REDCAT’s NOW Fest Closes With Three Avant-Garde Performances

Above: ‘Reckoning’ from Cassandra’s ‘Stellar Tears EP.’

The final weekend of Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater’s (REDCAT) New Original Works (NOW) Fest runs from Aug. 13 to 15 and features more experimental work by Los Angeles-based artists.

Cassandra: Stellar Tears

The feminist art-rock, power-ballad, soul-pop project Cassandra opens the weekend’s program with the Los Angeles premiere of their epic song cycle Stellar Tears.

Cassandra, fronted by musician and social activist Laurel Butler, is named after the Greek mythological prophetess and the iconic Wayne’s World frontwoman. Their music “sings truth to power and rages against the violence of silence.”

Takao Kawaguchi, Jonathan Hall and Deanna Erdmann: Touch of the Other

During the 1960s, controversial sociologist Laud Humphreys studied—in meticulous detail—the codes and choreography of male-male intimacy in public restrooms, known to their users as “tearooms.” Avant-garde choreographer Takao Kawaguchi, media scholar Jonathan Hall and visual artist Deanna Erdmann examine the aesthetics, erotics and politics of these places in Touch of the Other.

With images and movement that evoke a sense of danger and desire, the collaborators explore the legacies of public sex mapped out by Humphreys while connecting these histories to contemporary practices, as well as to the policing and pleasuring of bodies today.

Kevin Williamson: Trophy

Choreographer Kevin Williamson brings together four virtuosic performers in a dance work that confronts the fleeting nature of success and the looming potential of failure. With multi-projections by Cari Ann Shim Sham and a score by CalArts alumna Anna Luisa Petrisko (Music MFA 14), a.k.a. Jeepneys, Trophy breaks recognizable dance motifs into mischievous fragments, discovering disjointed new pleasures.