• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Photo

The Stephen Petronio Company will come to UCLA on Friday and Saturday.

In the abstract realm of dance, many choreographers claim their work is accessible to the general public. But in reality, few deliver, and audience members are left scratching their heads in confusion.

But Stephen Petronio, who will perform at Royce Hall this Friday and Saturday night, doesn’t claim to invite the audience into his work through body language. Instead, he references pop culture as the doorway for enjoyment, with music by Lou Reed and costuming by Imitation of Christ’s Tara Subkoff.

Petronio has always placed high expectations on the intellectual capacity of the audience.

“There was a time when I was purposely keeping people out,” said Petronio. “I was making the dance as dense and complicated as possible, and if you could machete your way into the work, you can get the prize of enjoying it.”

But for the past few years, Petronio has embraced the philosophy of “putting less on stage,” as shown in the three New York-inspired pieces his company will be performing at Royce Hall: “The City of Twist,” “The Island of Misfit Toys” and “Broken Man.”

Each piece explores the quirks of New York, using artists who live below 14th Street, in close proximity to Petronio. The piece “City of Twist,” set to music by guitarist Blixa Bargeld of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, is a series of character portraits who cross paths daily but have no interaction with each other. While “City of Twist” is a charming ode to the city, “The Island of Misfit Toys,” whose name was inspired by a scene in the classic 1960s Christmas claymation special “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” casts light on what Petronio calls the “nasty egocentric” side of the city.

A medley of Reed’s music catalogue, composed primarily with songs inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” but also including hits like “I’m Waiting For the Man” and “Perfect Day,” sets the tone for “The Island of Misfit Toys.”

“(The music is) noisy and dissonant (on the surface). ... It’s got a great kind of nursery rhyme feel to me. It’s just great talent to take the unthinkable (topics of addiction and obsession) and make it very palatable with beautiful melodies,” said Petronio.

The guiding hand dressing Petronio’s characters in visual extravagance is Subkoff, who uses reconstructed vintage items as costuming.

“(Subkoff) kind of resurrects things from the graveyard of fashion. With ‘The Island of Misfit Toys,’ she went nuts and kind of made us into dolls,” said Petronio.

In Petronio’s solo piece “Broken Man,” he wears a torn-up, exploded suit.

Petronio and Subkoff met in New York, where Subkoff has become famous from making fun of the seriousness of the fashion community.

“(Subkoff) is the ‘It’ girl of the 21st century,” said Petronio. “She and the people at Imitation of Christ cut the fashion industry at its knees, and took the most mundane things and elevated them to a very high place in fashion. She’s got incredible taste, and she sees a movement before it’s happening.”

Though Petronio is now an internationally recognized figure in the dance community, he took his first dance class at the relatively advanced age of 18. His sense of humor and endless imagination are the keys to his success.

“I’ve trained with ballet dancers who can’t move in (other) ways because they’ve been so trained to move (in ballet form). I ended up developing my own movement language … so my body didn’t have any clichés in it. Being the last one at the end of the line, getting it wrong, it’s a great place to be if you have a great sense of humor about it. You never know what’s going to come out,” said Petronio.

If Petronio can switch from being a pre-med in college to rubbing elbows with the most innovative figures in the artistic community, maybe there’s hope for undeclared college students.

For more information on Stephen Petronio’s performance, call (310) 825-2101 or visit www.uclalive.org.