Media & Press
Recent Media #
Below is the most recent media created by Wendy Osserman and her company.
See past performances at this link
Convulsive States #
New York Times, Tuesday, November 14, 2023
By Rachel Sherman
Photographs and Video by Lanna Apisukh
As the choreographer and dancer Wendy Osserman, 81, began to contort her body at a recent performance in Queens, her hands shook. Her fingers flapped back and forth. She threw one arm away from the other — tossing and releasing, flailing and returning — and hopped into one-leg kicks before sticking her tongue out and coiling it into a tunnel.
She was trying to shake something off, it seemed. But what?
Animals, according to somatic therapists, tremble and quiver to discharge stress. The shudder is a trauma response, a kind of biological palate cleanser that allows a return to a sense of normalcy after duress. Human bodies, on the other hand, tend to store up rage and grief and panic like a pressure cooker. As a dancer, Osserman lets her intuition guide her movements to release some of that pressure.
Osserman’s daughter, the video and performance artist Liz Magic Laser, has been fascinated by how the body expresses psychological distress. For centuries, medicine viewed shaking as a symptom of hysteria; spasms and fits as evidence of delirium. Today, shaking has become a therapy for a range of ailments, physical and mental.
In her video, Osserman — stomping, swaying and swiveling — teaches an improvisational practice known as Authentic Movement in which dancers, often with eyes closed, become attuned to thoughts, emotions and memories and follow the body’s instincts to move. Laser grew up observing it at home.
“She told me, ‘Mom, I was trying to grow up and you were crawling like an animal,’” Osserman, who used to host rehearsals in their Manhattan loft, said in a joint interview with Laser.
“It was horrendous to hit puberty and to have people, like, writhing on the ground in your living space,” Laser said , laughing… As a teenager, Laser said she had “that classic rejection” of exploring the anguished mind, finding it “freaky” she said. “Freaky deaky.”
“But not any more” Her mother replied.
Read full article in The New York Times about Convulsive States & Liz Magic Laser
LAMINARIA, OCTOBER, 2023 #
Presented by Stone Circle Theatre, Ridgewood, Queens CHOREOGRAPHY: Wendy Osserman in collaboration with Lauren Ferguson, Cori Kresge and Emily Vetsch Written for chamber orchestra and dancers by Concetta Abbate
Click here to watch the performance.
A Folk Horror Chamber Suite, LAMINARIA portrays the transformation of life and death through the metaphor of underwater shadow ghosts emerging from the deep sea.
“It has been a pleasure to follow the choreography of Wendy Osserman through the years. Over time she has honed her vision and language to a personal expression that has timeless resonance. This was evident in her recent work at Theater for the New City, Laminaria, whose atmosphere addresses woman’s presence in the process of birth and renewal. Laminaria is the Latin word for kelp which is used medicinally to induce labor in abortion or childbirth.
The 3 sections, The Devil’s Apron, Water into Light and Lethe were choreographed in collaboration with the dancers in response to these titles, lyrics and music by composer/violinist/singer Concetta Abbate. The Concetta Ensemble of 10 musicians included Skip La Plante, Music Director of Wendy Osserman Dance Company, who invents and creates a wide range of fanciful percussion instruments and scores. Especially exciting was a new solo on the program by Osserman with La Plante, “no words”. The many dynamic contrasts evoked different aspects of the performer: the delighted, the struggling , the dreamy, the solemn.
The trio, Laminaria, is described by Abbate as “Folk horror, a sub-genre of horror.” She imagined an underwater sea ghost, or shadow entity of sorts: “consciousness trapped behind the shroud of grief.” Osserman split the image of the ghost into three to expand movement, spatial and sculptural possibilities. The three women: Cori Kresge, Emily Vetsch and Vanessa Walters moved in and out of fabric in sensuous and shaping motifs. Emily Vetsch performed an inspired solo recalling a bird attempting flight. Cori Kresge, coming on to 20 years of working with Osserman, is again “extraordinary” (New York Times) as she conveys Osserman’s vision, melding her movement with Osserman’s to render it. Vanessa Walters in her first season with WODC adds her strong presence and intensity of focus to the piece, completing the circle. The feeling of ensemble is what one has come to expect of Osserman’s work. Accompanied by the Concetta Ensemble there existed a unity of spirit and matter.
I think that the work of Wendy Osserman recalls the great tradition of Modern Dance made by significant women artists over the years such as Helen Tamiris, Valerie Bettis and Frances Alenikoff with whom Osserman studied and performed.”
Wendy’s Solos 2020-2022 #
Wendy is exploring the changes brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, reflecting this experience using dance and humor. This is exploration brought about by the solitude of isolation, social distancing, and the “new normal”.
Watch the series below.
