Dangerous Art.

Los Angeles - March 10th, 2004

by Teka-Lark Lo

(fig 1.) Nathalie Broizat

Many people get chills up their spine when they hear "performance art," because you always sort of get that sick feeling that you might end up within the book The Emperor’s New Clothes. You are sitting their thinking, "I came all the way down to a warehouse in the middle of nowhere to watch some guy pierce his cojones…" Well Dangerous Curves the new experimental art performance space in Downtown Los Angeles is not that, well at least on March 6, Saturday at 8:00pm it wasn’t that.

At 7:45pm a crowd of skeptics gathered, "Is this going to be one of those things where someone shoots someone, because I don’t know if I want to pay five dollars to see that." We all waited, those of us who brought our less open minded friends with us, waited nervously and thought in our heads, "please don’t let this suck, please don’t let this suck." But the cheese and wine weren’t the only good things that were presented for our consumption.

There were four performers who performed pieces that were all very distinct from one another. The first artist Kathryn Hargreaves(fig. 2.) a person with lots of titles certifying her ability to be an artist, MFA, MSc, Kundalini Yoga teacher, performed a piece called "Urgemon" that enveloped the audience into the id. An emotion driven piece that incorporated light, music, and movement. For some reason I felt this fear and nervousness during her performance and looking at her bio this is what she is known for "entrancing movement," which she did quite well, I was nervous, but yet I couldn’t move. The second artist Silvana Kenney from Tuscany took on the persona of an Italian grandmother serving coffee in her piece entitled "Caffe," it wasn’t just performance art, but a mini-play that warmed your heart. Her performance took you back to when you were a child at your grandmother’s house and the joy it brought you just to sit there while she cooked. She explained to me that she wanted the piece to feel like you were at home, and that is exactly what I felt like, I felt when her piece ended that someone had stolen my childhood all over again. Then there was the piece on love, entitled "26" by the lovely French native Nathalie Broizat (Fig. 1).

(fig 2.) Kathryn Hargreaves

Her piece reminded you of those times that your heart was broken into a thousand pieces, but then you had to go on, because so is life. She combined music, dance movement, and a face so expressive that you forgot that she never uttered a word during the whole performance. Her piece made you anxious, sad, lonely, and triumph again in 15 minutes, it was a beautiful performance. She explained to me in her cool French accent, "It was called originally called Love 26, but I wanted people to discover on their own." It was a heavenly piece. Then the finale was Simone Gad in 1950s garb, who combined two of her previous performance, "Molested by the Movies" and "Tribute to Esther Williams" a performance that intertwined movement and theatre with humor and agony. Her piece described growing up the daughter of an over-demanding stage mother and moved on to anecdotes about her as a wandering young adult and completed as the person that she is presently. At the end of her performance she was swimming around on the floor in a tribute to Esther Williams and the human spirit that continues to keep going even when it’s truly pointless. Simone is brilliant and entertaining, funny and tragic, a little girl in a grown woman’s body.

Dangerous Curves the space itself is set up in a way that lends itself favorably to performance art pieces and traditional art installation. It’s open and parking is easy to find and close. It’s hours are Wed-Sat 1pm-7pm check out their website www.dangerouscurves.org for more information.