Pittsburgh native Jordan Marinov has been working on intimacy for a year and a half. And she’s finally finding it in the heart of New York City at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
It’s considered the world’s busiest, where approximately 200,000 people pass through the building each day. But when you’re a neophyte dance artist, maybe that’s the way to garner some attention. Marinov is involved in The Intimacies Project, currently on view through the window of a 3,000-foot storefront attached to the terminal on Eighth Avenue and 41st.
It officially began Oct. 20th and will end on Thursday. But the project began early last year. Armed with award-winning stints at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Performing Arts and Marymount Manhattan College to give her confidence, Marinov chose to remain in the dance capital of the world.
Now 29, Marinov “always had a passion for dance” but drifted into modern while in college. She has since performed for Heidi Latsky and Pascal Rekoert, among others, and subsequently formed Marinov Dance. A budding choreographer, her work has been seen at a number of places, including Dance Theater Workshop, John Jay College and Wax Works.
Most recently Marinov met up with photographer and film maker Bill Hayward, whose portraits of subjects ranging from Bob Dylan (Interview Magazine) to President Reagan (Fortune cover) have contributed to an international reputation. He also works at the independently-minded Red Dress Films.
With the intimate nature of Hayward’s portraiture and Marinov’s dance providing the connective tissue, the project was born. Hayward brought on director, playwright and classical pianist Anna
Elman, while Marinov asked dancer Billy Blanken to come on board. The four artists would provide the creative core.
Marinov explained that they had conversations, of course, and wrote in journals about intimacy, building the concept through intense collaboration. Much of the intimacy material would be based on ancient writings, such as the Greek god Eros. They decided on the storefront location and divided it into areas for dance, still photos, paintings and Red Dress films. Hayward would do photo sessions. There would be poetry. All happening live, all dependent, to a certain extent, on the audiences.
It would be interactive, where the audiences would be asked intimacy questions, some of which have produced some pretty red faces according to Marinov. One man, who had been in the “Lion King” in Germany, began singing…in German, of course. Marinov and Blanken would do repertory at the 1 p.m. dance performance, but base the 6 p.m. performance on a portrait that Hayward had taken that day.
Choreographers have been instrumental in producing multi-media performances, including Pittsburgh companies like Attack Theatre (which once was located in a storefront on Liberty Avenue and open to pedestrians on a daily basis for several years), Dance Alloy and The Pillow Project. And certainly in today’s economy, artists are finding more and more highly creative ways of pooling resources.
But the scale of this unusual New York stage is not lost on Marinov. “This is my passion,” she exclaims, relaxing on a cookie break during one of the performances. “In the artistic process you have to give yourself permission, because nobody’s going to do it for you.”
Click on The Intimacies Project for more information.
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