German efficiency and choreographer Anne Imhof has unveiled her largest efficiency up to now in New York. Titled “DOOM: HOUSE OF HOPE,” the three-hour-long immersive piece transforms the Park Avenue Armory’s 55,000 sq. foot drill corridor into a robust panorama of group, hope and chaos.
Housed between a fitness center ground overlay and a hanging purple doomsday clock on a dangling jumbotron, audiences are instantly welcomed into Imhof’s moody, teen universe. A unfastened adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, a patchwork of props and folks adorn “DOOM” – from cheerleaders and basketball gamers to a baby-punk band and two dozen Cadillac Escalades.
That includes a forged of 60 dancers, artists, musicians, poets and skaters – together with actress Talia Ryder and Eliza Douglas, Balenciaga’s darling and Imhof’s longtime collaborator – the efficiency delves into quite a lot of creative varieties: tattooing, line dancing, reside music and poetry. “’DOOM’ is my love letter to New York, a metropolis that may be very near my coronary heart and has impressed me for a few years,” Imhof defined. “For this present, I really feel honored to work with a various subset of town’s creative group.”
Beneath its edgy exterior, “DOOM” pulses with a titular feeling of hope. Imhof provides a movement-based language for a world the place anxiousness and optimism coexist in a balancing act. What’s bleak at face-value displays a collective state of consciousness – its true, zombie-like kind – with crystal readability.
The piece marks Imhof’s first return to New York since her 2015 presentation at MoMA PS1, and builds on concepts and themes explored in Imhof’s Golden Lion-winning durational efficiency “Faust” proven on the 2017 Venice Biennial.
“The work isn’t full till the viewers is current, and I sit up for experiencing the vitality that New York will deliver to it.”
“DOOM: HOUSE OF HOPE” is now on view in New York by means of March 12. Tickets might be bought by means of the Armory’s web site.
