Photo by Steven Miller.
For most people, a topsy-turvy doll is…well, most people just have no idea what one is. I only happened to know because part of my family is Southern, and somewhere along the way I heard about the Southern variety of the flippably reversible doll, that’s a white debutante on one end and a black house slave on the other. Lovely, right? But some googling revealed that the most popular variety was, in fact, Little Red Riding Hood, with her Grandma on the other end and the wolf on the back of her head.
So, for most people, a topsy-turvy doll is a best an old doll, and at worst nothing. For Haruko Nishimura, the artistic director of Seattle’s performance art darlings Degenerate Art Ensemble, it’s first and foremost a challenge. The topsy-turvy dance is just one part of the group’s multimedia performance extravaganza Sonic Tales, which plays the Moore Theatre this Friday and Saturday (8 p.m., tickets $20). So consider that: how do you turn a dancer into a two- or three-headed doll? And if I said that it involved projections, you’d still have to wonder how you turn a moving dancer into a projection screen.
All I’ll say is, it’s impressive to see.
Last month I stopped by a work-in-progress performance of the topsy-turvy dance at the Canoe Club and chatted with Nishimura about Sonic Tales afterward. The show is constructed around the idea of a fragmented personality, with the various members of DAE and their collaborators taking turns as conflicted facets on the same identity.
Beyond to topsy-turvy dolls (which obviously lend themselves well to the concept), Nishimura has drawn on everything from traditional Japanese ghost stories to martial arts movies to, well, who knows. Amongst the other elements you can expect are a ninja battle, a Weeble-Wobble dance, and a Slug Princess.
In addition to the core of Nishimura, her husband, the composer and musician Joshua Kohl, and Jeffrey Huston, also a composer and musician, DAE has invited in a pair of talented local dancers/choreographers to perform with them: Trinidad Martinez, of Magpai Productions, who performed in Pat Graney’s House of Mind last December; and Marissa Niederhauser, who performed in Maureen Whiting’s The Myth of Me and You at ACT Theatre earlier this year, in addition to her own work as a choreographer and a filmmaker.
The technical and design side features a host of Seattle’s most talented artists, including Jennifer Zeyl (set design), Christine Tschirgri (some costuming), Leo Mayberry (video design), and Colin Ernst (interactive sculpture). In short, it’s hard to imagine a more talented bunch of people working on the same piece, which promises to be as mind-blowing and weird as any of DAE’s previous work. Plus, Halloween night after the show, DAE is hosting a party at the Moore with a performance by “Awesome.” It’s an extra $20 ticket that can either purchased online along with Sonic Tales pass, or at the Moore’s box-office before either show. The party is a fundraiser that helps support DAE’s work.
