Dorky Park: Memory Laid Bare
Friday night's performance by Dorky Park at On the Boards was surreal on many fronts. Seattlest was running late for the show, and as we screamed past Queen Anne Ave N. on Roy street with zero idea where we'd be able to park, someone pulled out of a street parking spot one block from OtB. We slid into the spot and then into the theater, where we promptly scored a seat dead-center in the fifth row (the primary benefit of attending anything solo, there' s usually an orphaned seat like that). The lights dimmed, and came back up on a stunning dark-haired woman, center stage wearing a bombshell red dress with matching red heels. It all went to hell from there.
Dorky Park, the Berlin-based but thoroughly globe-trotting Internationale group of dancers and performance artists, presented its first full-length work "Back to the Present" in Seattle last night to a sold-out crowd (they seem to be selling out everywhere they go). Ostensibly an incredibly long commentary on memory, Back to the Present is all those bizzarre dreams you''ve ever had crammed together on one stage. At its core, it is about love, breaking up, rememberance, frustration, identity, and, well...Bon Jovi. The word "trashy" is in every review of Dorky Park out there--the bohemian aesthetic of this show mashes together spoken word, crass sexuality, Fellini-esque short films, a punk-rock-meets-80s-pop aesthetic, and stunning (and occasionally intentionally amateur) modern dance choreography with a whole lot of wierd shit in between.
Early on, a relationship break-up is admnistered via cell phone, ending with "Can we still have sex?" Towards the end of the first half, the whole company is seated in a half-circle, with the professional aura of a symphony performance. It quickly devolves into art-noise nonsense (one "musician" plays a fur stole draped over his shoulder while singing in a falsetto) and then the sound of a cell phone ringing brings it to a halt--the group then trades off voicing cliched breakup lines, alternatingly in chorus with occasional solo voices popping out: "Its not you its me." "Your mother never liked me" "I need to focus on my career now" "It just wasn't meant to be". This was clearly a hit with the audience, who spent much of the night laughing either genuinely or nervously. We suspect they all felt the way we did: slightly befuddled, but entranced by the blend of braggadocio and charm displayed by the cast. We wanted to go hang out in the dingy, furniture-strewn living room on stage with them.
Seattlest has seen some performance art shows that are downright maddening, especially when there is little technical proficiency from the dancers. But that was not the case with Dorky Park--though clearly at times they are simply freestyling wildly, the 7 or 8 fully choreographed pieces were strangely beautiful counterparts to the rough, dirty, occasionally disgusting backdrop of the rest of the performance. At times, we would feel like we lost the thread, to the point where our attention would wander--this typically occurred at the few points where nearly every member of the group was onstage at once, often accompanied by near-noise, people falling off stairs and through doors (yes, falling through doors), and the hurling of stuffed animals. The frenzied activity would eventually build to a crescendo, or simply peeter off and end, transitioning into something more structured, easy to follow. Each time, there was a delicious relief as a result. We'd like to think this was intentional, a part of artistic director Costanza Macras' exploration of memory and emotion--two things inexorably tied to each other, and very rarely as cleanly and clearly experienced as many other forms of media would have us believe. At times it is muddy, frustrating, or completely off the mark.
Oh yes, the Bon Jovi, you must still be wondering. Macras clearly has a penchant for bad 80s pop music (and all the cultural-excess references that come with it), and two surreal highlights involve covers of Bon Jovi songs. We also finally realized that the intervening soliloquies were about people auditioning for reality TV shows, and we began to suspect that Macras' obsession with trashy American culture was a commentary on what a strong force it has been in shaping people's personal and professional expectations, both for themselves and their relationships.
Of course, just when we thought we'd started to get a handle on what was going on towards the middle of the second half, one of the dancers breaks the whole facade with a monologue about how he doesn't understand why the German government would fund such trash as this, and who really wants to watch people playing with stuffed animals and performing nonsensical exploratory dance improvisation. Apparently everyone at OtB wanted to, based on the standing ovation--but we can say this much, Seattlest will never look at a stuffed animal the same way again. It should also be noted that when we say "laid bare" we mean it literally: there is a strong sexual thread through the whole performance, and glimpses and peeks of skin and body parts along the way evolve into full-blown nudity eventually. Grandma might be an arts appreciator, but be sure she's an adventurous one before you bring her to this show. Especially if she sits in the first few rows, a little bit stage left.
The final surreal touch on the evening was the omnipresence of emergency vehicles on Queen Anne last night, starting at On the Boards. We suspect an audience member fainted or something similar, as the fire department was administering oxygen to a man in the lobby--after a few minutes, he seemed to be fine, and was able to leave on his own accord. On the drive home, we saw an ambulance outside the old Larry's Market and no less than 5 emergency vehicles (fire department, ambulance, and police) outside Meany Hall. Was all the art on Queen Anne so stunning last night, that people were actually dropping like flies?
