Skip to main contentPICA's second annual feast of performance art, the Time-Based Art Festival, has been sumptuous. The good news is that even if you missed the following events, you have five days to try and catch up.
Diamanda Galás: Defixiones
Since time's dawn, dark-veiled women have wandered ruined fields and stared out the empty windows of scorched houses, mourning sisters, brothers, husbands and children delivered up to the sticky butcher's block of world politics. Like such a woman, wrapped in black, tear-streaked and hoarse with anger, performance artist and diva qua non Diamanda Galás took the stage in what can only be termed a 75-minute funeral ceremony for the nameless victims of genocide--the Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks. Galás summons up and gives voice to the bones and grit of humanity snuffed out before its natural time. Diamanda was always Diamanda, whether at the piano or holding a microphone, ululating lullabies or screeching imprecations at fate (her flinging forth of the Greek word for fire, photiá, could have set the Newmark's curtains ablaze), or just standing iconically against the plangent reds, yellows, greens and blues that spread like stains across the scrim behind. Galás is a singer of phenomenal, even surreal vocal abilities, a riveting actor and writer as well as a strangely sexy stage sorceress neither seen nor heard since the days of Callas or Duse. (GM)
Newmark Theatre, Friday, Sept. 10.
10 Tiny Dances
Mike Barber's curatorship of one of the world's tiniest dance spaces grows stronger with each outing, and his current lineup was a marked improvement over last year's TBA spot. But the one similarity is that Barber's own choreography is usually the highlight. The best act of the evening was Fetch, which he co-choreographed and performed with that fearless gamine Cydney Wilkes. Barber also conjured up Smoke, with dancers Robyn Conroy, Margretta Hansen and the always-fascinating Jenn Gierada transporting us to some swanky taxi-dance spot. Randee Paufve's No Time to Be Clever and Daniel Addy's 44SUNSETS (with Christine Calfas and Dawn Joella Jackson) helped make this purview of local dance an exciting night. (SS)
Machineworks, Friday, Sept. 10.
Diamanda Galás: La Serpenta Canta
Galás is a master of catharsis, that transformational element our old pal Aristotle saw as essential to dramatic tragedy. Sunday night she performed gut-punching interpretations of classic American tunes like "Long Black Veil" and "Gloomy Sunday," bringing a rapt audience to the edge of death, over and over, sometimes pushing us straight in. This unadorned show, La Serpenta Canta, brought out Galás' extraordinary range and otherworldly collection of vocal techniques and sounds. It also unleashed a raw emotive honesty I've only seen matched by her Plague Mass. Here, it was far less angry and far more accessible, still powerful enough to raise two standing ovations and many mascara-smudged eyes. (TLB)
Newmark Theatre, Sunday, Sept. 12.
Martha@Machineworks
On the simplest of levels, Richard Move impersonates Martha Graham. He reads her works, mimics her speech and demonstrates her movement. But with care, playfulness and authority, Move transcends his own convention. He fully personifies not only the artist but the ego of an artist, the passion of conviction and commitment to artistic craft. We see firsthand what it is to be an artist who trusts oneself so fully that breaking through to new artistic territories seems like an inevitability. But is prior knowledge of Martha Graham's work and influence necessary for an impact on the audience? Does it lack significance otherwise? Perhaps the opposite is true here, that the introduction to Graham's performance is best demonstrated through such a performance. Richard Move himself performs with precision. His dedication and respect for Martha allows the audience to focus on the genius of the dancer, rather than the worry of whether he is offering a true portrait of who she was. (IG)
Machineworks, Sunday, Sept. 12.
Continues through Sunday, Sept. 19. Call 242-1419 or see pica.org for further information; call 248-4335 for tickets.
WWeek 2015