In the "Mix"

Karen Bernard's Performance Mix Festival 2011 continues mixing it up at Dixon Place through Sunday. Happy 25th Anniversary to both the fest and to DP for surviving in this tough town by throwing hearts, minds and doors open to adventure. Not quite knowing what to expect is considered something of a virtue at both DP and Le Mix, and last night's mashup--with work by Dawn Springer, Shree "Shyam" Das, Myra Bazell and Lindsay Browning, Kai Lossogott and Mduduzi Nyembe, and Isabel Lewis--proved to be no exception.

For me, there were two takeaways. Composer-musician Shree "Shyam" Das's Serenity to Madness, and Back--a coursing, ghost-ridden electronic piece maybe a bit too lengthy, ultimately, and too pretty for madness--might have been the evening's most captivating "dance," oddly enough, for the elaborate, precision hand movements he used to interact with his equipment. This sound wizard was rivaled only by the fascinating performance of Lindsay Browning in Molt (directed by Myra Bazell with Bazell-Browning choreography), hissing, trembling and, yes, molting out of her strapped-on tulle hoop skirt, rolling like tumbleweed and helplessly arcing into ecstasy and oblivion and, it would appear, liquefaction. The work uses a version of Johnny Mathis's 1957 tune "Wild is the Wind"--not the great Nina Simone cover, a song like a seal upon my soul, but welcome nonetheless.

Showtime: 7:30pm, tonight through Sunday. General information about the Mix's remaining and, as always, multifarious events can be found here.

Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street (between Rivington and Delancey Streets), Manhattan
(directions)