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Getting Low

From the moment Darrell Jones steps onto the platform erected as a stage in an empty gallery space of MoMa PS1, he’s constantly in motion. Barefoot, in t-shirt and workout pants, he moves to a beat only he can hear, AirPods sticking out from his ears. Both fluid and awkward, his energy is frenetic. He staggers and skitters, rolling his head, turning around himself, shaking it out or off. He could be warming up or he could be cooling down. He doesn’t stop for nearly the full duration of the 30-minute “Low,” performed in collaboration with choreographer Ralph Lemon.

Performance

Darrell Jones and Ralph Lemon: “Low”

Place

MoMa PS1, Long Island City, New York, NY, February 20, 2025

Words

Karen Hildebrand

Darrell Jones and Ralph Lemon's “Low.” Photograph by Walter Wlodarczyk

“Low” is one of six performative events that are part of Ceremonies Out of the Air: Ralph Lemon at MoMa PS1 through March 24, an interdisciplinary exhibit that documents Lemon’s creative investigations over the last two decades. The exhibit features some 60 pieces—drawings, sculpture, video installations, including the not-to-be-missed spaceship that Lemon collaborator Walter Carter (1907–2010) built from materials found in his Mississippi Delta garage. Lemon, who famously disbanded his dance company in 1995 after ten years of rising success, was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2020.

Billed as a world premiere, “Low” derives from the warm-up and recovery practices that occur adjacent to Lemon’s previous choreographic work (“Come home Charley Patton,” 2004; “How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere?” 2010; “4Walls,” 2012; “Rant,” 2019-present). The improvisational energy of Jones’ performance is fiercely internal. In a program note, he writes, “It’s a big ask, to ask an audience to sit in the time of this rigor. I still have questions about it being seen.” 

While Jones continues his gyrations, a giant video projection, duplicated on both sides of the stage, shows a group of dancers working together in much the same manner. Jones himself is featured, alongside other long time Lemon collaborators, Djédjé Djédjé Gervais, Gesel Mason, Okwui Okpokwasili, Omagbitse Omagbemi, and David Thomson. 

At first Lemon keeps to the perimeter of the stage, not engaging directly with Jones. Instead, he steps up to a microphone and conducts a dialogue with a recorded (or at least unembodied) voice that seems to cover the nature and terms of the practice. I catch a few phrases such as “you never go to the floor;” “de-languaging;” “high, low, mid-level;” “learning, as opposed to learning material.”

Darrell Jones and Ralph Lemon's “Low.” Photograph by Walter Wlodarczyk

Darrell Jones and Ralph Lemon's “Low.” Photograph by Walter Wlodarczyk

After that, the video switches off and Jones dances alone in silence. A different video then shows an artful black and white image of a horse and Lemon delivers a moving literary monologue, “To kill a horse or not to kill a horse . . . he’s going to die anyway. It’s war—or something worse.” The text includes quotes from Josephine Baker and choreographer Simone Forti. Lemon whips out a harmonica that he plays while jumping and turning like a pogo-stick.

Whereas Jones moves seemingly without regard to the audience or to the video behind him, Lemon’s role is more outwardly performative—he’s speaking to the audience. Even so, his delivery is less presentational than say a theater monologue, or a singer performing a song. The video dancers are clearly not performing for us. It makes me wonder about the role of witness in this work. Does it matter that the audience is present? Despite the AirPods and internal gaze, Jones surely can’t tune out the audience completely. We’re breathing and reacting mere feet away. “I still have questions about it being seen,” Jones ends his program note. “I’m edging more towards observers being complicit in our time together—a little more weight on our shared presence, over the ocular.”

The video returns with a close-up of Gesel Mason’s face. Meanwhile, Lemon has dragged a large wood panel to the front of the stage. Jones contorts himself into a pretzel shape, resting the crown of his head on the floor, breathing hard. Lemon, in a wide-legged kind of push-up, straddles a print from his geometric series of drawings that I recognize from the exhibit, then crumples the paper onto the stage. It sits there like a cartoon bubble. Jones is now talking to himself in an obsessive manner. Occasionally I hear the sound of crickets—a timing signal for the performers? On video, Okwui Okpokwasili sobs loudly. Lemon sings into the mic to loud recorded music, then closes his eyes and sways. It’s a lot of seemingly disconnected activity. I find it riveting, even though I don’t always know where to look.

Darrell Jones and Ralph Lemon's “Low.” Photograph by Walter Wlodarczyk

Darrell Jones and Ralph Lemon's “Low.” Photograph by Walter Wlodarczyk

Then finally, Lemon steps onstage with Jones. Standing with his back to the rear wall, the stage seems somehow brighter and I can’t wait to see what he’ll do. Jones barely acknowledges his presence—he simply continues the physical rigor, laughing and muttering to himself. Lemon mostly skirts the dancer, judiciously pondering where he might engage, his cool pace a contrast with the gleaming perspiration on Jone’s face. They’re dressed nearly alike, both in shades of blue-green t-shirts. Lemon’s athletic shoes give him an extra bounce when he suddenly comes at Jones from behind, running at his back. Jones swats him away like a bug and for a moment the two brawl like children, their arms flailing around head and shoulders. I’m delighted when later he does it again. The entire show is worth this moment of connection.

Lemon has one more monologue, this time delivered onstage. Jones has collapsed on the floor, no longer moving. “He got a haircut today, and a shave,” Lemon reads from his handful of loose paper, and runs his hand over his head. “His Afro is gone. I showed him a bunch of colors . . . . I read his lips.” Lemon folds forward at the waist and freezes, looking at the floor. Is it a bow, or a yoga pose? He stands, takes a step forward, and bows again. The stage is still and quiet. He moves the mic stand to centerstage and I can see him visibly prepare to yell out the next lines. It’s startling nonetheless. Jones lies there at his feet. Lemon recovers his calm, “How goes it? I hope you’re in the sun . . . . Yep, a little in trepidation” is the final thing we hear before both men exit the stage.

A final performance is scheduled before the exhibit closes: March 22, “Rant #6,” described as “a very loud site-specific sound, movement, voice, Brown/Black body cultural experiment in rage, freedom and or ecstasy…”

Karen Hildebrand

Karen Hildebrand is former editorial director for Dance Magazine and served as editor in chief for Dance Teacher for a decade. An advocate for dance education, she was honored with the Dance Teacher Award in 2020. She follows in the tradition of dance writers who are also poets (Edwin Denby, Jack Anderson), with poetry published in many literary journals and in her book, Crossing Pleasure Avenue (Indolent Books). She holds an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Originally from Colorado, she lives in Brooklyn.

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