Another good year of Fresh Meat

Fresh Meat. ODC Theater. 6/15/07.

Fresh Meat once again delivers a fabulous collection of performances by transgender artists. The show was well organized (except for the obnoxious bit where they sold out, had a huge line, and started the show about 15 minutes late) and, for once, didn't feel too long. It was heavily dance-focused with performance of Afro-Colombian dance by Columbian Soul, aerial acrobatics by Michael Chernus-Goldstein, and hip hop by Freeplay Dance Crew in addition to an extensive new piece entitled "Bully" by the festival's artistic director, Sean Dorsey. In the realm of music, the fabulous Shawna Virago performed delightfully provokative rock 'n' roll and Triple Threat Taiko were adorable and extremely powerful. But I'll focus on the performance art/theater type pieces, since that's what I know best.

I was impressed by Imani's Henry's performance of single monologue that was an excerpt from a larger work about slavery. I believe it's a scene from "Living in the Light" but I seem to have misplaced my program during the trip home from San Francisco, so the information I have is less accurate than it should be. The piece Henry performed was beautifully self-contained and coherent, while opening up to and suggesting the longer work. In it, he referenced himself as trans briefly by talking about himself as a young black girl, but that was in no way the focus of the performance. The excerpt was intellectually dense and engaging and definitely made me want to see the Henry's whole show.

ryka aoki de la cruz debuted a new piece of performance art called "≤1" (less than or equal to one). It was a piece that I look forward to seeing ryka perform again - it was intensly emotional and complex and funny at times and I think it will evolve in performance in good ways.

Sean Dorsey's "Bully" may have been the highlight of the evening for me. It's a lovely, poignant new work about bullying and queer friendship that will eventually be performed as part of a longer work called Untold Stories. Dorsey performs this piece with two other men, which I found interesting because I had only seen him partnering with women before. His work continues to employ lifts and mirroring to eloquently express the ways that people interact. The bullying felt most violent and violating to me in one moment that the dancer playing the bully character touched Dorsey's chest and hips, drawing attention to the feminine parts of Dorsey's masculine body. While the narrative of the piece describes much more dangerous violence, it was this move early in the performance that emphasized the sense of physical violation created by bullying for me. Dorsey's combination of music, choreography, and narrative continues to impress and engage me and I highly recommend this powerful work.

Overall, I had a highly entertaining evening at Fresh Meat, and I'm very glad I attended. Look for more great work by all of these artists throughout the year.

A Nearly Perfect Modern Fairy Tale

Sleeping Beauty Wakes. Kirk Douglas Theater. 4/6/07.

Sleeping Beauty Wakes is a new musical created though collaboration between Deaf West Theatre and New York based musical trio GrooveLily. When that was all I knew about it, I had assumed it wasn't a show for me. I'm not deaf and I knew nothing about GrooveLily. Boy was I wrong.

It's a truly magical production, with all the simplicity and beauty that a fairy tale should have; its modern setting doesn't overwhelm or overburden the basic story. The music is beautiful and haunting, featuring striking harmonies between electric violin, drums, and keyboard that nonetheless showcase the human voices and the words and the story as a musical must. Even better, the musical itself had a feminist sensibility through which it reconciled itself to its female lead sleeping through much of the story: "aren't we all waiting for one great kiss?"

Everyone involved in this production was extremely talented, despite a confusing array of actors singing other parts. The lead actress, Alexandria Wailes acts and signs the role of Sleeping Beauty delightfully, but the character is voiced by the multi-talented electric violinist and co-writer/composer Valerie Vigoda. Together, the two of them create a lovely and complex character that manages to be spunky and compelling despite a great deal of sleeping. Similarly, her romantic lead is played by Russell Harvard with voice by keyboardist Brendan Milburn. Although other people sometimes also provide voices for both lead characters. Prominent local talents Kevin Earley and Erika Amato play many of the voices and supporting characters, changing their voices to switch between several roles, while also signing and acting. Amato's singing as the Evil Fairy was particularly powerful.

While it may be difficult to figure out who's singing for which character when, the story itself and its talented performers are so compelling that you don't notice anything but the story and the beautiful performances that create it. I applaud writer/composers Brendan Milburn, Rachel Sheinkin and Valerie Vigoda for their excellent show and all the actors for brilliant performances. I highly encourage you to go see this show.