Fame or Famine

Via Turbulence (the page my browser always opens first) I learn of "mech[a] output", which is as big a mashup of sources as I’ve ever seen:

"mech[a] is a dance of restraint, based on koosil-ja’s study of the dances of the Noh-play DOJOJI. Through rigid adherence to the original choreography of DOJOJI, she treats the form itself as the subject, rather than as a medium. Simultaneously, the group transposes the work into their own aesthetic context."

"The group" is a conglomerate of punk rockers, dramaturgs, engineers, software designers, video artists, and choreographers.

One of the reasons I think that this piece, more than a lot of performance art, deserves notice is because of its roots in Noh. That form is very stylized and representative, requiring the audiences to change the pace of their attention, to alter the expectations conditioned by a directly representative entertainment culture epitomized by "Wicked" and CSI.

But performance art like this needs to teach the audience, in a way, how to appreciate it before it can begin the job of all art and communicate with the audience. I believe that far too many performance artists skip this step, and then simply blame the audience for "not getting it" when the chicken explodes in the hot pink microwave to the tune of Beethoven’s 5th played on baby food jars filled with cat urine. By utilizing Noh, Koosil-Ja is acknowledging the skillset of the past and at the same time pushing it further, integrating the high-tech into the human aesthetic.

Cool

Comments Off