Hot!ness lost and found

smithsoniansmith.

911? Help! There's a heap of denim clothing--layers and layers of jeans and jackets--standing like a man in the middle of my performance space. I don't know what to do with it. It's not going anywhere. What? No, it doesn't look threatening. Just a little lost and sad.

911? Listen, I might be witnessing a crime! There's this woman in this really odd rubber bra. I mean, she’s got these two rubber things sticking out from her breasts. And she's got this guy on a table. And she's strapping and sticking all kinds of strange things on his body. God, is that weird! What? Does he seem to be in distress? I can't really tell.

311? Hey, I came here to see a dance show, and I can't really see it because of all this trash. And there are these homeless people with a shopping cart from the supermarket, and they’re loading up all this trashy stuff on it. A crutch, a traffic cone, a broken umbrella... Can’t the city do anything about all this shit?

But, no, really. smithsoniansmith at Dixon Place? Loved it. You know how they say that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure?

The detritus here is thick on the ground, a virtual Smithsonian of found artifacts and theatrical bits that Scott Heron and HIJACK (Kristin Van Loon and Arwen Wilder) resourcefully, if mystifyingly, press into service. From glue-gun constructions and discard-wearables to leather-belt calisthenics, it’s a quick hour-or-so tour of the externalized id of the collectible unconscious. 

It’s also as artificial as the fake, freestanding door-to-nowhere the performers use for swift exits and slamming. It’s gawky and stupid and ham-handed and reckless–in a good way, mind you. But, beneath it all, you detect the controlled, focused understructure of Van Loon’s and Wilder’s performance technique, which is why you won’t be able to take your eyes off these women's faces, their carriage, their gait, even just the way they sit. The slender, playful Heron is another matter–a much-beloved, veteran performer but, for me, a taste yet to be acquired. The transparency of his performing here borders on absence of performing. Costume him and send him out there with props, and he’s clearly as comfy as a child in a treehouse, but he doesn’t fire my imagination. I’ll admit that whenever he appeared with Van Loon and Wilder, I found myself mentally cropping him out of the picture.

smithsoniansmith–a presentation of Dixon Place’s Hot! Festival–runs through August 7 at 7:30pm. For tickets and details on other events in the series, click here.