At home on the edge

via Ann Arbor News (register)Tiny Ypsilanti theater-gallery concentrates on pushing creative boundaries

Live in Ypsilanti, it's Saturday night at Dreamland Theater, (scroll down on page for info) a 45-foot-long, 18-foot-wide storefront edifice on Cross Street in Depot Town. Next door at Schramm's Deli, folks would likely never guess that just a wall apart a trio of nearly naked performers are roiling and writhing to music that might be labeled hyper-primal scream.

The show is "A Shadow's Dream," conceived, composed, directed, and co-performed by self-dubbed "audio noise slave" performance artist Jeff Ensign. For the better part of an hour one recent night, Ensign and two female co-performers contorted themselves into every less-than-human shape and design imaginable - a kind of perpetual motion sculpture wrapped (barely) in strands of cheesecloth, eventually diminished to nothingness in an onslaught of sweaty flesh.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft would doubtless denounce "A Shadow's Dream" as pornographic. So would quite a few folks on the street, while others of a less moralistic bent might snickeringly dismiss it as artistic nonsense. [ more]

Shameless Promotion:
Two evenings of film at Dreamland Theater. Six short films (each very different) by Craig Baker, culminating in the premiere of his celebratory documentary on the music of Sun Ra (Cosmos Songs) starring Ann Arbor's own Arwulf Arwulf.
Friday, August 29th and Saturday, August 30th
And Friday, September 5th and Saturday, September 6th
7:30 pm. posted by Cyndy | link | | |
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