Miguel Gutierrez @ BAM's Fisher (Fishman Space) 2012

Ahh Miguel. To a pleasantly packed house with a lot of familiar faces, Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People presented And lose the name of action (12/7/12). This work, as noted in the press release, “…is inspired by Jorgen Leth’s filmThe Perfect Human, the elusive logic of dance improvisation, philosophical quandaries about the brain, and the 19th-century spiritualist movements.”  The performance essentially begins when the audience enters the space which is set with risers of black folding chairs on three sides.  In the first rows of each section are one or two white chairs—no audience member sits there.  Four paths are cleared for us to walk, and also for entrance and exits, in one pate is a self-standing doorway with a two-paneled curtain.  A single white chair sits at the last “side” of this almost “theatre- in-the-round,” and hung high above the audience and the performance space, is a huge white cloth.  One-by-one the Powerful People (Michelle Boule, Hilary Clark, Luke George, Gutierrez, K.J. Holmes, and Ishmael Houston-Jones) enters and takes a seat in one of the white chairs, Houston-Jones sits in the single white chair and instructs the audience to hold hands, close our eyes (he scolds those who aren’t really participating and asks them to join in), and as our leader, encourages us to trust and believe  in the journey that they, the cast, are going to take us on.  Soon the cast begins to sing, their voices rising and rising to finally enveloping the entire space.  Is this a trance?  Is this a meditation?  So much followed in Gutierrez’s ever-changing journey.  There was a dream-like solo by Boule, a visibly tactile connection each and every time Gutierrez took the space, and stand out performance from Holmes.  Memorable moments are the line on the floor drawn when each performer touched feet to head, holding on above their heads with their hands. Every so often they would roll, as a unit.  There was also the reading of script when they moved with speed, specificity and abandonment at the same time.  What a rush! The event was framed by a film projected on two walls as the actor Paul Duncan delivered a monologue. Mention must be given to David Tabbert for his intriguing costumes.  Gutierrez is clearly on a journey; a quest…curious to see what’s next.   

See this link to Gutierrez describing the work: http://www.bam.org/and-lose-the-name-of-action