Dance - Crossing (Avant) Garde
And now for the latest id-injected mind fuck from our freaky friends at Gnosis, the slightly psycho performance art company that has previously brought us dancers writhing in muslin cocoons, wrapped in glowing tubes, covered in mud and strapped to boards and dowels. These bits, some of which will be reprised this weekend at 7 Stages, all appeared in “Reality Check,” a creepy critique of mass media’s control over our perceptions and an investigation into the interplay of organic and electronic realities.
Having extracted their army from the matrix, Gnosis has moved on to other oddities. In “The Crossing,” which premieres this weekend, Gnosis offers up a new menagerie of madness: Wildly painted blue spirits swim through the air on aerial rigging. Choreographer and performer Elle Udaykee Trapkin thrashes in a heavily weighted fishing net like a dolphin caught with the tuna. Video by Theron Schmidt and Rajni Shah shows Shah huddled nude in a corner while a ghosted close-up of her face looks on. Lines of poetry projected on the wall evoke “turquoise dust” and “unsecret secrets.” And Allen Welty-Green’s band Z-Axis sets the mood with their haunting, improvised, free-form techno-ambient-[add your own favorite avant-garde adjectives here] music.
This is not a dance for the Swan Lake crowd, unless the production you like came by way of Blake on opium and involves multi-headed zombie swans with a taste for well-aged bog people. Gnosis pokes and prods at sublimated tumors and mutations; they stage the nightmares that have you brewing strong coffee at 3 a.m.
Yet for all its asylum archetypes, “The Crossing” is surprisingly sincere. The horrors are trials along a sacred journey — guided by angels — from isolated innocence, through the post-natal shock of separation and self-knowledge, and finally to an expansive oneness found in spiritual surrender. It’s a theological conversation between Dante and Buddha. In the end, Trapkin’s pilgrim flies over the final wall, crossing into space unprotected and unbound.
Gnosis performs “The Crossing” and selections from “Reality Check” June 26-29, Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m. and Sun. 5 p.m. at 7 Stages Theater, 1105 Euclid Ave. $10-$15. 404-523-7647.
Having extracted their army from the matrix, Gnosis has moved on to other oddities. In “The Crossing,” which premieres this weekend, Gnosis offers up a new menagerie of madness: Wildly painted blue spirits swim through the air on aerial rigging. Choreographer and performer Elle Udaykee Trapkin thrashes in a heavily weighted fishing net like a dolphin caught with the tuna. Video by Theron Schmidt and Rajni Shah shows Shah huddled nude in a corner while a ghosted close-up of her face looks on. Lines of poetry projected on the wall evoke “turquoise dust” and “unsecret secrets.” And Allen Welty-Green’s band Z-Axis sets the mood with their haunting, improvised, free-form techno-ambient-[add your own favorite avant-garde adjectives here] music.
This is not a dance for the Swan Lake crowd, unless the production you like came by way of Blake on opium and involves multi-headed zombie swans with a taste for well-aged bog people. Gnosis pokes and prods at sublimated tumors and mutations; they stage the nightmares that have you brewing strong coffee at 3 a.m.
Yet for all its asylum archetypes, “The Crossing” is surprisingly sincere. The horrors are trials along a sacred journey — guided by angels — from isolated innocence, through the post-natal shock of separation and self-knowledge, and finally to an expansive oneness found in spiritual surrender. It’s a theological conversation between Dante and Buddha. In the end, Trapkin’s pilgrim flies over the final wall, crossing into space unprotected and unbound.
Gnosis performs “The Crossing” and selections from “Reality Check” June 26-29, Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m. and Sun. 5 p.m. at 7 Stages Theater, 1105 Euclid Ave. $10-$15. 404-523-7647.