Photo: Marcus Lieberenz
www.thekitchen.org
i had the wonderful pleasure of seeing possibly the most inspiring, brilliant, thought provoking, life altering piece of art performed at the kitchen theatre in chelsea on friday night. it was part of the 'under the radar festival' and ran from january 18th through the 27th. my friend drew works at the gallery and theatre and was able to get me a ticket to the show and i am eternally grateful. i was supposed to go on thursday but had to cancel due to a prior commitment. friday night was my debut dj night at the eagle with my friend max scott and his newest party called "g.r.u.f.f.". the weather outside was frightful and i rushed down to the kitchen after preparing as many cds filled with some new beats and tunes as i could, praying that i wouldn't be late for the show. magically i got downtown in record time and sped across town cursing the bitter cold and wishing i could fly ehhe. i had read the descriptions of the theatre piece a couple times and was aware that i was in for something wild and uncharted so i decided that i would watch the show and use it as a tool to inspire my music set that night. the eagle is or was known for its dark underground feel and sinewy masculinity in structure and patronage. unfortunately, despite having a good time playing and creating a devilshly lavish soundscape for the night, the crowd was looking for something more in the upstairs backroom. i did get a lot of positive feedback about how good the music was and how refreshingly different it was as well. ok back to dead set...
thankfully i went by myself. i do like to share experiences like this with good friends that i know will appreciate it but sitting there alone watching the stark, uncomfortable and schizophrenic show was an experience all in itself. the show started with three huge same sized screens in equal positons on the stage. in front of the screens were all sorts of gadgets from microphones and stands twisted and contorted in stick figure monsters to video cameras on tripods. when the show began, the screens began glowing in alternating colors while high pitched and low pitched noise changed with the rainbow reminiscent of the emergency broadcast system alerts mixed with close encounters of the third kind. then the actors all came out, androgynous and dressed in loose black clothing with all of their faces covered with a burgundy sequined mask loosely hanging over their faces. they recited bits and pieces of news broadcasts and online chats it seemed, each short vignette able to be digested long after the story would change. i found myself already enthralled by the performance i barely blinked and my body was forced completely still and at attention. it would be impossible to describe the show in its entirety as it was a powerful visual experience that each attendee most definitely had a personal and individual reaction to. soon the loose black clothing came off and eventually the masks revealing each of the performers (four male and i believe four female) in tight black leather leotards and spikey high heels and matching black cowl with only their eyes and nose and mouth showing. a smoke machine filled the stage and most of the theatre with sweet smelling smoke while an actor performed a high energy and violent dance while adorned in a full red sequined body suit. it was stunning! the leotarded actors fought over a video camera one by one while whatever was being filmed would show up on the screens behind them. already i was satisfied and could have left the theatre with a million inspirations and questions but there was so much more about to happen. words and images flashed across the screens in rollercoaster fashion and the actors would prance across the stage stopping to reenact the violent and sometimes sympathetic images. appearing throughout on the screens was an online conversation or a email log of someone looking to be killed and eaten...trying to find a real life cannibal to perform the act and they eventually do and it is the very first time you actually see the faces of each individual performer...a long ways into the show.
the third act revealed more than just their faces...at a certain point every actor and actress was completely naked yet busy either holding a camera, reciting beautful poetic prose and coversation or lip synching as another actor read his lines. the three screens and video cameras were so brilliantly utilized i sat there is complete amazement. hopefully the way i explain it will come across to you properly. this is just one instance of the media onslaught i witnessed...on screen two (the middle one) was a beautiful garden scene. an actor stood in front of it and was filmed...that image showing up on screen three (on the right). another camera filmed another actor in front of screen three with the image of the first actor in front of the garden scene screen and that all showed up on the first screen. carefully choreographed, it looked as if they were touching in a garden yet they were feet apart and often not even using their own voices. it was a total total mindfuck and had obviously had so much to say about the anxiety and emotion involved in human interaction and the struggle with emotional validation. it spoke volumes about the destruction and desire to win and the thin line between love and hate, pain and pleasure, life and death, wrong and right and what you actually experience and what you think you actually experience.
