photo of Sam Kim by Ryan McNamara, courtesy of Show Box

New York modern dance artists performing in Los Angeles are always exciting contributors to the local scene. They bring energy and an up-to-the-moment snapshot of diverse and, hopefully, compelling ideas. This past month has seen a small handful of gems with Tere O’Connor’s Rammed Earth at the Skirball, recent resident Stephan Koplowitz’s Liquid Landscapes at California Plaza and other sites throughout the city/county and Meg Wolfe’s Show Box productions at the Unknown Theater in Hollywood.

This week (Thursday-Sunday), female New Yorker Sam Kim joins Wolfe and the LA dance duo Casebolt and Smith in the final week of their season as part of the 2008 Dance Series. Kim will present a solo that is described in the press release in pure postmodernist terms: “There is no story. There is no arc. There are no overt references. They are eviscerated. There is one insistent body in the room––precisely felt in AVATAR.”

Casebolt and Smith weave clever fabrics of movement, theater and words around a 2X4 foot table in their newest work, In Other Words. Using humor to illuminate, the pair show how events, information, politics, and emotions are distributed and interpreted. Kris Eitland of Sandiego.com called the piece “powerful dance theater . . . destined for Youtube play around the world."

Ms. Wolfe’s Eleven Missing Days will complete the evening’s program. With live music/sound by Aaron Drake and Nancy Sandercock, the piece sets off on a film noir exploration of disappearance and the femme fatale with five collaborating performers. There’s video, text and lots of movement throughout the stage, leaving the brain full of ideas and images to contemplate and enjoy.

Check out this Youtube video and slide into a seat at the Unknown.