(Photo: Boru O'Brien O'Connell)

(Photo: Scout McNamara/Courtesy of Ryan McNamara (I Thought It Was You, 2008))

RYAN MCNAMARA
Media: Performance, video.
Lives/Works in: Soho.
What You’ll See: A performance in which McNamara—an awkward, energetic dancer—gets coaching from ABT professionals, like David Hallberg, pictured at top right. “It fascinates me,” he says, “because I have an idea of what I want my body to do, and then my body tries to do it and it fails.” Another of his pieces, in which he does what can fairly be called a zombie booty dance, was recently acquired (on video) by MoMA.

Related:

• Archive: “Art Features”
• Articles by Rachel Wolff
• Table of Contents: May 24, 2010 issue of New York | Subscribe!