Annoucements

Sad Grizzly Theater Company to Perform in Frederick

October 21, 2011

Anyone that has gone out for performance art in Washington, D.C. recently most likely encountered Sariel Lehyani and Eric Rubin. The duo, known as the Sad Grizzly Theater Company, will be performing “Beckett and Lynch: A Celebration” at the Cultural Arts Center on Saturday, November 5th. 

 

“Beckett and Lynch: A Celebration” is about two individuals struggling to relate to one another, the audience, women and the world. Through a grand ritual celebration, they put out a fervent (and clumsy) call to the spirit of artists Samuel Beckett and David Lynch for help or salvation. As the ritual unfolds, the characters take on the barriers and crutches that keep them small and alone.  In the end, the performance is an impassioned cry for help. It’s a ritual call to powerful avant-garde artists (of past and present) to aid us in our daily struggle to relinquish our petty fears and reach out for love to the people that surround us.

 

Rubin, the co-founder of Sad Grizzly Theater Company, has been acting, improvising, and directing for over eight years.  He was on the main stage at Washington Improv Theater before starting up SGTC with co-founder Lehyani. Before moving to Washington, D.C., he was living and working in San Jose, Costa Rica, where he acted and directed with La Liga Tica de Improvisacion, a Costa Rican improv group. During the daytime, Eric works with Salsa Labs providing online tools for non profits.

Lehyani, as the other co-founder, has been performing improv and stand up around the D.C. and surrounding areas for ten years. In addition to his work with Sad Grizzly, he is also a graphic designer and visual artist.  By day, he does visual media for the Service Employees International Union.

The Sad Grizzly Theater Company has been developing this show over the past few months at Vitamin Water Uncapped Live Festival/G40 Art Summit, the Pinkline Project Salon Contra, Salon de Libertad in Mt. Pleasant, and at Artist Bloc at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre.  The group recently performed the show at The Fridge in DC.  However, each show is unique and new, because at its heart the show is performance art with audience participation. When the audience engages, the performers’ get energized and react in tandem. 

 

Prior to the theater performance, an interactive music demonstration will take place, featuring The Bay Players Experimental Music Collective.  This group of composers and performers sole purpose is the performance and advocacy of experimental music from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Utilizing traditional instruments (electric and double bass, percussion, trombone, piano, violin, and saxophone), voice, computers, and found objects, the group specializes in performing boundary-pushing scores—works that showcase the use of graphic notation, indeterminacy, improvisation, installation, theater, and live electronics. The ensemble primarily performs music created by members of the group, as well as contemporary classics by composers such as John Cage, James Tenney, Christian Wolff, and various Fluxus composers. As scholars, their combined expertise spans the musical and technological developments of the 20th and 21st centuries.

 

The musical composition performed that evening will be “Gallery Piece #2: Negative Space”, where the performers occupy a complex space and their actions dependent upon the number of people present.  If the surrounding environment is crowded, the performance becomes subdued, creating an intimate experience for those in closest proximity.  When the surrounding environment grows sparse, the performers work to fill it with sound.  Every nook, cranny, stairwell, and hallway open to the space becomes a differently environment, allowing the performers to create multiple instances of the piece, occurring simultaneously but just out of sight of one another.  The audience is thus encouraged to explore the space, but with the realization that their presence or absence will affect the sonic outcome.

 

The pre-show, box office, and bar open at 8:00 p.m. with the Sad Grizzly Theater Company show beginning at 9:00 p.m.  Tickets for the event are $10 per person and advance purchase is suggested.  To purchase tickets, or for more information, call (301) 662-4190.