New Original Works Festival Enters Last Week of Performances

photo of Lauren Weedman by Jeff Swenson

For the third and final weekend of the 6th Annual New Original Works Festival at REDCAT, programmers have arranged for humor, incisive comment and other verbal and visual delights to share the stage.

Choreographer/performer Meg Wolfe presents a solo dance work accompanied only by composer and ongoing collaborator, Aaron Drake. Calling the piece watch her (not know it now), Lester Horton Award winning Ms. Wolfe has previously created complex and kinetic explorations of film noir, personal longing and intimacy, among other themes. She now strips the stage bare to place her signature dancing center stage. An ex-New Yorker and an impish mover and shaker, Wolfe claims that gesture is tied to action in this premiere, that muscles are strong-willed and that abstraction rubs against articulation.

Provocative multimedia collaborators Zackary Drucker, Mariana Marroquin and Wu Ingrid Tsang stage a meeting of Politically Involved Girls in their compelling and wryly funny PIG. With references to Andy Warhol's film Women In Revolt, the unpredictable trio mixes biting humor with socio-political themes--
transgender politics, sexual identity, civil rights and more.

REDCAT veteran Lauren Weedman (elegantly pictured above) weaves an assortment of spot-on characters into a laugh-out-loud basket of stories that boomerang back to clip the teller of the tale on the head. In Off, the often comic performance artist traces her attempts to "trust herself" as she struggles with things beyond her control. On the brink of motherhood, Weedman seeks comfort in hospice work, hangs out with a pair of harassed lesbian moms, and puts her faith in untalented tattoo artists. Her press release assures us that Weedman's inner voice may not yet be audible, but her outer voice is certain to spill its guts

Be prepared to laugh in the theater and think about what you just saw after you've left.

And check out these teasers:

Meg Wolfe