This was the second annual Daredevil Arts Festival held in Venice, CA. It is a multidisciplinary arts festival showcasing the diversity of artists that Venice Beach has to offer. This includes theater, comedy, cabaret, clowning, music and dance. Hats off to Electric Lodge and Pacific Resident Theatre for curating and producing this 50-plus show extravaganza. This Festival also encompasses the 40-year anniversary of the Pacific Resident Theatre – congratulations on that!
I was present to catch the two shows mentioned above at Electric Lodge’s Kelman Theatre, which is a lovely enclosed black box space with excellent sightlines for dance. Because the nature of the Festival does not lend itself to fully printed programs, I was helped in my search for the casting by one Matthew Tennant who also gave me the card of Kent Jenkins, the Associate Artistic Director. I was seeing the 7th show being presented that day out of 10 total. So, Matthew and Kent had their hands full as you can imagine. They still found time to aid me and for that I am grateful.
In “Dance for Dionicia” no one was murdered, torn apart limb from limb or ripped asunder by a furious mob of frenzied women. More’s the pity, for that is what a Dance for Dionicia means. Or more specifically, a dance for Dionysus by his female followers most often insensible due to wine induced hysteria. “Dionicia” is a Spanish-origin feminine given name that means “follower of Dionysus”. Remember Orpheus? That is exactly what happened to him after he inadvertently wandered into a group of them bemoaning his loss of Eurydice and then lost his head. There were hints here and there during the piece, of movement induced ecstasy but none sustained long enough for us to connect the name of the piece with the mythology it is attached to. There is a frenzied unison section and a point at which all down make-believe shots in a salute as a nod to the title of the piece. These were fun and held our attention. The set also alluded to the title with a series of flowers lining the downstage limit, a nod to the Nature aspect of the Followers of Dionysus.
Daredevil Arts Festival – “Dance for Dionicia” Choreographed by Ariana Chavez – Photo by Silvia Spross.
Much of Ariana Chavez’s choreography works and tells us of the emotional context of what is transpiring onstage. That is well done. What was lacking was technical know-how in order to allow the piece to flow. Case in point, there were far too many blackouts for transitions that were unnecessary or awkward in terms of props being brought on and off the stage or people exiting or entering. In the case of many of these transitions the music would cut out abruptly or fade too quickly for the work that went before it to be comprehended and assimilated into the visuals of the next scene. There was a beautiful female duet that ended with the music bumping out in one count, then a blackout where one of the performers hurried off leaving the other one behind when new music and the lights came up for her to do a solo. All that was needed was a fluid transition from the duet to the solo through technical means that would not have cut the audience out of the piece. There were so many abrupt endings to sections that it looked like a series of disconnected dance pieces. The opening solo begins and ends with the performer facing upstage away from the audience. We can only see the back and arms but no face to identify and connect with. There were duets and trios and all moved well. The context was not clear in terms of the title and what it had to do with the actual movement onstage. The dancers all performed well and were enveloped in the piece. They were: Krystal Castillo, Scout Coneja, Nathalia Guzman, Amanda Harris, Jordan Harris, Joyce Lo, Telan Lucas.
For “Water and Rock: A Study on Fluidity and Rigidity” by Leanna Fodor, we had to wait for the flowers to be struck and then a keyboard was set in the upstage right corner of the space with two women attending it. A large rock was pushed to center stage being a very lovely paper-mâché simulacrum. A woman was placed center down from the rock, in front of it, while two bowls of water were placed on each side of her. This performer had very long fingernails and she began the piece by quickly tapping them on the floor like typewriter keys being pushed very fast. Because of the bowls of water, I immediately thought of “Circe Invidiosa” by John William Waterhouse 1892. Two more women arrive and crawl to the water bowls where they put their hands in to drink and then posed looking at the audience. This was a cheeky ‘look at me’ moment. The costumes were lovely grey skirts and pants, loose fitting and draped along the body accentuating curves.
Daredevil Arts Festival – “Water and Rock: A Study on Fluidity and Rigidity” Choreography by Leanna Fodor – Photo by Silvia Spross.
The choreography for this piece was fine and worked when it was called upon. For the most part there was a series of poses, sensual in nature with arms raised while water dripped onto the body standing languidly nonchalant or lying on one side with feet crossed leaning on one elbow. I did not discern a “study” of fluidity or rigidity but rather impressions of both through the body adapting different positions to the phenomena. Water was spilt and one of the women entered a frenzied solo seemingly divining as she contorted and spasmed over it. This was fantastic and could have taken us somewhere unexpected, but she stopped and walked offstage. Many of the exits and entrances were pedestrian and had no aspect of fluidity nor rigidity inherent. Performers merely walked in and then walked off. This was a missed opportunity to engage with the depth of the piece. Entire Philosophies have been built around water and its relationship to rock. The physics of both were not addressed.
Interestingly, the man in the cast was the bearer of Rock. It seems an obvious choice and yet there are so many instances of females and rocks in mythology. There was a beautiful sequence where the male performer had to push the rock from upstage to center and then he cleans it (no doubt to remove the blood stains from his liver being torn out on it) and then, like Sisyphus, he pushes it back upstage. Is he Prometheus or Sisyphus, or both? He also drops little stones all over the stage and then has to clean those up as well.
Daredevil Arts Festival – “Water and Rock: A Study on Fluidity and Rigidity” Choreography by Leanna Fodor – Photo by Silvia Spross.
The music was almost all recorded with only a couple of instances where the two musicians in the corner stood up and used the keyboard for a very short time. In between cues they both sat under the keyboard and definitely distracted from the action center stage. In the future I would suggest that they exit and enter when the cues called for their music. It was such a small space and impossible to ignore them. The fluidity of the work came through in the sensual movement and poses while the rigidity was harder to discern. Dancers were: Leanna Fodor, Mo Gibson, Ayden Grace, Jules Mara, Chelsea Moore, Julio Rivera, Kahni Shi.
It is wonderful that this festival allows for the opportunity for so many to put up work and learn from their experience. I look forward to the maturity of both Chavez and Fodor as they continue to learn and grow due to such opportunities.
For more information on the Electric Lodge, please visit their website.
For more information about the Pacific Resident Theatre, please visit their website.
Written by Brian Fretté for LA Dance Chronicle.
Featured image: Daredevil Arts Festival – “Dance for Dionicia” Choreographed by Ariana Chavez – Photo by Silvia Spross.
