SCENIC DESIGN for MARK BANKIN DANCE CO., co-produced by
THE TANK in NYC
CHOREORGRAPHY by MARK BANKIN
with text by STONE TSAO
SET DESIGN by JOSH OBERLANDER
LIGHTING DESIGN by CHEYENNE SYKES
SOUND by LOLA BASILIERE
DEVISED with the COMPANY
An experimental dance theater deathbed hallucination where mind and body stand in open confrontation, Scarecrow is a quiet, disorienting psychodrama set in a temporally ambiguous suburban interior that is also a wheatfield: where memories deteriorate, the unseen insists on being felt, and the body returns to its limits.
Actors assemble in portrait tableaux and cry on cue. Blending dance with unsettling imagery, Scarecrow unfolds through fragments of plot and vignettes that loop as in a fever dream. The work oscillates between clinical cognitive structures and dissociative psychic mechanisms with scenic design by Josh Oberlander and lighting design by Cheyenne Sykes.
Stylistically influenced by Peter Greenaway’s Drowning by Numbers, E. Elias Merhige’s Begotten, and Marina Carr’s Woman and Scarecrow, the work superimposes two simultaneous yet separate narrative compositions — one of text and one of the body — whose disjunction leaves an interstice that becomes a locus for truth neither register can articulate by itself.
“As Scarecrow progresses, images accumulate, they pile up upon each other. ... Indeed, madness structures the entire piece, with moments of body horror and explorations of self-harm as spaces to investigate movement that is normally concealed, to push the boundary between illness and sanity, reflected in the expressions of the performers’ faces. Bankin and the dancers manage to render the beautiful out of what is considered ugly, to surpass stigma and portray it without tokenization. Sanity and insanity, they remind us, are part of a duplicity; two inextricable segments of the same reality.“ - Sofia Ruvera, Dance Enthusiast
“Bankin’s choreography never settles into comfort. It keeps you slightly off balance, as if you too are drifting between lucidity and dream. ... The design team builds a world that expands alongside the hallucinations. Set designer Josh Oberlander begins with a sparse stage that gradually opens into a detailed living room filled with the bric-a-brac of a fully lived life. The reveal is striking. What begins as abstraction transforms into something domestic and intimate, which only makes the unraveling more poignant. ... The technical elements elevate the work to another level.” - aaroninnyc.com
THE TANK in NYC
SCARECROW
CHOREORGRAPHY by MARK BANKIN
with text by STONE TSAO
SET DESIGN by JOSH OBERLANDER
LIGHTING DESIGN by CHEYENNE SYKES
SOUND by LOLA BASILIERE
DEVISED with the COMPANY
An experimental dance theater deathbed hallucination where mind and body stand in open confrontation, Scarecrow is a quiet, disorienting psychodrama set in a temporally ambiguous suburban interior that is also a wheatfield: where memories deteriorate, the unseen insists on being felt, and the body returns to its limits.
Actors assemble in portrait tableaux and cry on cue. Blending dance with unsettling imagery, Scarecrow unfolds through fragments of plot and vignettes that loop as in a fever dream. The work oscillates between clinical cognitive structures and dissociative psychic mechanisms with scenic design by Josh Oberlander and lighting design by Cheyenne Sykes.
Stylistically influenced by Peter Greenaway’s Drowning by Numbers, E. Elias Merhige’s Begotten, and Marina Carr’s Woman and Scarecrow, the work superimposes two simultaneous yet separate narrative compositions — one of text and one of the body — whose disjunction leaves an interstice that becomes a locus for truth neither register can articulate by itself.
“As Scarecrow progresses, images accumulate, they pile up upon each other. ... Indeed, madness structures the entire piece, with moments of body horror and explorations of self-harm as spaces to investigate movement that is normally concealed, to push the boundary between illness and sanity, reflected in the expressions of the performers’ faces. Bankin and the dancers manage to render the beautiful out of what is considered ugly, to surpass stigma and portray it without tokenization. Sanity and insanity, they remind us, are part of a duplicity; two inextricable segments of the same reality.“ - Sofia Ruvera, Dance Enthusiast
“Bankin’s choreography never settles into comfort. It keeps you slightly off balance, as if you too are drifting between lucidity and dream. ... The design team builds a world that expands alongside the hallucinations. Set designer Josh Oberlander begins with a sparse stage that gradually opens into a detailed living room filled with the bric-a-brac of a fully lived life. The reveal is striking. What begins as abstraction transforms into something domestic and intimate, which only makes the unraveling more poignant. ... The technical elements elevate the work to another level.” - aaroninnyc.com
