PERFORMANCES JUN 10, 11, 12 JUN 17, 18, 19 Doors 7:30PM Performance 8PM
STARRING Lauren Fern Angelina Hoffman Clara Kim Owen Prum
Music & Dramaturgy by Jake Lazovick Costumes by Willa Schwabsky Set Construction by Dylan Pearce Lighting by Alyssa Soares Makeup by Miranda Shapiro Stage Management by Amelia Jean
All The Rage is a reckoning of two worlds: music and dance. You wouldn’t think these two worlds would have any issue being put together, but for Sharleen they have been separate and compartmentalized for too long. Entertainment versus “art.” Low brow versus High Brow. Garishness, flash, gloss, va-va-voom versus dealing with the history of dance and a certain formalism. Feeling limited by the confines of choosing one or the other, the internal battle is put to the stage.
“I wanna make a musical.” - SC
Sharleen’s answer to the question of how to bridge this gap in sensibility is to make a musical. And to make it pop! To be pop is to be direct, widely accessible, to have fun, and to not be afraid to be derivative. While pop describes the accessibility of a musical genre, it does not necessarily describe its attitude. And the attitude here is rock ’n roll. Wildness, freedom, subculture. Rock n roll is the engine that purrs out Sharleen’s essence. (She is the lead singer of the NYC art rock band voyeur, so she is asking us to watch.) To see a performed confidence, an actualized freedom, and a parodied ambition in pursuit of something powerful. She’s talked about “Waiting for Fame to come knocking at your door…” The desperation of that; the extremity; but also the loose, ruckus, IDGAF quality- I want to perform for you but also Fuck You, I’m doing my thing and it just feels so good, but also, please watch, maybe you’ll like it too.
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Fun —> Safety —> Violence (my conclusion)
Something I have become accustomed to in my body from collaborating with Sharleen on her last five projects over the past three years, is that in order to get to the depiction of images of peril, we take the route of fun first, that builds “safety,” and then we can have the angst. There is something about the prioritization of a lightness, a superficiality, that must be dealt with inrehearsal in order to get to the depth and the handling of darker subject matter. Sharleen’s use of character and mode of performance allows for an escape from yourself into a Fantasy where you can scream, you can act “extremely,” you can even sing when you aren’t a singer.
The new thing in this piece is Song. Dancers are being asked to Sing. Song is devotional, spiritual, an entirely other mode of expression. It’s committing your words to a foolish duration. Experience above rigor, virtuosity, even above a concept. Bob Fosse, David Lynch, MichaelClark, Mike Kelley, John Waters, Pina Bausch, Madonna, Glenn Branca; Sharleen is chasing something similar. She’s finding something dark and complex from something instantly base and recognizable: she’s after the experience of being human, the liveness, the ephemerality, the Spirit. The memory of a performance.