Rockaway Beach Hosts Daring New Dance

Rockaway Beach served as the stage for Alexa West's innovative dance piece, "Amusement," earlier this summer. Performed at Beach 110 Street, the choreography featured rapid, striking movements and complex footwork, demanding significant skill from dancers navigating the difficult sandy terrain.

West, drawing from her background in sculpture, designed a unique performance space comprising three sunken plywood pits, painted white to create confined visual landscapes. These artificial elements contrasted with the expansive beach environment, challenging traditional site-specific dance conventions.

The production also incorporated sculptural horns placed along the water, emitting eerie warning sounds that created friction with the dancers' stylized, often sensual, movements.

West's inspirations for "Amusement" spanned from old Hollywood musicals and 1930s chorus numbers to perfume commercials. She aimed to blend highly stylized, non-narrative elements with a sense of imposed drama and abstraction, making the audience question the nature of amusement itself.

This work represents a shift for West, resulting in a style she describes as "poppier" yet still retaining a sense of the unconventional. The piece was commissioned as part of the Beach Sessions series, curated by Sasha Okshteyn and Morgan Griffin, who sought choreographers with kinetic energy and theatrical flair.