Posts: 2

1. Chasing Metaphors

   04.Dec.07, 22:03 EST
   
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   Within the universe of intimacy between men exists the complex, self-destructive subculture of the “bug chasers.” In an act that implies rebellion, risk, annihilation, and seduction, men who are HIV positive and negative attend “conversion parties” and have unprotected sex.
   
   BugChasers, created and directed by Octavio Campos’ dance theater ensemble Camposition, seeks to initiate theatergoers to this Dante-esque underworld. This goal is accomplished — and not subtly — through raunchy cabaret, satirical disco, video collage, and confrontational guerilla-style theater.
   
   Paradoxically, one of the piece’s most powerful moments is a quiet one: Campos and performers stand motionless on a darkened stage. Stripped down to flesh-colored cotton underclothes, they stare silently at the audience. After a few moments, performer Matthew Glass’ smooth, polished voice infuses the theater: ''As a man, Octavio cannot get pregnant, but he can get a virus and that virus will carry his DNA into the future long after he is gone.''
   
   Glass, who wrote the text, adds that while Octavio can’t carry a child, the spirits of thousands of men live on in him. These enigmatic and thought-provoking sound bytes give focus to the intentionally frenetic ass-baring and dildo-jousting mayhem on stage.
   Another powerful moment is an image conjured by an extra-large Hefty trash bag. As a metaphor for the condom, the white bag is a sheath between Glass and Campos’ sweaty bodies as they kiss, wrestle, and writhe. This barrier protects, but it can also envelope, even destroy. Later, the bag is a large billowing presence that engulfs the two men, brilliantly illustrating the seductive nature of risk and the risky nature of seduction.
   
   But BugChasers runs far afield from its title and central theme. In another scene, the “conversion party” becomes a “chicken pox party” — moms who oppose mandatory school vaccinations, organize gatherings where one contagious child infects others. At the end of this scene, the Hefty envelopes dancers dressed as little chicks and babbling in baby-talk. The plastic bag morphs inexplicably into what can only be interpreted as a placenta, which Hoover-wielding Natasha Tsakos violently scours while ranting in French.
   
   The effect is a mixed metaphor that threatens to overshadow the performance’s original, and urgent, question: why are these men killing themselves?
   
   Another question implicit in this and almost any performance is how can “we” (the audience) connect with the “they” on stage — in this case, the bug chasers? It’s pretty obvious that the chicken pox moms and other loosely connected themes about eating disorders and plastic surgery are planted throughout BugChasers, so the audience will realize as the program notes indicate, “Everyone is a BugChaser. Everyone has a secret desire.”
   
   If an entire dance theater piece were devoted to bug chasers, would audiences not connect these dots? It’s a valid question. And a frightening one.
   
   Camposition’s strength is the collective force of its members, a passionate, talented group, who have been part of this work-in-progress for the last two years. This force may also be BugChasers’ Achilles heel. The fierce and eclectic theatrical presence of Tsakos and Diana Lozano is always thrilling, but scenes I’d previously witnessed as excerpts feel out-of-place in the larger, evening-length work called BugChasers. Lozano, for example, grabbing her thigh flesh, writing notes from her body, and putting them in her mouth, doesn’t feel plausible as the ending to this performance.
   
   In contrast, Heather Maloney re-invents herself in BugChasers. She is lyrical and catlike as she leaps and affixes herself to the back of a huge mirror.
   
   Initially, posing as an average Joe who Tsakos pulls from the audience, newcomer Joshua Nardi moves with honesty and an almost palpable awareness of the space and people around him. His presence intersperses the piece with compelling, innocent pauses.
   
   BugChasers is a must-see event that will most definitely provoke wildly divergent responses from audiences. It is confrontational, audacious, and most importantly, courageous. At the end of the evening, Campos, Glass, Headrick, Lozano, Maloney, Nardi, and Tsakos are raw and exhausted.
   
   There’s no doubt these performers have been stripped down to their most human essence — and this exciting to witness at the Carnival Center, one of our city’s top-notch, high-profile venues. This alone is inherently valuable, but for this work to reach beyond its shock value, BugChasers will have to be as courageously edited and directed as it is performed.
   

2. Confessions of a Cultural Freeloader

   03.Apr.07, 21:41 EDT
   
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   Now is the time to feign surprise that the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts is operating in the red. Who could have anticipated that a project whose construction came in roughly $120 million over budget and was completed some 20 months late -- after a two-decade struggle to even break ground -- would bust the operating budget as well?
   
   As the Miami Herald reported last week, a projected budget deficit of $150,000 for the year has ballooned to $3 million while anticipated ticket sales have fallen 44 percent short. Now that all the obvious pessimistic predictions have come to pass -- there's no where to park! there's panhandling and crime in the neighborhood! tickets are too expensive for most county residents to afford! -- the Center's administrators plan to return to the County Commission to ask for an emergency $4 million to keep the doors open through the rest of the season.
   
   And you know what? I think that's just fine.
   
   In fact, I think they should ask for more.
   
