Remember galloping around on your stick pony as a kid? This week you can revisit the thrill of that experience in Grand Central Terminal's Vanderbilt Hall, which conceptual artist Nick Cave's piece, Heard NY, transforms into a playground of 30 life-size, colorful raffia horses in celebration of the station's centennial.
Cave's objective is to disrupt the 750,000 people who move through Grand Central's corridors each day with a little bit of magic. Done in partnership with the MTA Arts for Transit and Creative Time, each of the artist's majestic horses are brought to life by two dancers from The Ailey School. The students perform a collective movement piece that places viewers in a dream-like world, in which the vibrant equines prance to the soft pluck of a harp and a beat supplied by a group of percussionists. Some of the horses are gentle, making subtle braying movements, while others come charging towards you like angry stallions. Decorating their faces are ornate masks made from fabrics sourced in India, Morocco, and Tibet.
Halfway through the performance, the horses unexpectedly stand upright and separate at the torso, revealing the second dancers before they all break out into a choreographed frenzy. Pieces of raffia fly through the air and land delicately on the ground, appearing like mounds of colorful pampas grass. When the drums die down, the dancers crawl back inside the horses and their peaceful trot continues until the performance ends. Heard NY is a perfect way to momentarily escape your hectic day and recall those childhood feelings of wonder.
Through March 31, 2013
GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL
87 East 42nd Street
New York, NY 10017
MAP
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Nick Cave
Cave's objective is to disrupt the 750,000 people who move through Grand Central's corridors each day with a little bit of magic. Done in partnership with the MTA Arts for Transit and Creative Time, each of the artist's majestic horses are brought to life by two dancers from The Ailey School. The students perform a collective movement piece that places viewers in a dream-like world, in which the vibrant equines prance to the soft pluck of a harp and a beat supplied by a group of percussionists. Some of the horses are gentle, making subtle braying movements, while others come charging towards you like angry stallions. Decorating their faces are ornate masks made from fabrics sourced in India, Morocco, and Tibet.
Halfway through the performance, the horses unexpectedly stand upright and separate at the torso, revealing the second dancers before they all break out into a choreographed frenzy. Pieces of raffia fly through the air and land delicately on the ground, appearing like mounds of colorful pampas grass. When the drums die down, the dancers crawl back inside the horses and their peaceful trot continues until the performance ends. Heard NY is a perfect way to momentarily escape your hectic day and recall those childhood feelings of wonder.
Through March 31, 2013
GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL
87 East 42nd Street
New York, NY 10017
MAP
Nick Cave