To Be Straight With You, DV8

Lets get ready for a thrilling experience of dance, theatre and sociological discoveries: British physical theatre company DV8 is coming to meet the US audience of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Santa Barbara in November! Their American tour starts at the prominent Royce Hall on UCLA campus as a part of LA’s cherished UCLA LIVE series, on Nov. 6th and will bring us the 2007 production by Lloyd Newson , “To Be Straight With You”, the verbatim, interview-based exploration of tolerance/intolerance, culture, religion and homosexuality.

For a number of reasons it was challenging to find people to interview — says Newsom in one of the interviews — often simply because they were too frightened to tell their stories. He employed a full-time researcher who found many of his interviewees through word of mouth, asylum organizations, human rights groups, youth groups and religious and political organizations advertised in the press, leafleted in bars and clubs and went to anti-gay protest gatherings. That gave him a total of 85 audio interviews with people living in the UK; men and women, some who are both religious and gay, some who have given up on one for the other, members of the clergy, human rights organizations and people opposed to homosexuality due to their religious beliefs.

DV8 (Dance and Video 8) Physical Theatre was formed in 1986 by an independent collective of dancers who, they claim, had become frustrated and disillusioned with the preoccupation and direction of most dance. The company has produced 15 dance pieces, which have toured internationally, and 5 award-winning films for television. Their work is about taking risks, aesthetically and physically, about breaking down the barriers between dance, theatre and personal politics and, above all, communicating ideas and feelings clearly and unpretentiously. It is determined to be radical yet accessible, and to take its work to as wide an audience as possible.

DV8 is motivated by artistic inspiration and creative need: these, rather than financial, organizational and touring demands dictate the creation of new works. Great emphasis is placed on the process by which new work is created. The company has fought successfully for funding to cover lengthy research and development periods in order to maintain rigorous artistic integrity and quality in each new project. For every one of its works since 1987, DV8 has commissioned set designers and living composes to help investigate the relationship between body, architecture and music. The focus of the creative approach is on reinvesting dance with meaning, particularly where this has been lost through formalised techniques.

Lloyd Newson’s work since 1986 as the Director of DV8 Physical Theatre has had a dynamic impact on contemporary dance by challenging the traditional aesthetics and forms which pervade most modern and classical dance. An important aspect of this challenge is his personal rejection of abstraction in dance with his concentration on connecting meaning to movement and in addressing current social issues.

His stage and film work with DV8 has consistently received major international awards. His recent film, The Cost of Living, won a Prix Italia and a Rose D’or. Newson’s interest in dance arose while studying psychology and social work at Melbourne University, an interest that led to a full scholarship at London Contemporary Dance School.

The company’s reputation relies on pushing its own boundaries and on the constant re-examination of the roles and relationships of men and women in our society. Its policy insists on the importance of challenging our preconceptions of what dance can, and should, address.

Lloyd Newson have always been well ahead of the game. Now, just at a point when others are catching up, Newson reinvents the rules with “To Be Straight With You”. Lets hear from Lyn Gardner, The Guardian:

“To Be Straight With You” is a hard-hitting and passionate 80 minutes that expresses what is often left unsaid. There are problems. For the first 10 minutes, the dialogue is hard to hear. It is also visually over-busy; the monologue form is limiting; and, like a great deal of verbatim theatre, it preaches to the already converted. But when it starts really getting physical, the gloves are off, both politically and creatively”, and from the master of ceremony, Lloyd Newsom: “I hope that through this work audiences will become more aware of the lives of people hidden under the veneer of a liberal and a supposedly tolerant society.”
“To Be Straight With You” comes to UCLA Royce Hall November 6 & 7, 2009.

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Who is Sean Healy?

If you want to get onto the Hollywood club scene or just to see what’s new out there – Sean Healy’s your man. Healy started by producing and hosting underground performance art shows at his theatre company, and then decided to try one at a nightclub in Hollywood. It was a success so he started helping out bands by getting them shows at clubs.

Sean Healy Presents (HSP) is a company run by artists, with a founder being a former actor and all the employees being active musicians, currently running their own projects. Since 1996, Sean Healy Presents (SHP) has been providing bands a unique booking service focusing on giving local unsigned talent easy access to several clubs throughout the Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Francisco area. Aside from the local shows, SHP has thrown events with live performances by notable legends such as George Clinton & P-Funk, Slick Rick, and the Psychedelic Furs. Other shows have included artists such as Digital Underground, Lit, Phife Dawg of A Tribe Called Quest, The Fixx, Chingy, Black Sheep, Shawn Mullins, Edwin McCain, Too Short, Aceyalone, E-40, DaDa and more. Local artists are often given opportunities to open for such artists.

“A band must be original and have stage presence and be ” professional”. A band must understand that they can’t act like a rock star until they are rock stars” says Sean having on mind “the modest” and professional, The Strokes, Porcelain, Sara Barellies or Tyler Hilton, to list only few whose shows were selling out quick initially. The ticket prices for which must have changed a bit since they started in the beginning with a little help from Sean Healy Presents.

The venues hosting Sean Healy’s events range in size, getting as big as the House of Blues on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, in San Francisco it gets even bigger, reaching the Great American Music Hall.

A good few of them are of greater importance to music lovers all over the nation : House of Blues Sunset Strip (opened in 1994) and located in the heart of West Hollywood hosted the last live performance by Tupac Shakur and Prince with Maceo Parker amongst others .