   Herald readers wrote letters expressing outrage at the "boondoggle" and calling for the county "to privatize the center and let the rich pay full price for their playground."
   Most familiar among the dissenters was developer, art collector, and philanthropist Martin Margulies, who wrote, "Taxpayers should be complaining about this money-losing facility where most residents cannot afford the price of tickets to see performances, let alone parking and a meal." Then he ended with a jab at the proposed new Miami Art Museum, which like the Carnival Center, is supposed to be built with a mix of public and private funds.
   
   Some years ago, I interviewed Margulies about MAM's dream of a new building. While listening to him make the case for the privatization of culture, this thought occurred to me for the first time: I want my tax dollars to pay for culture. I don't have millions to pay for a private collection or to donate a building for a museum, but I still would like to have a say in the way culture is promoted in our community. I shouldn't have to be a millionaire developer or billionaire cruise line owner or pharmaceutical mogul in order to play a role in our shared cultural life.
   
   My life is cash poor, but culturally rich. As a self-employed writer, most years I make roughly the median income for a resident of Miami-Dade County, which last year was around $36,000. Every few years I get lucky and make a lot more. This year I'm making considerably less. Like many other Miami-Dade County residents, I can't afford to buy tickets to see many Carnival shows. After paying my mortgage, property tax, insurance, and utilities, there's usually about $200 left each week for food, gas, and other necessities. The average ticket price of just over $40 for a show plus another $15 for parking would eat up nearly a third of my weekly disposable income.
   
   That's pretty typical of cultural workers in town, at least the ones I know. Among local writers, dancers, actors, directors, visual artists, and musicians, sure, there are some well-paid stars, but most of us rank precariously among the middle class and are more likely among the working poor. Our standard of living usually depends on how many part-time jobs we can hold down while practicing our craft.
   
   Often those jobs involve working with other people who don't make much money either. While both public and private funding for the arts has been cut drastically over the past two decades, much of the scant money that remains is dedicated to projects that promote art as a form of social service: oral histories for the homeless, dance for survivors of domestic violence, clowning for the terminally ill, music for the mentally ill, and all manner of educational programs for kids, especially "at risk" kids.
   
   I don't mean to belittle of the value of these programs. On the contrary, it's because I have worked in these programs and seen what a powerful force music, dance, theater, literature, and visual art can be that I know that art is not a luxury. It is not and never should be reserved for the rich.
   
   Luckily for me, I get most of my tickets for free. Or at least as part and parcel of the work I do as an arts critic. That has allowed me to show up at the Carnival Center more often than most of my neighbors and even to take a chance on shows that I'm pretty sure I won't like.
   
   What I have seen at the Carnival Center this season has been sometimes inspiring, sometimes a yawn. Some shows are too commercial to stir my interest, others so experimental or foreign or just plain long that I find myself plotting an early escape. Often at the beginning or end of a show, I marvel at the beauty of the center's commissioned art works: the gorgeous curtain in the opera house designed by Robert Zakanitch, the lovely singing waters of Ana Valentina Murch's carved marble fountains. On my way to and from the Center at night, I love watching Cesar Pelli's lopsided mountains looking out across the city in every direction.
   
   The most important contribution the Carnival Center makes to our community goes beyond the merit of or attendance at any single show. The Center's singular contribution is the attempt to forge a center for our deeply fragmented community. South Florida already has a vibrant cultural life: Art Basel and the Winter Music Conference on South Beach, Calle Ocho in Little Havana, the Lyric Theatre in Overtown, the Konpa Festival at Bayfront Park, and the Trini Carnival wherever it happens to be (last year, it happened to be at the opening of the Carnival Center).
   
   But those much loved activities always, whether deliberately or not, throw up boundaries. Carnival Center CEO Michael Hardy and artistic director Justin Macdonnell say over and over again to anyone who will interview them that they are committed to making the center "inclusive." Their ambitious programming bears this out. There are artists who appeal to particular communities, as well as truly exotic acts who demand that we look beyond our selves. All forms of art are welcome here.
   
   When I hear about the emergency budget cuts and read complaints from county commissioners and citizens alike about the Carnival Center's high costs, I worry that it is the most adventurous programming that will be trimmed away. I am especially concerned that the support of local artists will be dramatically reduced -- indeed, I am hearing from artists that it already has. This is tantamount to neglecting our infrastructure, to shortchanging our future.
   
   The Carnival Center needs more money, not less. There is not much that the $3 million overrun would cover that I wouldn't want to pay for. Balance the air conditioning, for god's sake, if that's what's running up the electric bills. But if otherwise underfunded Miami police officers are being paid for extra duty to patrol the area, that's great. If lower paid security guards must be hired too, even better.
   
   If the cost of commissioning local artists exceeds that of hiring a touring national company, so be it. They'll pay us all back at tax time. And if the ticket prices are so high that most people can't afford to come, then raise them even higher. That's right, higher. Because the person who can afford $65 can afford $100, and so on. And then give away all those empty seats to people who truly can't afford them.
   
   Arts critics should not be the only ones reaping these cultural riches for free.