Live Shorts: ST2A

Act Curtain

Live Shorts: ST2A takes place in Studio 2. As I enter, the room is dark. A black performance floor is flanked on four sides by rows of chairs illuminated in soft spotlighting. The walls of the studio are lined with black translucent fabric. Large bulbs hang in columns behind the fabric, pulsing individually into existence, and then fading to a dim glow until the first performance begins.

Part I—Already Seen

Two women step onto the performance floor and stand together at the center. Slowly they begin to move: bending and strutting away from each other in symmetrical unison. Workers place two projectors on opposite edges of the floor, then lower screens in the remaining corners. Soft music begins to play as the dancers spiral outward to the audience then back, each time approaching us more closely. Light appears projected on the screens. At first abstract, the light transforms into the shape of objects (a purse, a candlestick, a briefcase) descending on a yellow rope. The dancers cross behind the screens disappearing from view then cross in front of the projectors, their shadows enveloping the screen. They begin to echo and complement one another in their gestures, no longer just perfect reflections. The dance continues as an evolving pattern. Similar movements repeat while others are added or subtracted. And the lighting of the room, which was at first bright, steadily dims through the entire performance until the dancers stop, the music fades, and the room goes dark.

Already Seen is intended to explore the idea of “loops.” The audience little by little discovers a changing performance. When you are finally lulled into a secure understanding of the piece’s steady evolution, the dancers slap their hands together and spring forward or the guitar erupts in a jumble of harsh shrieking notes, startling you back to attention. I enjoyed the piece; it was beautiful, and the constant evolution kept me enchanted.

Part II—The Golden Veil: A Cautionary Entertainment

Now the room fills with banjo music and a young woman singing. A man and woman in old-fashioned clothes spread a tarp on the center of the performance floor. The woman stretches out on her knees to smooth out the tarp and the man ties a white cloth mask over his eyes. Blood red yarn hangs down over his face. And as the woman turns around and sees him, the room is plunged into darkness. The audience freezes—afraid to move or breathe. In the red light of the exit sign I can see the silhouette of the man moving closer and closer to where we sit. The silence and darkness stretches on for minutes—a painful empty silence. The audience shift uncomfortably in their seats. Finally the soft sounds of a forest drift down from the speakers. A tiny green light appears above then slowly descends. As it nears the ground, the woman laying on the tarp is illuminated by a growing circle of green light. She speaks of girls who fall asleep by a river in the green wood and wake up covered in marks and bruises—girls who “abdicate the thrones of their fragile bodies.” Her voice is silenced by the sound of a horse approaching—closer and closer until the pounding of his hooves fills the room. The man appears again, no longer masked—his face illuminated by a red light. He talks about riding his horse through the woods. “…A teeming city, broken open—I’m not sure if they were men or demons, or what they were after.” And he talks of finding a girl. The woman now sits on a stool under a spotlight, gently playing a banjo and singing of her search for a man to love. The piece ends as she stands and gives a final warning to avoid the green woods.

The Golden Veil was not what I expected. It looked nothing like the photos I had seen online. Looking back at the description now, I suppose it fits. (In the program, The Golden Veil is described as “the tale of two improbable figures, ghosts trapped in the sympathetic reverberations of a collective psyche.”) I still wasn’t prepared to be that terrified by a performance. But that’s what I loved about it. It was shocking and frightening and unexpected.

Part III—Paul Abacus

Whispering voices carry over the speakers. “The green light is on!” Then the microphone is silenced. Then a man begins to hum and sing and entering through the back door Paul Abacus begins his "pantomime—with words." He speaks so fast—his thoughts fluctuate so quickly that I can hardly hope to keep up. He says so many things, makes the most random connections that I can’t begin to tell you any of the things he said. All I know is that I found every word hilarious and believed everything he said. And then all too soon he left the same way he entered—humming through the back door.

My only problem with Paul Abacus’s piece was that it was over too quickly. I would listen to him for hours (even Early Morning Opera: Abacus proved unable to gratify my new found infatuation). It was by far the simplest piece and yet I think it was my favorite.

The entire Live Shorts: ST2A was an emotional journey. From beauty and rhythmic tranquility to dread and distress to hilarity and adulation it was a great performance and I’m so grateful I had the chance to see it.