it certainly raised the age old question in my mind...'why don't i go to the theatre more often?' and at thirty years old...i'm tired of hearing it. it definitely inspired me on a completely artistic evolutionary level. it reinstalled the experimental theatre glutton in me and i am ready to embark on more adventures like this. needless to say, i started the night with a hypnotic and dark but groovy aural fixation that agressively entered neo disco and violent electro as the dancers slithered on the bar...in a cage and on a stage while hairy muscle daddy porn courtesy of www.butchbear.com splattered across the roll down screen behind him. i saw a lot of heads bobbing, a good group of my true friends showed up to support me (my dear friend kenny came up to me at one point and yelled at me for playing such a hot and nasty beated song that actually forced him to leave. he texted me 'nite - disgusting' without saying goodbye...from him that was the highest compliment), there were some hot men in the crowd but i didn't dwell on that as i tried to focus on the music and used that to impress. it was exciting to every now and then peer up from the equipment and catch someone looking up at me with a devious smile. i would say it was a decent success but a dj (one that puts the music first), like an artist...is usually his worst critic (unless you count my friend mel who always puts me in my place technically eheh)
below is a description of the show and a review. although my review was all bloody thumbs up....this one is a little rough...but i tend to like everything i see..because i have worked in every facet of the theatre from actor to singer to writer to director to sound and lighting to stage managing so i appreciate a show on so many levels just for the fact that a group of people came together and created the animal in the first place. to me that is perfection. i definitely need to either write, direct or at least conceive a show by the end of the year...or i'll die!
Dead Set #3 is a new theatre piece by Caden Manson and Big Art Group. It's described as a hybrid of video and theatre exploring trauma and spectacle through reenacted pirated dialogue, borrowed online chats, and choreography derived from sampled movement. The following description is provided by the company: "In Dead Set #3, Manson focuses on serial narratives, corrupt systems, and perverted worldviews that ignore the degradation, collapse, and destruction of present society. Individual histories and public spectacles play out on a stage that amplifies these narratives through distribution, duplication, and repetition. Incorporating multiple channels of video displayed on stacked, semi-transparent moving screens, Dead Set #3 includes both sampled and real-time video projections, which are controlled by the performers and integrate rock-and-roll stage effects, homemade Hollywood special effects, TV studio lighting, and collaged live images. Movement in the performance is derived from cut, spliced, and copied footage from mass media television programs, newscasts, and documentary footage. With the performers on stage generating live projections on screen, multiple narratives are layered, forcing the audience to make constant decisions on where to focus their attention."
Dead Set #3
January 19, 2007 By Kerri Allen Let's begin by saying Dead Set #3 has a phenomenal ending. Bizarre, discomforting, confusing -- Caden Manson and his Big Art Group have crafted a unique finale that's well worth the trek west to 11th Avenue to the Kitchen. But let's start back at the beginning. The eight-year-old company bends and twists real media -- TV news clips, YouTube posts, Internet chats -- and its own onstage multimedia to express its worldview. With four video projection screens, a handheld video camera, microphones, and plenty of artistic ego, the group aims to show "the image of trauma." It uses familiar visuals, such as photos from Abu Ghraib, but alters them. Here a black-clad actor has a black sequined bag over his head -- a little more club kid but still disturbing. The group calls Dead Set #3 a "work from the vanguard of iconoclastic theatre." Perhaps, but it is not uniformly good. Microphones go in and out, the camera gets unplugged a number of times, and the middle section, in which the actors re-enact a brutal prison beating, goes on far too long. Or maybe it's watching the male performers teeter around in black high heels. Big Art Group moves from the images of war and global destruction to those of a more personal nature. Taken from the 2002 case of two German men who consented via email and video to cannibalize and be cannibalized, the men's words are projected in pink block letters: "I am a boy. I seek someone to massacre me." The final third of the evening concerns their meeting and takes a sharp turn towards the poetic, with flowery language and naked performers caressing each other. Despite the hype and the international draw -- and that fabulous ending -- Dead Set #3 isn't the societal commentary it purports to be. It's a fine and fearsome spectacle, but not better than what most newscasts provide.
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