mime/poetry/perf art/etc
7 pm
$8 donation
Who: Cosmic Spelunker Theater (Featuring James Van Looy & Ian Thal)
What: performance of “Waltzing to War” (mime, poetry, performance
art, theater, storytelling)
Where: Zeitgeist Gallery • 1353 Cambridge Street • Inman Square •
Cambridge, MA 02139 • http://www.zeitgeist-gallery.org •
617.877.6060
When: Monday, August 1st @ 7pm
How much: Suggested Donation: $8
Press Contact: Ian Thal / Cosmic Spelunker Theater • 617.783.4809 •
thal@gis.net
Press for “Waltzing to War”:
“From stylized to realistic to surreal, the vignettes accumulate —
and not without considerable satirical humor.”
-Bill Rodriguez
Providence Phoenix
Full review:
http://www.providencephoenix.com/theater/other_stories/documents/04092613.asp
Providence Journal:
http://www.projo.com/theater/content/projo_20040902_warwaltz.1d8a01.html
Why “Waltzing to War”? “Because,” as Cosmic Spelunker Theater
cofounder, Ian Thal explains, “Armed conflict is more entertaining in
three-four time. Most wars are fought in two-four; boom-boom.”
“Waltzing to War” is a series of vignettes, drawing upon commedia
dell’arte traditions, current events, and autobiography, growing out
of the political discussions that had long occurred during the
stretching and working out that began every rehearsal. Like previous
shows it was created through a collaborative process that free
associates from a general theme adding poems, choreography, stories, and
structured improvisations.
“We tried to reimagine the old commedia characters in the midst of
modern warfare,” explains Thal. James Van Looy found himself
resonating with Pierot, the melancholy and formal everyman, while Thal
discovered himself split between two characters: The ever changing
Harlequin and the arrogant, jargon spewing Il Dottore. Which let to the
birth of “Il Dottore di Difesa” a hyperactive skeletal, carrion bird
like figure, who combines the fast talking of Groucho Marx, the thievery
of Harpo, and the strategic and technological prowess of Donald
Rumsfeld.
Episodes include “Operation Hit them Back First Before They Hit US!”
in which Il Dottore di Difesa lays out his war plans, and “Wartime
Mash-Up” in which Thal mimes a DJ mixing two very different views of
war. The show ends with the Spelunkers as snails singing “I’ll be
there when peace breaks out and war is done…”
“In the end, though, we reconnected everything to our own personal
experiences and we each tell our story,” Thal continues, referencing
Van Looy’s experience as a Vietnam era veteran and Thal’s experience
as a child of antiwar protesters during the same era.
Bios:
Cosmic Spelunker Theater is a Boston based collaborative performance art
troupe that has been presenting its fusion of spoken word and movement
since 2002, appearing at Mobius (Boston, MA), Puppet Showplace Theatre
(Brookline, MA), Artists at Large, Inc. (Hyde Park, MA), The Revolving
Museum (Lowell, MA), AS220 (Providence, RI) Warwick Museum of Art
(Warwick, RI), and Bowery Poetry Club (New York, NY.).
James Van Looy has been a fixture in Boston’s poetry venues since the
1970s and performed with the Mirage Mime Theater from 1980 to 1987
during which time he was also taught classes offered by Mirage and from
1987 to 1988 he was a member of the Collective Mime. His poetry has been
anthologized in Out of the Blue Writers Unite. He has run poetry
workshops for Boston area homeless people at Pine Street Inn and St.
Francis House since 1992 and regularly reads at Bay State Prison as part
of their poetry program. Currently, Van Looy leads the Labyrinth
Creative Movement Workshop. Van Looy also has second degree black belt
in Karate and is a Vietnam War era veteran.
Ian Thal is a writer and performance artist often identified with
Boston’s post-punk “spoken word” scene of the late 1990s, reading
regularly at Bad Girrls Studios and La Fete Du Sisk art and music
festivals before studying mime with Van Looy. His poetry has appeared
in such magazines as Flash!Point, Poesy, Ibbetson Street Press, and
Crooked River Press and has been anthologized in BOOM! For Real, Tokens:
Contemporary Poetry of the Subway (New York: P & Q Press.) and Out of
the Blue Writers Unite. His work has also appeared as part of an
installation at the 2003 Boston Cyberarts Festival. As a solo
performer, Thal has performed at Evos Arts Institute (Lowell, MA,) Club
Passim (Cambridge, MA) and Green Street Studios (Cambridge, MA) He has
also performed with Bread & Puppet Theater. He has curated the
Performance@Large series at Artists at Large, Inc.) and has taught mime
at the Brookline Community Center for the Arts (Brookline, MA.) and with
the Somerville based Open Air Circus.