This is the time of year when performance slows, when companies lean towards the family-friendly, and those of us who think too damn much about art tuck into making lists. On which note, look for my live music list and records soon, theatre and visual art at the end of the month because there are things on the NYC agenda that could be contenders. But before you surrender to that warm egg nog stupor, there are two thorny, fascinating pieces this weekend to add a little bite and a second thought to your tidings of good cheer.
I saw Available Light’s production of Iranian playwright Nassim Soleilmanpour’s White Rabbit Red Rabbit in the last night of its first weekend at Wild Goose, at the end of a day that started at 4 am with a work testing call. I wrote a preview for Columbus Underground, interviewing facilitator (and AVLT Artistic Director) Eleni Papaleonardos and three actors in this project, so I was already excited. Public mea culpa, I apparently accidentally spelled Eleni’s name Elini in the article and missed it until just now. One of my favorite artists in Columbus, I should always get her name correct.
I left the theatre stunned. Even as exhausted as I was, the uncomfortable identification between actor the playwright’s unfiltered voice, the sense of watching a beacon from far away and having to decode its signals. The humor and the audience participation and sudden shifts into abject bleakness and rage all had a profound effect on me. I didn’t stay for the talk-back because my complicity and I needed air and sunlight, but I stopped at the taco truck and messaged a friend about it for twenty minutes. I don’t want to give much away but if you can tolerate random audience participation, do not miss this. Some of the best actors in town performing a sui generis experience.
The other must-see this weekend is a poetic dance work from Detroit-based artist Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, Séancers. I conducted a fascinating interview with Kosoko for Columbus Underground which left me hungry to see this work. In it, Kosoko said, “I also find art is a way of communicating with an audience, so we know that we’re asking the same questions as it relates to our humanity and ways of being in the world,” Kosoko said. ”We’re going about it in different ways, but I think those core inquiries are certainly present in all of us. That proposal invites the audience, piques their interest enough to venture into the room and come on this journey with me.”
This work received amazing press from the New York Times, in which Kosoko said, “The creative work for me is a catalyst to engage in dialogue and critical conversation. That’s really what I thirst for, to be part of a larger conversation.” Art in America called it “powerful interrogation of the way whiteness restricts and confines and fails to provide ways out.” In a solid year for dance and theatre at the Wex, this promises to be another high point. Get out there, try to open yourself up, especially if, like me, you easily get overwhelmed and beaten down this time of year.
Screen of Distance 