Cutting-edge stage work
By Treena Shapiro
Star-BulletinWith few venues available for local performance artists, Catherine Hage is grateful that the Contemporary Museum recognizes the value of this raw and edgy art form.
The museum will host the show she created and coordinated, "Hear Me -- Voices of the Endangered Hawaii Performance Artist." Performances take place 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Hage and other artists will blend elements of cabaret, theater and the stark Japanese dance form butoh, to create five unique performances that address such topics asexuality and religion.
Hage will celebrate androgyny in two numbers --"You Won't Forget Me," in which Hage appears as a woman, and "Sex and Candy," featuring Hage as a man.
"My desire with this is to inspire many people to consider themselves artists with the potential to express themselves in creative ways," Hage said. "It's another perspective and another voice that can be heard."
Performance artists tackle issues considered taboo in other art forms. The voice of the performance artist is not often heard in Hawaii. In August 1997, Hage became the first student to complete a degree in performance art at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Hage had to create the degree herself through the UH's Liberal Studies Program.
All of the performers in "Hear Me" make a living through more traditional art forms.
Sami L.A. Akuna III, a drag butoh diva, dances for Iona Pear in addition to his performance art group Giinko Maraschino, which includes another Iona Pear dance member, Summer Partlon.
Akuna and Giinko Maraschino will perform an improvisational butoh piece called "Watching Windows, Parts I and II."
Another Iona Pear dancer, David DeBlieck, will sing a cabaret number.
Pierre Heureux, a playwright, actor and dancer, will deliver a visual art monologue about a young fanatic's exodus from Christianity.
German extreme vocalist Monika Lillieke describes her part of the program as "voices sculpted like plastic bags being swirled around on a windy day."
Tickets are $5 for museum members, seniors and students or the financially impaired and $7 general. To reserve, call 526-1322.
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