Private Dances: Lotto Royale Offers a Door to an Experience
The New York Times River to River Festival presents an art experiment in which audience members and dance artists, paired randomly, meet for one-on-one performances.
Can I fall in love with a stranger? the dance artist Lauren Bakst said. Could a stranger fall in love with me? Will I be rejected? Will we be disappointed?
Its hard to know what will happen at Lotto Royale, a two-day presentation of one-on-one performances, but it does bring out the nerves. Its like a blind date: Audience members reserve a time slot and are paired with dance artists through a lottery system. Maybe we dont want each other, Bakst said. But what can we do together? As Ive been working, thats whats kept my attention.
This weekend, 17 dance artists including Amelia Bande, Mayfield Brooks, Moriah Evans, Jennifer Monson, Elliot Reed, Alex Rodabaugh and Anh Vo will each present six private performances over two days as part of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Councils River to River Festival. This is the second edition of Lotto Royale, which was first presented in Berlin; the format was conceived by Camila Malenchini, a dancer and curator, in collaboration with the choreographer Layton Lachman and the collective T.E.N.T.
