its beautiful park, great pizza and Chinese food, and laid-back atmosphere. But I’ll always think fondly of the days we lived on Perry Street, where my longtime dream of living in Gotham came true.

    ~ Oberon

  • SenseDance @ Peridance

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    Above: Erin Ginn of SenseDance

    Sunday November 24th, 2013 – Henning Rubsam’s SenseDance in a programme of new and older works at Peridance. On a frigid evening I trekked across The Village to attend this performance in which several friends were involved. The performance, which played to a full house, started late which put me in a grumpy funk. As the evening progressed, the dancers slowly dispelled my cranky mood.

    Much of the programme was given over to duets, well-danced, in many different styles. The first two of these were from past works: Sarabande from MERCILESS BEAUTY (2006) is a straight-up ballet pas de deux to Bach danced by the lyrically lovely Erin Ginn and and her partner, Nathan Bland; it ends with the girl borne off in a sustained overhead lift. On a more playful note, Save The Country from the 1997 Laura Nyro tribute ART OF LOVE found Jacqueline Stewart and Oisín Monaghan rolling around on the floor.

    Three premieres sustained the duet motif: in the first – RUSSIAN LESSON – to a ‘spoken’ score, Juan Rodriguez and Matt Van overcome a language barrier with some athletic sparring mixed with some cozying up: it feels like they are headed for a hotel room. This piece could be sub-titled Found In Translation.

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    Above: Temple Kemezis, photo by Matt Murphy

    Spoken word features also in BORDERS, a stylized and other-worldly duet danced by Temple Kemezis and  Henning Rubsam; this displayed Mr. Rubsam’s choreography at its most impressive, and Temple, with her unique look and potent dancing, seemed wonderfully at home in this dancescape.

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    Above: Oisín Monaghan, photo by Kokyat

    Oisín Monaghan then joined Heidi Green in a ‘young romance” duet – AN EINSAMER QUELLE – set to music of Richard Strauss. Some dancers are blessed with a unique and instantly identifiable ‘signature’ and Oisín is surely one of these. To date, no choreographer seems to have truly captured Oisín’s essence in dance – several have come very, very close – but perhaps it is exactly that elusive quality that keeps us fascinated. Here he and Ms. Green gave an attractive performance.

    Henning Rubsam’s HALF-LIFE is something of a signature piece for the choreographer. RELOAD has now been added to the title, and the cast has expanded from four to seven. I felt the original quartet setting to be preferable – our focus is now drawn in too many different directions as the dancers come and go. I missed the clarity and crispness of the original. Nevertheless, the ballet was very well-danced tonight with an outstanding performance from Matt Van.

    The evening’s final new work was SARAO, a jazzy pas de deux to music by Ricardo Llorca. This piece featured some of the evening’s most imaginative partnering and was finely executed by Erin Ginn & Matt Van. 

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    Above: Lloyd Knight, photo by Nir Arieli

    Making a guest appearance with SenseDance, Lloyd Knight of the Martha Graham Dance Company joined Temple Kemezis in CAVES, a 2006 duet to a Ricardo Llorca score with a Spanish guitar ambiance. The two dancers brought both their physical prowess and their strong personalities to bear on this work which seems to alternate between allure and antagonism. Ms. Kemezis executes deep pliés in second and a sort of crab-walk reminiscent of Wendy Whelan in Christopher Wheeldon’s MORPHOSES. Lloyd Knight’s authoritative partnering, keen feeling for dynamic tension, and tantalizing torso all meshed into a compellingly charismatic performance. In this suggestive’ battle of the sexes’ duet, the woman wins – doesn’t she always? Sustained applause followed this pas de deux, though the bows were saved for the end of the evening.

    Excerpts from Henning Rubsam’s 2012 BRAHMS DANCES closed the evening on a romantic note. Duets for Ms. Stewart with Matt Van and Ms. Green with Nathan Bland had a nocturnal feeling, and then a large ensemble passage which evoked a waltz-filled ballroom.