Weekly Girl Crushes

Photo Credit: Jacob Krupnik
Photo Credit: Jacob Krupnik

Girl Walk // All Day

When you are walking through Central Park and run into a roving pack of modern dancers, there is normally only one option: flight. But Girl Walk // All Day has made me rethink my blanket policy on impromptu modern dance performances. Starring Anne Marsen as “the Girl,” Girl Walk // All Day is a 75-minute film featuring Marsen and two male dancers who stomp, flail, and pirouette through all five boroughs (yes, even Staten Island). We first meet Marsen in a claustrophobic ballet studio. But the classical music soon gives way to a soundtrack by Girl Talk as Marsen ecstatically breaks out of the studio’s four walls. This rupture of the public/private divide generates much of the humor, tension, and joy in the film. Although a vague narrative of “the Girl,” “the Guy,” and “the Creep” runs through the film, the “story” of each scene emerges when Marsen invades the private space of others. A few of the bystanders clearly recognize that they are being filmed, but the vast majority respond with genuine confusion, laughter, awe, and, only rarely, complete disinterest. In one particularly fascinating section, Marsen carries countless shopping bags as she stumbles through a hoard of Occupy Wall Street protesters. Some begin clapping, assuming she’s a performance artist denouncing capitalism, while others actually mistake her for a clueless shopper. Neither of these interpretations is entirely correct, but this is unimportant. What matters is that the private thoughts of the bystanders affect the public performance. Whether she is being championed by tourists on the High Line or being chased out of Yankee Stadium by security guards, Marsen is challenging our urban propensity to turn on our iPods and shut out the city. While NYC is known for its stoic citizens who could see a man change his pants on a subway train without reacting, NYC is also famous for forcing people to live their private lives in public: we make out in front of Grant’s Tomb, have screaming fights inside a Duane Reade, and then cry on the Q train all the way home. Girl Walk // All Day gets at this essential contradiction of urban living, celebrating the chaos of the city and the quiet lives of its inhabitants. Continue reading “Weekly Girl Crushes”