COURTESY TANGENTZ
Gary Higashida will be among the air-traffic controllers.
Fantasy flight
Performance pieces show pitfalls
greeting today's traveler
It's summer and you're going nowhere? Rock fever is an ailment that can lead to stress, exhaustion and anxiety, but the Tangentz Performing Group has the cure. The group will be taking off Friday night at Studio 1 and bringing everyone who's ready on a flight of fantasy.
Please be on time as check-in begins at 6:45 p.m. for the 7:30 p.m. "Flight 730" departure. Have your tickets in hand to be collected at the gate. Security guards and attendants will be on hand to ensure your safety and comfort.
Try not to block the aisles on your way in, and don't bring too much baggage, which might get in the way of absorbing the evening's poetry, dance and music, including the sound of homemade wood and string instruments.
A trip to Japan last fall sparked Tangentz artistic director Lori Ohtani's imagination. When she got back, she and fellow dancer Fay Ann Chun commiserated about the hazards that await the hapless modern-day traveler.
"We were talking about how funny it is at security checkpoints, and the absurd things that are happening to people, and how so many are complaining (about stricter airport rules) even though it's a necessary evil."
A tourist character is the audience's guide through the production. Video interludes between the show's five pieces will catch the tourist in the midst of adventures on the streets of Honolulu.
"It's like the video is his reality and the dance is what is imagined," Ohtani said.
"Flight 730's" humorous tone is itself a departure for Ohtani, who is generally known for works with more gravitas. But she couldn't help herself and throws in a serious solo, based on a poem, "Portal: Looking for My Shadow," which she wrote while in Japan.
COURTESY TANGENTZ
Steve Novak portrays a hapless traveler as part of Tangentz Performing Group's "Flight 730" dance concert.
She was invited to perform at the studio of Tatsumi Hijikata, who with Yoshito Ohno was a co-founder of butoh that is at the heart of Tangentz's existence.
With roots in post-World War II Japan, butoh has been described as the dance of darkness, with themes suggesting decay, destruction and desperation. The dance is characterized by elements of Japanese theater, mime, slow movements and contorted, white-painted bodies.
Pieces in "Flight 730" range from Ohtani's classical butoh to Chun's work incorporating modern dance, a men-only dance combining butoh and performance art, and finally, a piece involving "more theater and vaudeville even," Ohtani said. It all adds up to a journey to various points in butoh's progression.
COURTESY TANGENTZ
Fay Ann Chun will perform in a piece entitled "The Color of Sinking Fragrance."
"Everybody brings their own background to butoh and applies their own experiences," Ohtani said. "What I enjoy is its simplicity and honesty."
And that's how an act as basic as reading a newspaper can spark her imagination.
Part of the dance "The Color of Sinking Fragrance" was inspired by a story Ohtani read in this paper.
"I liked one of the images, where a survivor of the hydrogen bomb talked about working on a ship when it happened, and seeing an orangey sunburst and powderlike snow falling. It was radioactive dust, but they didn't know that and kept working. It was beautiful but deadly."
COURTESY TANGENTZ
Butoh meets elements of modern dance, performance art and vaudeville in the Tangentz Performing Group's presentation of "Flight 730."
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'Flight 730'
Tangentz Performing Group concert:Where: Studio 1, 1 No. King St.
When: 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday
Tickets: $10 and $15 with discounts for students with IDs and senior citizens
Call: 988-4290
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