TLab Shares hosts Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble | ‘In the Eye of a Dream,’ a surreal theatre/dance experience | New York

Theater Martin Cid Magazine
Photo credit: Jeff Somers

TLab Shares hosts the Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble’In the Eye of a Dream from Thursday, November 9 to Sunday, November 19, 2023 at Theaterlab, 357 W. 36th Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY, choreographed by Anna Sokolow and directed by Samantha Geracht. General Admission tickets are $35, Students/Senior tickets are $25. Tickets are available for purchase at https://theaterlabnyc.com/in-the-eye-of-a-dream-november-9-19-2023/.

With In the Eye of a Dream, the Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble has reconceived Frida and Magritte Magritte as a new immersive installation in the intimate white box theater of Theaterlab, with projections by Kathleen Kelley of Proteo Media.

In Frida, a portrait based on Sokolow’s personal relationship with Frida Kahlo, Sokolow created a multimedia homage to her friend’s internal life and public persona. Guest artist Christine Dakin, former artistic director of the Martha Graham Company, will dance the title role.

Sokolow’s masterwork Magritte, Magritte sets the disturbing, paradoxical paintings of Surrealist Rene Magritte into action, with text by John White. Guest artist Clarence Brooks will join us in the role of the Threatened Assassin.

Artistic Director: Samantha Géracht

Guest Artists: Christine Dakin, Clarence Brooks

Projections: Kathleen Kelley

“Miss Sokolow has played ‘living paintings’ with several canvases by the Belgian Surrealist Rene Magritte. Her own work has shared a similar sense of menace in everyday life, and Magritte’s concern with everyday objects finds a common ground in her interest in the homeliness of existence…The images were never short of startling.” — Anna Kisselgoff, New York Times

Frida incorporates paintings by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo as slide projections. Yet Sokolow’s images are equally stunning, from the phalanx of colorfully dressed dancers, hands outstretched, who come to impale and then support the title character, to the riveting duet for … Frida and … her lover Diego Rivera. The steeliness of his grip, as he quietly enfolds her with one arm, can be judged from the force of her reaction when she spins away. Any choreographer with that kind of insight deserves to be widely celebrated.” — Robert Johnson, The Star-Ledger

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