PAC/edge Performance Festival
L’air Lair
Live Action Cartoonists
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I don’t expect work to be easy–I understand the necessity of countering the pabulum that passes as popular entertainment. Nor do I think it’s easy to judge an audience’s needs and meet them. The artists’ panel, which focused on verbal versus nonverbal approaches to performance, was instructive on this subject: of the six participants only one, writer-director Beau O’Reilly, expressed a desire to communicate to the audience. Composer-musician Michael Zerang insisted it was impossible to predict audience members’ reactions so they might as well be ignored.
Mejia is a 2004 MFA graduate from the School of the Art Institute–which incidentally helps fund this fest. In fact, though press materials don’t make this apparent, many of the artists I saw seem to be associated with the SAIC. One of the festival’s stated goals is to provide artists with “professional development” opportunities–and if the SAIC is paying, why shouldn’t the beneficiaries be its former students and young teachers? Still, this goal may not be compatible with another one, namely to introduce “new audiences” to Chicago performance work. They might be introduced to it, but they won’t return if it’s bad.
When: Through 4/10: Sat 7, 8, 9, and 10 PM, Sun 5, 6, 7, and 8 PM. No shows 3/19 and 3/20
