L.A. dance correspondant Benn Widdey sends us another installment of the NOW Festival at the Red Cat in La La Land. Early Morning Opera is anything but. And Heidi Duckler gives all those Bushwick dance freaks a run for their money…

The Little Prince & The Queen

The New Original Works Festival continued with Program Two this past weekend (July 26-28, 2007) at Redcat, the sub-ground level state-of-the-art theater of the Frank Gehry-designed Disney Hall. Part of the revitalized Los Angeles downtown scene (think gentrification and high market real estate), this monument to culture is surrounded by museums, office buildings and the ever-revered Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (think Lincoln Center three hours later).

Early Morning Opera, which is, in fact, not an opera company, but a multi-disciplinary ensemble of creators and performers, presented Autopilot, a one act play written by Jane Pickett and directed by Lars Jan. With two men performing, the play shed some light on young men’s experience in war and the effect it has on their realities.

Beginning with what seemed like a doctor’s interview with a soldier/patient, one of the men started describing scenes from his childhood into a microphone. Soon, he was narrating a first person account of his plane crashing after a bombing mission over some desert-like terrain. Images from video cameras targeting this actor from different angles were projected on the wall behind the performers and thin cables from above them held a table top (with the microphone) in front of the seated pilot. This cabling, incorporated in the multi-angled live video projections, created a jumble of crossing and uncrossing lines in the foreground/background.

Behind this, yet operated from a clear Plexiglas-covered display case at the front of the stage, was a changing backdrop of color, design and objects (goldfish, sand, ice cubes in a glass, fraying cable and more). Contrived by Bureau V (Peter Zuspan), this dÈcor underscored the sometimes Pinter-like text, with Zuspan manipulating the objects as he held a video camera on them at close range.

The two men (Jesse Bonnell and Sonny Valicenti) created a world filled with the tension of post-traumatic stress as they talked and didn’t talk with each other, as they jumped up and down singing/shouting “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” as they sang the introduction but stopped just sort of singing “Mr. Sandman,” and as they pointed fingers/guns at each other under stark lighting. Sonically beneath all of this was an effective score (by Nathan Ruyle) that alternated low level electronic humming, aircraft radio communication and large crash-like explosions.

The two actors did a very convincing and strong job of bringing this harsh reality of war to light. Bonnell clearly inhabited his pilot/soldier’s character, demonstrating a lack of balance after blindly dropping bombs from thousands of feet in the air (the character’s description of how it felt). Valicenti–as The Stranger– played a doctor, another pilot and the first pilot’s mother and was precise and specific in each part of his role.

Unfortunately, though, the dynamic scrim sometimes did steal the scene from the actors. And, with what looked like a crumbled parachute attached to the onstage cabling, I was hoping for some kind of dramatic theatrical conclusion. But that never materialized and the lights just went out. Perhaps that is that part of the group’s commentary on our current political situation or on war, in general. Tune in for future reports. Other EMO collaborators included Vanessa Porter and JR Smith.

Over the past twenty years, Heidi Duckler’s Collage Dance Theater has become an icon in Los Angeles. Labeled the “queen of site-specific dance,” Ms. Duckler has enlivened spaces as banal as a laundromat, as public as a river bed, as private as a person’s home and as non-dancerly as the Los Angeles Police Academy and Lincoln Heights Prison. This weekend, she brought her latest metamorphosis into Redcat with My Beowulf.

With a comic text by Merridawn Duckler and music by Hassan Christopher and DJ Elseware, the queen moved the audience out of their seats to watch the first of the four sections that will be part of an evening length production later on this year. As the audience stood on the stage and watched the illuminated rectangles that are usually called the stage-left wings, Beowulf on the Couch began with Jones Welch and Marissa LaBog playing therapist and patient. Against a voiceover script that creatively highlighted many of the jokes about southern California’s active psycho-social lifestyles, the dancers contorted themselves into some very interesting positions: Jones lying on his back with his legs bent above his hips and LaBog seated on the back of his thighs and resting her head on his feet, the six foot plus therapist holding his five foot two patient upside down by her ankles while squatting above her, and the two performers hanging from horizontal bars in the wing or balancing in the air against the sides of the rectangular frame. Definitely cute and worth standing up for.

Beowulf on Ice was a short film that we were able to enjoy back at our seats. Filmed at a Van Nuys ice skating rink, the film (by George Langworthy) added cartoon -like comments (BANG, SPLAT, OUCH) to this edited record of the dance. The great Zamboni machine served as the chariot for one of our hero’s nemeses and a subsequent battle ensued. With a play-by-play and color commentary by Tom and George (John Pleshette and Allen Williams), we witnessed another of the mythic warrior’s legendary exploits (sic).

Accompanied by Christopher’s supportive beat, Connor Barrett followed that with Beowulf’s Rap as B-Boy Kujo scampered around in all sorts of quick and nimble legs-leading breakdance moves. Once again, the text was deft and satiric and, happily, cleanly delivered.

The dragons in the final section, Beowulf & the Dragon, were none other than real estate agents (dancers) dressed in black streetwear (skirts for the women, slacks for the man, designed by Ryan Heffington). Ms. LaBog returned to the stage shaking hands with the audience and inviting us to purchase one of the multi-million dollar castles her character is trying to sell. With an insistent zeal for her job, LaBog and the others began a greedy battle. Unfortunately, this may be the one time where Ms. Duckler and her dancers missed their mark. Keeping the fighting realistic and including the sound of punches hitting body parts, the movement material lost my interest long before the piece concluded. With so much innovation and variety before this, I was a little let down by the choices made here. Still, DJ Elseware’s vinyl scratching kept the energy high through the end. Along with those mentioned, the other dragons included Tina Finkelman, Eva Wilder and Carlos Rodriguez.

~Benn Widdey

August 3, 2007
Categories: Dance, Los Angeles, Out of Town, Review . . Author: countercritic

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