Inhabit, by KT Neihoff, Aaron Swartzman, Bianca Cabrera, Oscar Gutierrez, Jessica Jobaris
by Clare Byrne

January 18, 2008
Joyce SoHo

It was a weird party, the kind of party where unexpected things happened that felt normal. It was the kind of party I wish had happened over my family holidays — an inner-world melt-down of movement emerging out of nowhere and necessity, plopped right there in the middle of the room and my conversation, demanding attention. It was a party where I witnessed a bar room brawl. I got to talk to someone I knew, two I had just met, and two crushes I hadn’t seen in a long time.

I didn’t know the hosts — Bianca Cabrera, Oscar Gutierrez, Jessica Jobaris, Aaron Swartzman, and KT Niehoff of Lingo Dancetheater — but they began as models of conviviality, ushering guests in to the Joyce SoHo performance space with wine, welcoming toasts and wishes. There was a bar in the middle of the space and good hors de oeuvres on the side. The hosts moved us around, skillfully maneuvering us to be right in the middle of the space — in clusters of chairs, here and there, sitting or standing. Music started and the hosts, minus KT, began short entrees of movement right among us, low and swinging to the floor, in peaceable unisons. I wondered how and why they’d decided to do these particular movements now, but the movements were easy to watch, innocuous. (more…)