TBA 2010: Gloria's Cause

One of the strangest and least predictable performances I've seen at PICA's Time Based Arts festival, Seattle Chreographer Dayna Hanson's take on the lesser-known aspects of the American Revolution incorporates a creepy bald eagle mask (seen above), an animatronic George Washington, plenty of cherry pie, some racial tension, a live score that ranges from funk to noise and a lot of dancing. It's a work in progress, and there are parts that make no sense and others that just don't belong, but Gloria's Cause is, for the most part, the least didactic examination of American myth and history I've ever seen on stage. Hanson and her co-creators cast the writing of the Declaration of Independence as a rushed sort of small town meeting (which it was, really) and ponder the nature of the supposed equality the nation was founded upon without getting heavy or depressing. I can't recall ever having been so entertained by historical revisionism.

Winningstad Theatre, Portland Center for the Performing Arts, 1111 SW Broadway, 224-7422. 6:30 pm Saturday-Monday, Sept. 11-13. $20.