Vaccinated: These movements came to me and I followed them — inspired by Merce Cunningham, who in the film recently made about him said something like “don’t think about the meaning, just make movement; it will be expressive.” That freed me to focus more intensely on form and find I had not lost but gained from his advice.
Kalo Kako: Kalo means good and kako, bad in demotic Greek. It’s striking how close the words sound though they have opposite meanings. Joseph Campbell writes in Occidental Mythology “The patriarchal point of view is distinguished…by its setting apart of all pairs-of-opposites– male and female, life and death, true and false, good and evil- as though they were absolutes in themselves and not merely aspects of the larger entity of life.” This helps me to better understand evil, myself and the two figures in head dresses who like watching me. Music: Waters’ Rite and Knowledge Rite from Euripides’ Bacchae by Petros Tabouris Ensemble and Thesalikon Theater Actor Chorus.
Snaking Queen: The witnesses who wore masks and head dresses are with me as snakes. We are 3 snake sisters once again. This solo is a sequel to Kalo Kako.
Bird-Headed Snake Goddess: I internalized features of bird and snake to become them, as goddesses have inspired us to do.
We’re Watching: This should be the last in a series of solos using masks and head dresses that emerged last summer. Wearing masks gave me the illusion of having other dancers to work with since the company couldn’t be together after mid-March. The head dresses, made by Ellen Ryder, combined with the masks made me think of the Greek furies in disguise, sisters I had been dancing and talking about in earlier solos such as FURIOUS. Music: Petros Tabouris ensemble from Ancient Greek Musical Instruments and Euripides’ Bacchae.
Who Are We?: The piece was made this past summer. It was streamed by Theater for the New City in NYC for their Halloween Cabaret October 31, 2020. Composer and musician, Alon Nechushtan, offered to write an original sound score for it this February. All About Jazz Magazine has called him “a fantastic pianist-composer with abundant chemistry and boundless eclecticism.” http://musicalon.com On February 19, Jersey City Theater Center presented Who Are We? at The Box: Reinvention curated by OpenRoad Poetry and Rescue Poetix. It was a meaningful evening.
Regrow: A solo with the future on my mind as well as memories, some imagined from the past year. Music is “Echoes of a Lost City,” by Yo-Yo Ma. (7:26). I have been very lucky to participate in Playing With Matches workshops led by Cori Kresge, superior dancer and poet. This brilliant, compassionate woman matches us up with writers, composers, choreographers, chefs, cartoonists, designers, photographers, painters, performance artists, travel loggers, actors, dreamers, craftsmen, and interdisciplinary creators. The feedback we give and take is stimulating, and sharing our work gives me the feeling of having a live audience.
Celebrating Sort Of: This character would like to celebrate the end of 2020. The movement reflects the tension we are living with and the need to let it go. Ellen Ryder made the head dress for a Mardi Gras which had to be canceled this past June. I put it on in mid-December and this solo was the result. Music: Kule Kule by Konono No.1. (4:24)
Revisit: After nine months separated from the five magical dancers in the Wendy Osserman Dance Company, I tried to inhabit some of the movement I gave three of them from UDJAT, premiered in 1985 (scroll down for full version). Udjat is the Egyptian hieroglyph of the eye of Horus, the sun god. The eye was stolen by a competing god who scattered it in the sky, but it was returned to Horus whole by the god Hathor. It is a symbol of things made more precious having been restored. (4:16)
Almost Last in 2020: The Bach Prologue is profound and exquisitely played by Kim Kashkashian, so full of movement, thought and feeling, I had to follow where it led. (4:10)
Weird White Woman: Another outrageous head dress created by Ellen Ryder prompted this solo inspired by an aunt named Letty. December 2020. (7:10)
Face It: I’m letting contradictory sides of myself out to play. Listening to both sides is the challenge. Music: Tibetan Bells III, Crossing the Line by Henry Wolff & Nancy Hennings
Fly As Swatter: After we bought these heavy duty swatters at Lowes, we realized what a mess they would make if we used them. I am always looking for costume and prop ideas especially since I am the only member of my company I have to work with these days/months. It was around the time of the vice-presidential debate, convenient to address being a fly and a swatter. Music is by the fascinating composer/musician, Skip La Plante, Music Director of Wendy Osserman Dance Company. (6:05)
Furious: The first in a series of solos in which three ancient Greek Furies give health tips, exercises, stories and a recipe. Presented by Dixon Place in June 2020 at Contagion Cafe on DPTV and by Theater for the New City’s Lower Eastside Festival in May.
Yin/Yang Yes: Trying to find balance; Taoist teachings sound more sensible than many religious ones that appeared after. Music: Magic of the Ancients (Composition in the Mystical Middle Eastern Hijaz Mode) by Michael Levy.