The Knitting Factory (opened in 1987 by Michael Dorf and Bob Appel in its original location in Manhattan initially was supposed to be an art gallery with a performance space and cafe, as well as a home for experimental music but the club quickly emerged as a home for the sounds that did not neatly fit into the categories of jazz or rock, hosting artists like Sonic Youth, Sound of Urchin, Cassandra Wilson or Bill Frisell. A new club location opened in Los Angeles in 2000 under the parent company of Knitting Factory Entertainment.

Roxy Theatre’s (opened 1973) history is paved with icons beginning with Guns N’ Roses’ pre-stardom shows, through Miles Davis, Jane’s Addiction, to Pearl Jam and many, many others. The place is famous not only for its bright past but also for more current luxuries: among the club’s unique features are comfortable booth seating, full-service and draft bar, and a menu that features a modest array of dishes to keep appetites satisfied. The Roxy’s open dance floor and superb sound facilities offer fans one of the most intimate entertainment experiences around town.

The world-famous Viper Room (opened 1993) hosted the likes of Johnny Cash, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Stone Temple Pilots, Bruce Springsteen, Oasis, Counting Crows, Lenny Kravits, Pearl Jam, Iggy Pop, Porno For Pyros, Sandra Bernhardt, Sheryl Crow, Dennis Rodman, and Hunter S. Thompson, as well as an array of other internationally-established artists and the cult favorites of America’s underground. This intimate nightclub is styled in the fashion of Harlem’s great jazz clubs of the 1920′s and holds only 250 people. A tradition that the Viper Room has consistently upheld is to treat unsuspecting patrons to outstanding surprise performances and special guest appearances.

The company (SHP) calls Los Angeles home because “the decision makers are here, so it is the capital”, says Sean, but it doesn’t stop them from sticking their fingers into different cookie jars, they’re already in San Francisco and San Diego, planning on Las Vegas and Portland in the nearest future.

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Spoken word? Word

It’s been a while since the beatnik’s artful protest against a war and establishment politics. Spoken word did not evolve until the late 1980s and early 1990s with the emergence of “poetry slams,” where spoken word artists would square off in cabaret-style duels. This type of competitive slam poetry event has been popular in India for centuries. In the United States, the competition of slam poetry probably arose from rap music and freestyle competitions. The common element is protest and a critical or corrective tone. Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York City is one of the earliest venues where poets could protest the ills of society. Then the noncompetitive slam-like poetry came on board. Almost 4 decades later poetry comes back as a powerful tool of communication between us, in no need of an overwhelming production behind it. The boom that we observe right now started with Russell Simmons’s HBO program (also a Broadway show) “Def Poetry Jam” first shown in 2002, hosted by Mos Def series presenting performances by established spoken word poets, as well as up-and-coming ones (well-known actors and musicians would often surprise the audience by showing up to recite their own original poems). Even though some spoken word artists don’t necessarily appreciate the effect of commercialization that the show brought to a poetry world, they cannot not agree with the fact Def Poetry brought them the audience to their own, live shows featuring renown artists as well as the new voices, pretty often giving a chance to everyone who wants to take the audience over for few minutes. It’s a movement and state of mind, not a competition. Every human being is equal in front of the mic as long as they don’t go over the time limits! Even though NYC is a place of birth and still a capital of that phenomenon, almost every town throughout the country has their spoken word events and LA’s stuff seams to create their own quality. Here they are:

Spoken Funk, an upbeat, uplifting breath of comedic and poetic fresh air. The brainchild of Juren Smith and Tony Award winning poet, producer, actor, educator – Poetri, Spoken Funk fuses today’s funniest comedians with the world’s most talented spoken word poets. This dynamic duo has already teamed up in several avenues, from designing and sales, to a club full of games, to workshops on television. Poetri is the muse, the brilliant wordsmith, entertainer, and crowd pleaser; Juren is the big-idea woman, the one who takes the risks, shapes the brand, and pushes the boundaries. After years of disappointment from the social circuit’s predictability and hunger for shock value over moral value, they set out to formulate an environment where one wouldn’t feel desensitized by the end of the night. They’ve found a way to combine their individual strengths and compensate for each other’s weaknesses, to forge mature entertainment that is both commercially successful and a reflection of their own values.

Da’ Poetry Lounge (GreenWay Court Theater, 544 N. Fairfax Blvd,Los Angeles, Ca 90036, 9:00PM – Midnight; EARLY ARRIVAL IS A MUST), the largest weekly poetry venue in the nation with an attendance of over 350 people every Tuesday, also hosted by Poetri, has not only broadened the appeal of spoken word in Los Angeles, but has become a haven for young people to come and express their emotions in a positive atmosphere. It is an open forum designed to allow artists of all fields to perform or showcase their artform. Birthed in 1998, Da’ Poetry Lounge has become a tourist attraction – the longest running weekly venue in Hollywood’s history.

Flypoet Entertainment was established in 2000 by John Hensley, a spoken word artist himself, tired of performing in obscure coffee houses and bookstores for audiences made up, primarily, of other performers. He was determined to provide exposure by presenting this form of art to an audience of non–poets in a venue with professional sound and lighting where they wouldn’t have to compete with chatter and cappuccino machines. For the audience, the formula is simple: a comfortable venue where patrons could relax with food and drinks, and enjoy the best spoken word talent available plus the poetry spaced out by inserting musical acts and novelties, more energy. Simply — a vehicle to bring “underground talent” into the light.

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