by Maggie Ybarra
Daily Lobo
The struggle between personal and artistic identity takes center stage this weekend.
The Out Of the Ordinary Festival will be held through November at VSA North Fourth Art Center, 4904 Fourth St. N.W. The festival is designed to show off new forms of dance, art and acting.
Susana Kearny, marketing director for the center, said this year's festival is about focus.
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"We've expanded it," she said. "And the focus is really where social issues and the arts meet. So we have artists from Albuquerque, New York City, Oakland and the Democratic Republic of Congo."
The festivities will begin with New York playwright Ain Gordon directing his play "Epic Family Epic" at 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday. The play features a cast of deaf, hearing-impaired and hearing actors. The actors will use English and American Sign Language to highlight the miscommunication of the family holiday dinner.
Gordon said he came up with the idea behind "Epic Family Epic" 20 years ago.
"At the time, I was doing pieces at a place called Dance Theater Workshop in New York City," he said. "And they had a program where one night out of the week, they would have an interpretation by a group called Hands On."
Gordon said he liked the participation of the Hands On group so much that he moved them into the center of the action as best as he could during their first three-hour rehearsal.
"I loved it," Gordon said. "I loved the visual power of the language, and I feel like I'm doubling my point by having the actors say the same thing in two
different ways."
Festival attractions include the gallery show "Memories Resurrected", a multi-media installation exploring found memories and lost history. There will also be a performance by AXIS Dance Company and Festival of Lies, a dance-theater performance of Faustin Linyekula's take on life in the Congo.
Kearny said Festival of Lies was an unusual dance-theater piece.
"It's about living in a country in turmoil for decades - which is the Congo - and how a person learns to express themselves and maintain themselves in chaos and desperation," she said.
Linyekula will speak at the center's Saturday "in context" program throughout November. The Saturday program begins with a free film and brunch at 10 a.m. followed by a discussion and free lunch at noon.
"Every Saturday, he's going to be talking about a work and showing excerpts from films he's been featured in," Kearny said.
The idea is to create a party setting in the theater where he tells his stories.
"It's the kind of thing you don't see unless you're in New York or on the coast in major cities," Kearny said.
